NOTES TO THE APPENDIX.

J+7

all travellers who have vifited India , and their defcrip-tions of them are well known. The powerful influenceof enthufiafin, the love of diftinction, and the defire ofobtaining fome portion of that reverence and thofe honorswhich the Brahmins are born to enjoy, may account forall the extraordinary things which they do and fuffer. Oneparticular concerning them merits notice. This order ofdevotees appears to have been very ancient in India . Thedefcription of the Gennaui , which Strabo takes fromMegafthenes, applies, almoll in every circumftance, tothe modern Faquirs . Lib. xv. p. 1040. B.

NOTE IT, p. 258.

What I have aliened in the text is in general well-founded. It is the opinion ,. however , of gentlemenwho have feen much of India , and who obferved allthey faw with a difcerning eye, that the conquefts bothof the Alahomedans and of the Europeans have had fomeeffect upon the manners and cuftoms of the natives. Theyimagine that the drefs which the Hindoos now wear,the turban, the junimah, and long drawers, is an imita-tion of that worn by their Mahomedan conquerors. Theancient drefs of the Indians, as defcvibed by Arrian ,Hilt. Indie, c. 16. was a rnuflin cloth thrown loofelyabout their fhonlders , a rnuflin fhirt reaching to themiddle of the leg, and their beards were died variouscolors; which fs not the fame with that ufed at prel’ent.The cuftom of fecluding women, and the ftri&nels withwhich they are confined , is likewife fuppofed to havebeen introduced by the Mahomedans. This fuppoficionis in fome meafure confirmed by the drama of Sacontala,tranilated from the SarJkreet. In that play , feveralfemale characters are introduced, who mingle in fociety,and converfe as freely with men , as women are ac-cullomed to do in Europe . The author-, wc may p’-efume,deferibes the manners , and adheres to the cultoms* of