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Colonel Marshall I find far less dogmatic than his admirers. Such cautious phrases as “I believe,” “I could not ascertain,” “I believe it to be true,” and the like, show his desire to find out the truth, but scarcely prove conclusively that he has found it. At best it only comes to this, that Colonel Marshall believes one thing to be true, and I look upon it differently. He credits his friend the missionary, and I believe my friend the Brahman, who told me what I have written. Besides, I explicitly state in my book (see Ists,vol. ii., pp. 614-15):—“As soon as their (the Todas) solitude was profaned by the avalanche of civilization . . . the Todas began moving away to other parts as unknown and more inaccessible than the Neilgherri hills had formerly been.” The Todas, therefore, of whom my Brahman friend spoke, and whom Captain W. L. D. O’Grady, late manager of the Madras Branch Bank at Ootacamund, tells me he has seen specimens of, are not the degenerate remnants of the tribe whose phrenological bumps were measured by Colonel Marshall. And yet, even what the latter writes of these, I, from personal knowledge, affirm to be in many particulars inaccurate. I may be regarded by my critics as over credulous; but this is surely no reason why I should be treated as a liar, whether by late or living Madras authorities of the “C. S.” Neither Captain O’Grady, who was born at Madras, and was for a time stationed on the Neilgherri hills, nor I, recognised the individuals photographed in Colonel Marshall’s book as Todas. Those we saw wore their dark brown hair very long, and were much fairer than the Badagas, or any other Hindus, in neither of which particulars do they resemble Colonel Marshall’s types. “H. M.” says, “The Todas are brown, coffee coloured, like most other natives;” but turning to Appleton’s ''Cyclopedia'' (vol. xii. p. 173), we read: “These people are of a ''light complexion, ''have strongly marked Jewish features, and have been supposed by many to be one of the lost tribes.” “H. M.” assures us that the places inhabited by the Todas are not infested by venomous serpents or tigers; but the same ''Cyclopedia ''remarks that the mountains “are swarming with wild animals of all descriptions, among which elephants and tigers are numerous.” | Colonel Marshall I find far less dogmatic than his admirers. Such cautious phrases as “I believe,” “I could not ascertain,” “I believe it to be true,” and the like, show his desire to find out the truth, but scarcely prove conclusively that he has found it. At best it only comes to this, that Colonel Marshall believes one thing to be true, and I look upon it differently. He credits his friend the missionary, and I believe my friend the Brahman, who told me what I have written. Besides, I explicitly state in my book (see Ists,vol. ii., pp. 614-15):—“As soon as their (the Todas) solitude was profaned by the avalanche of civilization . . . the Todas began moving away to other parts as unknown and more inaccessible than the Neilgherri hills had formerly been.” The Todas, therefore, of whom my Brahman friend spoke, and whom Captain W. L. D. O’Grady, late manager of the Madras Branch Bank at Ootacamund, tells me he has seen specimens of, are not the degenerate remnants of the tribe whose phrenological bumps were measured by Colonel Marshall. And yet, even what the latter writes of these, I, from personal knowledge, affirm to be in many particulars inaccurate. I may be regarded by my critics as over credulous; but this is surely no reason why I should be treated as a liar, whether by late or living Madras authorities of the “C. S.” Neither Captain O’Grady, who was born at Madras, and was for a time stationed on the Neilgherri hills, nor I, recognised the individuals photographed in Colonel Marshall’s book as Todas. Those we saw wore their dark brown hair very long, and were much fairer than the Badagas, or any other Hindus, in neither of which particulars do they resemble Colonel Marshall’s types. “H. M.” says, “The Todas are brown, coffee coloured, like most other natives;” but turning to Appleton’s ''Cyclopedia'' (vol. xii. p. 173), we read: “These people are of a ''light complexion, ''have strongly marked Jewish features, and have been supposed by many to be one of the lost tribes.” “H. M.” assures us that the places inhabited by the Todas are not infested by venomous serpents or tigers; but the same ''Cyclopedia ''remarks that the mountains “are swarming with wild animals of all descriptions, among which elephants and tigers are numerous.” | ||
But the “Late” (defunct?—is your correspondent a disembodied angel?)—“Madras C. S.” attains to the sublimity of the ridiculous when, with biting irony, in winding up, he says:—“All good spirits, of whatever degree, astral or elementary,... prevent his (Capt. R. F. Burton’s) ever meeting with Isis;—rough might be the unveiling | But the “Late” (defunct?—is your correspondent a disembodied angel?)—“Madras C. S.” attains to the sublimity of the ridiculous when, with biting irony, in winding up, he says:—“All good spirits, of whatever degree, astral or elementary,... prevent his (Capt. R. F. Burton’s) ever meeting with Isis;—rough might be the unveiling!” Surely—unless that military Nemesis should tax the hospitality of some American newspaper, conducted by politicians—he could never be rougher than this Madras Grandison! And then, the idea of suggesting that, after having contradicted and made sport of the greatest authorities of Europe and America, to begin with Max Muller and end with the Positivists, in both my volumes, I should be appalled by Captain Burton, or the whole lot of captains in her Majesty’s service—though each carried an Armstrong gun on his shoulder and a mitrailleuse in his pocket—is positively superb! Let them reserve their threats and terrors for my Christian countrymen. | ||
Any moderately equipped Sciolist (and the more empty-headed, the easier) might tear ''Isis ''to shreds, in the estimation of the vulgar, with his sophisms and presumably authoritative analysis, but would that prove him to be right, and me wrong? Let all the records of medial phenomena, rejected, falsified, slandered, and ridiculed, and of mediums terrorised, for thirty years past, answer for me. I, at least, am not of the kind to be bullied into silence by such tactics, as “Late Madras” may, in time, discover; nor will he ever find me skulking behind a ''nom de plume ''when I have insults to offer. I always have had, as I now have, and trust ever to retain, the courage of my opinions, however unpopular or erroneous they may be considered; and there are not Showers enough in Great Britain to quench the ardour with which I stand by my convictions. | Any moderately equipped Sciolist (and the more empty-headed, the easier) might tear ''Isis ''to shreds, in the estimation of the vulgar, with his sophisms and presumably authoritative analysis, but would that prove him to be right, and me wrong? Let all the records of medial phenomena, rejected, falsified, slandered, and ridiculed, and of mediums terrorised, for thirty years past, answer for me. I, at least, am not of the kind to be bullied into silence by such tactics, as “Late Madras” may, in time, discover; nor will he ever find me skulking behind a ''nom de plume ''when I have insults to offer. I always have had, as I now have, and trust ever to retain, the courage of my opinions, however unpopular or erroneous they may be considered; and there are not Showers enough in Great Britain to quench the ardour with which I stand by my convictions. | ||