country which I have seen or read of; while here, too, there are many wild and woody scenes, which, though they want the glorious glaciers and peaks of the Himalaya, do not fall short in natural beauty of some of the loveliest glens which we went through, ten years ago, in North Wales; and some very remarkable ruins, which though greatly inferior as works of art to the Mussulman remains in Hindostan proper, are yet more curious than them, as being more different from any thing which an European is accustomed to see or read of.
One fact, indeed, during this journey has been impressed on my mind very forcibly, that the character and situation of the natives of these great countries are exceedingly little known, and in many instances, grossly misrepresented, not only by the English public in general, but by a great proportion of those also, who, though they have been in India, have taken their views of its population, manners, and productions from Calcutta, or at most from Bengal. I had always heard, and fully believed till I came to India, that it was a grievous crime, in the opinion of the Brahmins, to eat the flesh or shed the blood of any living creature whatever. I have now myself seen Brahmins of the highest caste cut off the heads of goats as a sacrifice to Doorga; and I know from the testimony of Brahmins, as well as from other sources, that not only hecatombs of animals are often offered in this manner as a most meritorious act (a Raja about twenty-five years back, offered sixty thousand in one fortnight,) but that any person, Brahmins not
