Long before I had set foot in India I had been greatly struck by the exceedingly different statements regarding its people which were made by those who knew them best. Some, and notably the missionaries, could find no language strong enough to express the utter abomination of Hindu life and custom. Every chapter of Ward's great work teems with phrases of the strongest reprobation. The ceremonies he describes are indeed vile, and it cannot be said that his condemnation is too strong. On the other hand, civil and military officers, of the highest integrity and the closest observation, have set up the Hindus as models which it would be greatly to the benefit of Europeans to follow. They saw in the Hindu village system, and the ordinary life of the villagers, a living type of patriarchal happiness, uprightness, and wisdom. Major Scott Waring may be taken as a type of such men. The discussions in Parliament upon the clauses of the great India Bill that permitted the appointment of Bishops, and opened India to mission work, are full of illustrations of this contradiction; and I can well remember when, as a boy, I waded through the reports, being struck with wonder that men who had lived side by side in India, who had gained enormous experience and possessed the ability to learn the lessons that experience should teach, could, by any possibility, arrive at conclusions so diverse. After many years spent in close intercourse with the people of India, I do not wonder now. On one occasion both views of the question were brought vividly before me. I had seen the Pongol, the touching domestic festival it is now my chief object to describe.