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Hamilton’s account of the east indies.

helps could not be had. Indeed, as to their laws, their kings or princes being all ar-bitrary, the law is lodged in their breads, who make and repeal when they pleafe; but,for the eafe of the populace, they have national cuftoms and courts to manage difbribu-tive juftice, and that runs in a pretty even channel, when it is not interrupted by thePrince’s order, or ftopt by bribes, to thofe governors or judges who have the diftribu-tion of them; and this is not more in ufe among the black Indians than among the white.

Their religions are a complex of mylteries, church-policy, and fuperftition, and theyare all fafely locked up in their temples, as being too holy to be expofed to the vulgar,and they feldom appear abroad, but in a language generally unknown to the populace;and the priefts are both authors and interpreters of the facred dreams, and, in moilparts, the priefts have the keeping of the keys of their hiftoi-ies too; and when theycome abroad, it may eafily be obferved, that a Levite had been trimming or tamperingwith them, for they are generally grofsly debaubed with hyperboles and fables, and alittle God often brought in to father their inventions, affirmations, or notions.

So that what knowledge I have acquired or gathered, is from the much converfe Ihad with the natives of the respective countries I travelled in, or from thofe that werefamiliarly acquainted with the religions, laws, and cuftoms of their neighbours.

One great misfortune that attends us European travellers in India , is, the want ofknowledge of their languages, and they being fo numerous, that one intire centurywould be too ffiort a time to learn all: I could not find one in ten thoufand that couldfpeak intelligible Engliffi, tho’, along the fea-coafts, the Portugueze have left a veftigeof their language, though much corrupted, yet it is the language that moft Europeanslearn firft, to qualify them for a general converfe with one another, as well as with thedifferent inhabitants of India .

And we Britons, who either go voluntarily, or are fent to Neptune’s fchools in ouryouth, to learn politenefs and eloquence, very rarely meet with Apollo’s bright fansor difciples to inftruCt us in the knowledge of languages, or of the ftate of all nations,but of that one we are bom in, and that but imperfectly too. That may be onereafon, among many, why we appear fo Ample and aukward in drefting up the obser-vations we make of foreign countries, that we travel in ; but I dare fay, nobody will,or can be fo ill-natured as to be offended, when he fees a plowman take out his mif-trefs to dance a minuet a-la-mode, becaufe his performances are not exactly fquared.with a dancing-mafter’s rules and figures, which reflection makes me hope, that thistny virgin effay will be civilly treated by the unprejudiced lovers of travels.

And now, to animadvert a little on the fubject of my travels. The geographical,cofmograp’nical or topographical parts of my obfervations have moft ol their placesbeen fettled by others, though I think fome of them are a little out of their true pofi-tions, and fome I have corrected in the annexed maps, according to my own obferva-tions; and thofe maps will fhew the places and their names in a much eafier and clearerfight than if I had marked them down in margins; and, fince moft of the continentsand iflands fie pretty near the equator, the errors in longitude are not very great, if

all material.

The theogonal and moral parts may, without doubt, deferve fome ferious thoughts° r attention, becaufe every body is, or ought to be concerned in thofe fpeculations,fince they ffiew fome parts of their religions and cuftoms, and, comparing them withtbe ineftimable bleffmgs that we enjoy by revealed religion and rational laws, may af«*° r d us no fmall fatisfaftion, when rightly confidered, and that their wild notions of afixity, overclouded with fuperftition and folly, deferve our pity and charity ; and chat‘ 0llr fluty towards God and our neighbour is, by the Holy Scriptures, fet before us in