36 Migratory Tribes of 



dom. It may be from tho recollection of such scenes, that, 

 notwithstanding their seeming poverty, all classes assert these 

 wretched-looking beings to be the possessors of vast wealth, 

 and, when in the fields in their lonely camps, sheltered by a 

 few tattered rags stretched overhead, they are at intervals 

 plundered by the ruthless robbers we term deceits. 



For the first five years after the beard first appears, it and 

 the hair is cut once a year, but ever after they wear both un- 

 Bhorn, and their long shaggy locks add to their uncouth ap- 

 pearance. The bodies of the dead are buried. Few attain 

 sixty years of age, and ten is the greatest number of children 

 they have known one woman to bear ; nor have they ever heard 

 of any one being killed by a tiger, though one of them has as- 

 sisted at the capture of eight of these creatures. They call 

 themselves a branch of the Dhoongur, the Shepherd or Vesya 

 race. 



THE TAREMOOK, OR WANDERING BLACKSMITH. 



The "Wandering Blacksmith is known in the Dekhani lan- 

 guage, as Ghissaris ; as Lobars by the Mahrattas ; and from tho 

 Canarese they receive the name of Bail-Kumbar, but they term 

 themselves Taremook. 



Their traditions afiirm the northern provinces of Hindustan 

 to have been their original country ; but the cause or the pe- 

 riod of their emigrating thence has not been preserved. As a 

 race, they are dark, though not blaclc, and somewhat taller 

 than Hindoos in general. They are to be seen dwelling on 

 the outskirts of almost every village througliout India, though 

 their numbers are not great ; the largest number of families 

 tho old Taremook who gives me this information has ever seen 

 in one place, amounting to ten, a community of perhaps sixty 

 people. It is rare to find them occupying houses in towns ; 

 but, for the greater facility of migrating, they encamp outside 

 the walls, where they reside, exposed to the changes of tho 

 weather, from which they are barely sheltered ; a ragged and 

 patched cloth, two or three yards long, being all a family have 

 for their protection. They are blacksmiths by trade, and are 



