Allahabad means "the city of God." The name was given to it by the great Moslem emperor, Akbar, who conquered it from the Hindoos, and built a fort, which is now occupied by the English garrison. During the Mutiny the European residents took refuge in the fort, where many of them died of cholera before the army came to raise the siege and relieve them from their imprisonment.
MOSLEM SCHOOL AT ALLAHABAD.
The population of Allahabad is a mixed one of Moslems and Hindoos, the former descended from the conquerors of 300 years ago, and the latter from the more ancient inhabitants. As the boys drove through the Moslem portion of the city, they passed a school where some bright-eyed boys were learning their lessons under the supervision of a teacher of their race and religion. All were squatted on the floor, and the books they were reading were, according to the Doctor, portions of the Koran. The lessons are studied aloud, each pupil for himself, and consequently a Moslem school is the reverse of quiet. The Koran is the principal text-book, and often the only one; after the pupil has mastered it he is instructed in arithmetic, and sometimes he learns a little geography, but not much. There are higher schools and colleges where scientific instruction is given, but they are not easily entered except by the boys of well-to-do parents.
While our friends were resting in the hotel after their round of sight-seeing, the conversation turned upon caste—that peculiar social and religious institution to which reference has already been made. In response to the inquiries of the boys, Doctor Bronson said the system of caste was not fully understood even by those who had lived for years in India, but it might be described in a general way as a distinction based on birth, and incapable of change.
"There are," said the Doctor, "four great castes, and these have numerous subdivisions, which include eighteen principal and more than a hundred subordinate classes. By the rule of caste no man can ascend to a higher or go down to a lower; he may commit murder and other crimes without losing caste, but if he violates any of the rules of ceremony, however slight, he becomes an outcast, and can only be restored on payment of a fine proportioned to his means. For some offences there is no restoration; the outcast, whether temporary or perpetual, is not recognized by his friends or even by his family, and any one who ventured to speak to him or give him the least assistance would be liable to the same fate.
"The four classes are, first, the Bramins, who are supposed to have come from the head of the Creator, and to be endowed with attributes of divinity which all below must recognize. Kings and emperors are not exempt from paying reverence to the Bramins, and the poorest of the latter considers himself superior to the Sovereign of England or the Emperor of China. The Bramin is of so exalted a character that he will eat no food that a man of lower caste has touched, and even to allow the shadow of the latter to fall on him would be pollution. In Southern India it was formerly considered quite justifiable for a Bramin to strike dead a low-caste man who had touched him, whether accidentally or otherwise, and in the native states of India at the present time the people of low caste are under heavy disabilities.
"The second caste have a sort of sacred character, but far below that of the Bramins; they are the military and executive class, and carry out the laws which the Bramins make. The third caste comprises the mercantile and agricultural classes; and the fourth, or sudra, includes all the servile classes, who must remain forever in a state of dependence, and are not allowed to acquire property, or even to be instructed in anything more than the work they have to do. It is forbidden for a Bramin to read the sacred writings to the sudras, or give them any religious instruction whatever. Below the sudras are the pariahs, or outcasts; no men of any caste will associate with them, and they are regarded as utterly without any redeeming qualities. A pariah who should come into the presence of a Bramin, under the old rules of caste, would be liable to be put to death.