No one can undertake with a light heart such an enquiry as this connected with a population aggregating nearly forty-eight millions of souls; and, at the outset had I been fully aware of the difficulty of such a survey, I should have hesitated to undertake a work which has been carried out all through side by side with the multifarious duties of a District Officer. I shall be quite satisfied if the following pages supply a useful basis for further investigation; and, as the most satisfactory recognition of my work, I can only ask all interested in the matter to favour me with any corrections and criticisms which may tend to a greater degree of completeness and accuracy. I have avoided, as far as possible, the discussion of topics which are likely only to cause pain to sections of the people whose pretensions to a higher rank or origin are, to say the least, disputed. The illustrations are reproductions of photographs taken at Mirzapur by Sergeant Wallace, R. E., of the Rurki College. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF CASTE. There are few questions within the whole sphere of Indian sociology which present more difficulty than those connected with the origin of caste. If the native of the country has any idea whatever on the subject, it is sufficient for him to refer to a mass of texts which are, it is hardly necessary to say, of little or no scientific value. They merely record the views of various priestly schools from whom there is strong reason to believe that the system, as we now observe it, originated. It is on lines quite different from these that any real enquiry into the subject must proceed. It may be well here to give at starting the religious form which the tradition has assumed.