10.  In the author’s time the Muhammadan criminal law was applied to the whole population by Anglo-Indian judges, assisted by Muhammadan legal assessors, who gave rulings called fatwas on legal points.  The Penal Code enacted in 1859 swept away the whole jungle of Regulations and fatwas, and established a scientific System of criminal jurisprudence, which bas remained substantially unchanged to this day.  Adultery is punishable under the Code by the Court of Session, but prosecutions for this offence are very rare.  Enticing away a married woman is also defined as an offence, and is punishable by a magistrate.  Complaints under this head are extremely numerous, and mostly false.  Secret and unpunished murders of women undoubtedly are common, and often reported as deaths from snake-bite or cholera.  An aggrieved husband frequently tries to save his honour, and at the same time satisfy his vengeance, by tromping up a false charge of burglary against the suspected paramour, who generally replies by an equally false alibi.

11.  A prosecution under the Penal Code for adultery can be instituted only by the husband, or the guardian representing him, and the woman is not punishable.  Although the Muhammadan law of evidence has been got rid of, the Anglo-Indian courts are still unsuitable for the prosecution of adultery cases, especially where Indians are concerned.  The English courts, though they do not require any specified number of witnesses, demand strict proof given in open court, and no Indian, whose honour has really been touched, cares to expose his domestic troubles to be wrangled over by lawyers.  Many officers, including the editor, would be glad to see the section which renders adultery penal struck out of the Code.  The matrimonial delinquencies of Indians are better dealt with by the caste organizations, and those of Europeans by civil action.

12.  The Trigonometrical Survey, originated by Colonel Lambton, was begun at Cape Comorin in 1800.  It is now almost, if not quite, complete, except in Burma.  See Markham, A Memoir of the Indian Surveys (2nd ed., 1878).  The stations are marked by masonry pillars, for the partial repair of which a small sum is annually allotted.

13.  Hindoos believe that holy men, by means of great austerities, can attain power to compel the gods to do their bidding.

14.  For some account of the modern agitation against cow-killing.  See note ante, Chapter 26, note 6.

15.  On the sacredness of the Nerbudda see note ante, Chapter 1, note 13.

16.  The Holi festival marks approximately the time of the vernal equinox, ten days before the full moon of the Hindoo month Phalgun.  The day of the bonfire does not always fall on the 16th of March.  It is not considered lucky to begin harvest till the Holi has been burnt.  Mr. Crooke holds that ’on the whole, there seems to be some reason to believe that the intention to promote the fertility of men, animals, and crops, supplies the basis of the rites’ (’The Holi, a Vernal Festival of the Hindus’, Folklore, vol. xxv (1914), p. 83).  I agree.