1890-91.] ill the Central Himalayas. 409 



wal to the west, and to those of Nepal to the east. Many of 

 them are polygamists. In the plams of India polygamy is 

 lawful, but it is so exceedingly rare that I only once knew a 

 man who had two wives. In Kumaon, however, I knew many 

 men who had two wives, and one man who had as many as 

 seven. In the temples, also, they have women called Paturs, 

 or hereditary temple slaves — a thing unheard of in the rest 

 of Northern India. In Britain the fact is not sufticiently 

 recognised that there are different races in India. A native 

 of Kumaon is unlike a native of the plains of the North-West 

 Provinces in many ways. One thing particularly struck me 

 in my experience of the two races as vaccinators. When a 

 hill vaccinator did anything wrong, I soon heard of it, as his 

 brethren were all ready and anxious to tell tales against him. 

 In the plains it was very different : vaccinators generally tried 

 to shield each other, and would tell any number of lies to get 

 a friend or neighbour out of a scrape. When a hill-man told 

 lies, it was to get a neighbour into a scrape, not to get him 

 out of one. Faction fights were, until lately, very common in 

 Kumaon. At fairs and markets the people divided themselves 

 into two parties, called " Mahar " and " Fartial," and fought 

 for hours with sticks and stones. This practice also is South 

 Indian, not North Indian ; and I think it may safely be in- 

 ferred that there is more Turanian than Aryan blood in the 

 veins of the people of Kumaon, for in everything but language 

 they agree with the Tamul races, not with the Hindu. One 

 single fact, which alone is almost sufficient to prove this, is 

 the practice, only recently put down by the English Govern- 

 ment, of men who were rich, or at all events well off, actually 

 selling their own daughters as slaves to be taken to the plains. 

 To a Hindu of the plains this appears worse even than it does 

 to an Englishman. The poorest Hindu would infinitely prefer 

 death to committing such a crime. He might kill his daughter 

 to save her from disgrace, but he never would sell her into 

 slavery. However, if the people of Kumaon have little pride 

 and self-respect, they have plenty of vanity and self-conceit. 

 As sanitary commissioner, I had a clerk a native of Kumaon. 

 This man, on a salary of £60 a-year, thought himself defiled 

 by having to sit in the same room with me. Before going 

 home from the office at night, he always went to a Brahmin 



VOL. II. 2 E 



