precise distance at which the bodily presence of a member of the lower castes is held to defile the sacred person of the Brahman.  A Bazar may approach, but must not touch him; a Chogan may not approach him within 24 feet, nor a Kanisan within 36, nor a Pulayan within 64, nor a Nayadi within 72 feet.  Equally definite and elaborate are the manifold restrictions on marriage, commensality, occupation, food, ceremonial observances and personal conduct which affect the mutual relations not only between the different castes but also between the innumerable sub-castes into which the higher castes especially have in turns split up.  The laws which govern marriage, descent, and inheritance amongst the more important castes throw a peculiarly interesting light on the archaic type of society which has survived in Southern India.  Under the matriarchal system of Manumakkathayam, which on the Malabar coast obtains to the present day, descent is traced only through the female line.  The male member of the family inherits, but he does so only as the son of a female member of the family through whom he may justly claim kinship, or, to put it in another form, a man’s natural heir is not his son, or his brother’s son, or the descendant of a common male ancestor, but his sister’s, or his sister’s daughter’s son, or the descendant of a common female ancestress.  In the event of failure of heirs through the female line, adoption is permissible, but the adoption must be of females, through whose subsequent offspring the line of natural descent may be carried on.  With this ancient system are bound up forms of matrimonial union and tenure of property into the complicated and peculiar nature of which I need not enter here.

In the wild hill countries weird remnants of the most primitive races still survive that have not yet been brought within the pale of Hinduism, and here and there a sprinkling of Mahomedans remains as a reminder of the shortlived incursions of Moslem conquerors from the north.  But ninety per cent. of the population consists of Hindus, and the social and religious supremacy of Hinduism has never been seriously assailed.  Nowhere has Hindu architecture taken such majestic shape, the massive pylons of Madura and Tanjore recalling the imperishable grandeur of the noblest Egyptian temples on the Nile.  Southern India is in fact a land of stately shrines which dominate the whole country just as our own great cathedrals dominated England in the Middle Ages.  Yet in Southern India, Hinduism has not assumed the aggressive character which it has developed in other regions.  Perhaps it feels too secure of the unchallenged supremacy which it has enjoyed through the ages as a social and religious force without ever aspiring to direct political ascendancy.  Perhaps the admixture of Dravidian blood has imparted to it a more serene tolerance.  Perhaps it appreciates more fully the relief from the turmoils strife, and bloodshed which was brought to Southern India by the advent of British rule.  Compare the legend of a pre-British “golden age” propagated by Tilak and his disciples in the Deccan and in Bengal with the remarkable picture of the condition of Southern India at the time when the British power first appeared on the scene which was drawn by a Madras Brahman, the late Mr. Srinivasaraghava Iyangar:—­