Of the Indian poetry I have already spoken in my Samscred grammar; and I shall give some farther account of it hereafter. Their navigation is confined merely to their navigable rivers; for, in general, the Pagan Indians have the greatest aversion to the sea. The management of the lance, fencing, playing at ball and tennis, have been introduced into their education on good grounds, to render their youth active and robust, and that they may not want dexterity to distinguish themselves in battles and engagements where cannon are not used. There are particular masters for all these exercises, arts and sciences; and each of them, as already mentioned, is treated with particular respect by the pupils. Twice a year each master receives a piece of silk, which he employs for clothing; and this present is called _Samànam_. All the Indian girls, those alone excepted who belong to the casts of the _Shudras_ and _Nayris_, are confined at home till their twelfth year; and when they go out, they are always accompanied by their mother or aunt. They inhabit a particular division of the house, called _Andarggraha_, which none of the male sex dare approach. The boys, in the ninth year of their age, are initiated with great ceremony into the calling or occupation of the cast to which their father belongs, and which they can never abandon. This law, mention of which occurs in Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Arrian, and other Greek writers, is indeed exceedingly hard; but, at the same time, it is of great benefit to civil order, the arts and sciences, and even to religion. According to a like regulation, no one is allowed to marry from one cast into another. Hence it happens that the Indians do not follow that general and superficial method of education by which children are treated as if they were all intended for the same condition, and for discharging the same duties; but those of each cast are from their infancy formed for what they are to be during their whole lives. A future Brahman, for example, is obliged, from his earliest years, to employ himself in reading and writing, and to be present at the presentation of offerings; to calculate eclipses of the sun and moon; to study the laws and religious practices; to cast nativities; in short, to learn every thing, which, according to the injunction of the _Vèda_, or sacred books of the Indians, it is necessary he should know. The _Vayshya_, on the other hand, instruct youth in agriculture; the _Kshetria_, in the science of government and the military arts; the _Shudra_, in mechanics; the _Mucaver_, in fishing; the _Ciàna_, in gardening; and the _Bànyen_, in commerce.