a swarming population of almost two
hundred millions appears—illimitable. The
recruiting agent has but to pick and choose
among innumerable applicants. On his
decision rest interests of vast importance to
the security and well-being of the empire.
The most natural candidates for preferment
in any capacity, are, of course, the classes
that happen to be dominant. The comely,
well-grown Brahmin, and the fiery-tempered
Mahometan presented themselves as applicants
for military service, nor can we blame
the government which accepted them.

When the Bengal army was first organised,
nothing was known respecting the strange
aboriginal races that crouched in the jungles
or ranged the hills. Their numbers, their
dispositions, were matters about which
Leadenhall Street knew nothing. No
European could speak their uncouth
languages or had ever cared to explore
the haunts of Gonds, and Bheels, and
Jats; nations as unlike the Hindoos as the
Highlanders of a hundred years back were
unlike the inhabitants of Kent and Surrey.
The only races with whom the British
conquerors of India had any intercourse were
the Hindoos and Mussulmans. The only
language in which they attained to any
proficiency was that curious conventional tongue,
the Hindustani. Even Hindustani has not
been half as much studied as policy and good
sense would have prescribed. Twenty years
ago, it was a wonder to find one officer in a
Company's regiment who could write and
converse fluently in good Oordoo.

The barbarous jargon called Moors, a
tongue made up of English, and various
Asiatic languages, and wonderfully fertile in
abusive epithet, was in general use. Even of
Moors, many young officers knew but just
enough to curse a bearer, or order lunch.
Since that time a great change has taken
place. Oriental literature has been made a
study; all sorts of quaint dialects have been
mastered; and there are many military
officers at present, not only able to hold their
own with the glibbest Moonshee, but competent,
if need be, to "drink with every tinker
in his own language" throughout India.
But these accomplished linguists are,
unluckily for the service, snapped up for all
sorts of staff employments, and extra duties;
whole regiments being left to be governed by
half-a-dozen superiors, not two of whom,
perhaps, can speak Hindustani without
blundering and stammering. The result has been
a lesson written in fire and blood.

Now that the Bengal army only exists as
a horde of blood-thirsty enemies, it might
surely be reconstructed on more rational
principles. The high caste Hindoo and the
Mahomedan have been trusted too long, and
it seems the most wilful folly to trust them
again. Yet every proposal to raise a native
army among the low caste, or no caste
people of the hills and forests seems to be
resisted on the ground that a race long
enslaved, must have had all merit crushed
out of it. Certainly, to have recruited
among the Helots for an army to keep in
their old masters of Sparta, would have been
hopeless enough. The redeeming feature is,
that the Helots of India are no household
slaves, no servile race, mixed up with their
rulers, and dwelling under their yoke.

The real truth is, that the high caste
natives have always given the cold shoulder to
their unclean neighbours. The Hindoo has
kept the rich paddy-fields and corn-plains,
the stately cities and the villages nestling
among groves and gardens, while the Bheel
and the Coolie were driven to the tangled
mountain and the swampy jungle. There, in
untrodden forests, reside a hundred hardy
tribes whose existence we have as yet almost
ignored, but to whom England may, if she
pleases, appear in the character of a deliverer.
Among the Neilgherry Mountains, in a climate
where the thermometer seldom reaches
seventy degrees, even in summer, dwell a tribe of
highlanders—the Todahs—who are almost as
robust and courageous as Europeans. These
people, who are rich in cattle, and to whom
Government pays an annual subsidy for the
occupation of Ootacamund, look with
contempt on the Hindoos of the hot country,
and would make first-rate grenadiers.

The Coolies of Northern India are not
only a strong and enduring race, but have
intellectual qualities that seldom fail to
develop themselves when a chance is afforded
them In the West Indies, Cooly immigrants
not only make industrious labourers, but
when employed, as servants, by officers of
regiments quartered there, have proved
intelligent and trustworthy. Yet the
Coolie in India is looked on merely as a
two-legged beast of burden, fit to carry
loads for unheard-of distances, or to run for
days with the poles of a heavy dooly on his
shoulders; but unfit for any higher duty than
that of a pack-horse.

Coolies, Bheels, Gonds, and the like, are
very inferior in personal showiness and
elegance of deportment, to the proud Rajpoots
and glossy-skinned Brahmins, redolent
of ghee and sanctity. Very likely, if
regiments of these were raised, their officers
would at first be apt to draw very unfavourable
comparisons between their uncouth habits
and swarthy ugliness, and the sleek suppleness
of the Bengal Sepoy. But any aspersion
on the courage of an oppressed race is
based on false principles, and the contempt of
the Brahmins for the low caste tribes has
been unjust from the beginning. Men of the
most despised septs have fought valiantly
under our standards, and won the applause
of the most famous Indian commanders.
Hillmen, accustomed from youth to the chase,
to pursue large game, to struggle with wild
beasts, and to cut through jungles which
would make a twice-born Hindoo shudder, is