Storia do Mogor 262.1

262.1

The Hindus call all the Europeans and Mahomedans in India by the name of Farangis, a designation so low, so disgraceful in their tongue, that there is nothing in ours which could reproduce it. As they hold the Farangis to be vile and abominable, they have persuaded themselves that that people have no polite manners, that they are ignorant, wanting in ordered life, and very dirty. For these things they would sooner die unaided than drink a cup of water from the hand of a Farangi; nor would they eat anything that he has prepared. They believe such an act to be an irremediable disgrace, and a sin for which there is no remission. The reason is, as I imagine, this. When the Europeans began to make use of the mode of speech used in this country, they were entirely ignorant of oriental languages [134]. At the very commencement, when they had discovered India, they were forced to use its language. Either intentionally, or from ignorance, they made use of the phrases adopted by the Mahomedans, who when they wished to persuade a Hindu to turn Mahomedan, asked him to join their caste. By this they meant, besides the necessity of becoming a Mahomedan like the speaker, that the convert would also be required to follow all the Mahomedan's other habits, and abandon all those in which he had been brought up himself, including the purity maintained by those of his caste, to which they attach more importance than to matters more strictly religious.