Note 102 — IV. CONCERNING INDIA THE LESS.[71]

This is a remarkable testimony to the character of the Hindus when yet uninjured by foreign domination or much foreign intercourse. M. Polo says the Abraiamain (Brahmans) “are the best and most honest of all merchants, and would not on any account tell a lie” (p. 304). Rabbi Benjamin says also, “This nation is very trustworthy in matters of trade, and whenever foreign merchants enter their port, three secretaries of the king immediately repair on board their vessels, write down their names, and report them to him. The king thereupon grants them security for their property, which they may even leave in the open fields without any guard” (Asher’s Itinerary of R. Benj. of Tud., p. 138 et seq.). There are many other passages, both in ancient and mediæval writers, giving an extravagantly high character for integrity and veracity to the Hindus, a character not very often deserved by them, and never ascribed to them, now-a-days. See some remarks on this subject in Elphinstone’s History, book iii. ch. xi.

It is curious, however, that, with reference to the very district of Travancore, which now includes Quilon, where the bishop’s experience must have chiefly lain, two English Residents have borne testimony lamentably opposed to his account of the character of the people in former times. One of these declares that “he never knew a people so destitute of truth and honesty, or so abandoned to vice and corruption”; the other asserts that “in no part of the world are men to be found to whose habits and affections the practice of vice is so familiar” (Hamilton’s Desc. Hindost., ii. 315).