The men of the land, and not the land of the men, form the subject matter of my work. My attention has long been directed to the domestic, social, moral, intellectual and religious condition of the Hindoos. The deep researches of European savants have from time to time thrown a flood of light on the learning and antiquities of India. We have every reason to admire the great truthfulness and accuracy of their observations in many respects. As foreigners, however, they were naturally constrained to pay but a subordinate attention to the peculiar domestic and social economy of the Natives. The idea of attempting a sketch of the inner life and habits of the Hindoos in this age, was originally suggested to the writer by the Revd. Drs. Duff and Charles--two Christian philanthropists, whose names are deservedly enshrined in the grateful memory of the Hindoo community of Bengal, the great centre of their educational and religious achievements. It was cordially approved by that high-minded statesman, Sir Charles Theophilus, afterwards Lord Metcalfe, who practically taught the Indian Public what a writer in the "_Nineteenth Century_" so aptly calls the great Trinity of liberty,--freedom of speech, freedom of trade, and freedom of religion. To supply this desideratum, and not merely to gratify the natural curiosity to know the inner life of the Hindoos, but to do something in the line of social amelioration by "bringing the stagnant waters of Eastern life into contact with the quickening stream of European progress," have been the chief aim of the following pages. Should a liberal Public, here as well as in Europe and America, vouchsafe its countenance to this my first literary enterprise, I purpose to continue my humble labor in the same sphere, extending my observation, if advisable, to a picture of the social life of Upper, Western and Southern India. The vastness of the subject is one great difficulty. It will open to all civilized and philanthropic nations a wide and yet unexplored field for the exercise of their thoughts and sympathies.