Hindus,” which appeared in the fifth volume of the “Asiatic Researches” in the same year as his translation of the “Digest,” show very clearly that he had found excellent instructors, and had been initiated in the most sacred literature of the Brahmans. An important paper on the Hindu schools of law seems to date from the same period, and shows a familiarity, not only with the legal authorities of India, but with the whole structure of the traditional and sacred literature of the Brahmans, which but few Sanskrit scholars could lay claim to even at the present day. In the fifth volume of the “Asiatic Researches” appeared also his essay “On Indian Weights and Measures,” and his “Enumeration of Indian Classes.” A short, but thoughtful memorandum on the origin of caste, written during that period, and printed for the first time in his “Life,” will be read with interest by all who are acquainted with the different views of living scholars on this important subject. Colebrooke’s idea was that the institution of caste was not artificial or conventional, but that it began with the simple division of freemen and slaves, which we find among all ancient nations. This division, as he supposes, existed among the Hindus before they settled in India. It became positive law after their emigration from the northern mountains into India, and was there adapted to the new state of the Hindus, settled among the aborigines. The class of slaves or +Śûdras+ consisted of those who came into India in that degraded state, and those of the aborigines who submitted and were spared. Menial offices and mechanical labor were deemed unworthy of freemen in other countries besides India, and it cannot therefore appear strange that the class of the +Śûdras+ comprehended in India both servants and mechanics, both Hindus and emancipated aborigines. The class of freemen included originally the priest, the soldier, the merchant, and the husbandman. It was divided into three orders, the +Brâhmaṇas+, +Kshatriyas+, and +Vaiśyas+, the last comprehending merchants and husbandmen indiscriminately, being the yeomen of the country and the citizens of the town. According to Colebrooke’s opinion, the +Kshatriyas+ consisted originally of kings and their descendants. It was the order of princes, rather than of mere soldiers. The +Brâhmaṇas+ comprehended no more than the descendants of a few religious men who, by superior knowledge and the austerity of their lives, had gained an ascendency over the people. Neither of these orders was originally very numerous, and their prominence gave no offense to the far more powerful body of the citizens and yeomen.