The Mahomedans of India form more than a fifth of the whole population. They are not racially any more homogeneous than the Hindus, and except towards the north-western frontier, where they are to be found chiefly amongst the half-tamed tribes of the Indian borderland, and in the Punjab and United Provinces, where there are many descendants of the Moslem conquerors, they consist chiefly of converted Hindus who accepted Islam as a consequence of Mahomedan rule. But whatever racial differences there may be amongst them, they are now bound together by a creed which has an extraordinary welding power. That there are also explosive potentialities in their creed the Wahabi rising in Bengal little more than 30 years ago and the chronic turbulence of the tribes and frequent exploits of _ghazis_ on the north-western frontier are there to show. But amongst the large body of Mahomedans scattered through India, and especially amongst the higher classes, Islam has in a great measure lost its aggressive character. Surrounded on all sides by an overwhelming majority of Hindus, whose religion he regards as detestably idolatrous, the Indian Moslem is inclined to sink his hostility to Christianity and to regard us less as "infidels" than as fellow-believers in the central article of his monotheistic faith, the unity of God. We, too, in his eyes are a "People of the Book," though our Book is not the Koran, but the Bible, of which he does not altogether deny the sacred character. Other things also often draw him towards the Englishman. The Englishman to him represents a ruling race, and to such an one he feels that he who also represents a once ruling race can yield a more willing allegiance than to any one of a race which he himself ruled over. Equally his fighting and his sporting instincts also appeal to many Englishmen. Hence both Englishmen and Mahomedans in India frequently feel that they have more in common than either of them has with the Hindu. The Mahomedans, moreover, consisting very largely of the most virile races in India, have always furnished some of the best contingents of the British Indian Army. Their loyalty has never wavered except during the Mutiny, and modern Indian writers of the Nationalist school are themselves at pains to show that, though the mutineers rallied round the feeble descendant of the Moghul Emperors as the only available figurehead, and many Mahomedans proved themselves good "patriots," it was Hindus like Nana Sahib and Tantia Tope and the Ranee of Jhansi who were the real heroes and moving spirits of that "War of Indian Independence."