The great encumbrance of Indian life is the system of caste, doubly fostered by religion and pride of race. Originally the conquering Aryans became divided into _Brahmins_ or priests, _Rajpoots_ or warriors, and _Vaisyas_ or husbandmen, still distinguished as the "twice-born" castes, who wear the sacred thread, badge of this spiritual aristocracy; while under the common name of _Sudras_ or serfs, were included all the despised aboriginal tribes. Then the mixed population, formed by amalgamation between the latter and the lower ranks of their masters, went on splitting up into other recognized castes, as the superior classes, who took a pride in keeping their stock pure, grew themselves divided among separate tribes or castes; and thus arose a complex segregation of society into countless bodies, cut off from each other by almost impassable barriers of rank and occupation. There are now thousands of these castes, marked out by descent, by calling, or by locality, the members of which cannot intermarry, may seldom eat together, and must not touch food cooked by an inferior; even the shadow of an outsider falling upon his meal might cause a high-caste Hindoo to throw it away and go fasting. Each trade is a separate caste, each order of servant; and the man who makes his master's bed would shrink from the touch of the sweeper who cleans out his bath-room. Yet caste does not always coincide with social position; a powerful prince may be born of a low caste, and the native officer who gives orders to a high-caste Brahmin in the ranks, must bow before him when his sacred character is to be enlisted for the services of a family festival. The origin of this organized exclusion becomes illustrated by the conduct of our own countrymen in India, among whom any penniless subaltern is apt to display at the best a haughty tolerance for the high-titled descendants of native kings, while he holds aloof from Englishmen of inferior station, and openly despises the half-caste Eurasian, who in turn affects contempt for the heathen Hindoo. We, indeed, have common sense enough, or at least sense of humour, not to let our prejudices degenerate into the ridiculous scrupulosity which forbids a Rajah to dine in the same room with his guests, or a coolie to set profane lips to his neighbour's drinking vessel. Railway travelling, military service, association with Europeans, cannot but do much to break down these burdensome restrictions; and enlightened natives, in public or in private, begin to neglect them, though it is to be feared that they too often copy the worse rather than the better parts of our example. But among the mass of the ignorant people, the least infringement of the rules of caste is looked upon with horror, and to become an outcast _pariah_, through any offence against them, is the ruin in this world which it seems in the next.