I am convinced that the natives of India cannot respect a European who
mixes with them familiarly, or especially who imitates their customs,
manners, and dress. The tight pantaloons, the authoritative voice, the
pococurante manner, and the broken Hindustani impose upon them-have a
weight which learning and honesty, which wit and courage, have not.
This is to them the master's attitude: they bend to it like those
Scythian slaves that faced the sword but fled from the horsewhip. Such
would never be the case amongst a brave people, the Afghan for
instance; and for the same reason it is not so, we read, with "White
Plume," the North American Indian. "The free trapper combines in the
eye of an Indian (American) girl, all that is dashing and heroic in a
warrior of her own race, whose gait and garb and bravery he emulates,
with all that is gallant and glorious in the white man." There is but
one cause for this phenomenon; the "imbelles Indi" are still, with few
exceptions,[FN#17] a cowardly and slavish people, who would raise
themselves by depreciating those superior to them in the scale of
creation. The Afghans and American aborigines, being chivalrous races,
rather exaggerate the valour of their foes, because by so doing they
exalt their own.[FN#18]