774 



KAMOOSSIES. 



opened (twenty months), whereas the number upon 

 the Liverpool amounted to eighteen for the week 

 ended 21st of January, 1837, and twelve for the 

 week preceding. The velocities on each vary but 

 little ; the difference, however, is in favour of the 

 Liverpool. The original rails on this road, and on 

 the Brussels, are in weight nearly the same. The 

 latter line has wooden sleepers throughout, and 

 the road appears to have a certain degree of elas- 

 ticity." 



The velocity on the Belgian lines is, in general, 

 from twenty-six to thirty miles an hour ; which is 

 diminished at the bridges, tunnels, stations, &c. 

 These and the other necessary delays make the 

 average rate twenty miles an hour. 



The locomotive engines in use were manufactured 

 by Mr Stephenson, at Newcastle, and Mr Cockerill, 

 at Seraing : they are of different power, the diame- 

 ter of their cylinders varying from eleven to four- 

 teen inches. They have generally only two driv- 

 ing-wheels, but a few have four : twenty-eight 

 carriages are fixed by law as the largest double 

 train with two engines ; from fourteen to eighteen 

 as the number for a single engine. 



There remains only to show the nature of the 

 expenses of working the lines, divided into the 

 principal branches. The total expenditure under 

 this head, from the opening of the first line to the 

 end of October, 1838, was 134,981, of which 

 there was for 



Mitiiitfimnre and Police of the Line 

 Expenses of Carriage 

 Collection . 



L 36.274 27 percent. 



76,37!) = 57 

 . 22,328 z= 16 



Total . . L 134,981 



The accounts for the first ten months of 1838 

 enter more into detail, of which the followi'ig is an 

 abridgement : 



Maintenance and Police: . L- 



W ajr<n of labour . . . 13,85<i 



Materials . . - t04 



Salaries .... 



Expenses of Carriage: 

 Wages of labour 



Salaries .... 



Labour at poke furnaces 

 .MutrriaU for consumption 

 repair:!, c. 



Expenses of Collodion : 



Wages; transport of baggage . 



Salaries of officers . . 



15,112 



38,176 



- 11,479 

 Total . . .64,767 



Among the materials for consumption, coal, coke, 

 and wood amounted to the large sum of ,17,520. 



RAMOOSSIES; one of the mixed castes of 

 India, who live mainly by plunder. They reside 

 chiefly in the outskirts of towns and villages, in a 

 portion of the Mahratta country, extending 200 

 miles from north to south, and 100 from east to 

 west. They are in number somewhat about 20,000. 

 The bulk of this tribe appears, from time imme- 

 morial, to have led a led a roving life, residing as 

 far as practicable from the more civilized inhabi- 

 tants, and living by occasional robbery of such tra- 

 vellers as fell in their way, and by regular attacks 

 on the houses in towns and villages near which 

 their nocturnal marches carried them. The settled 

 population found it advisable to purchase immunity 

 from the assailants they were too feeble to oppose ; 

 and some of the tribe were willing to receive this 

 sort of " Mack mail " as a price of protection from 

 all robbers, as well of their own body as of any 

 other. This practice originated the system of vil- 



lage watchmen, which in this part of India is en. 

 trusted to Ilamossy families, in whom the otlice 

 has become hereditary. 



But the greater part of the tribe live entirely by 

 robbery ; they have regularly organized bands, who 

 are bound by strict rules, and joined together by 

 oaths which they consider sacred. In robbing es- 

 corts or single travellers, they proceed much as the 

 other predatory tribes in India, but when they at- 

 tack houses, they have certain regulations which 

 may be almost termed religious observances, from 

 which they rarely depart. On approaching a vil- 

 lage they carefully hide their shoes and the sheaths 

 of their swords in the long grass, and then throw 

 themselves into a supplicating posture, make re- 

 peated obeisances, and invoke the tutelary spirit of 

 the place to favour their undertakings, and to 

 crown their exertions with success, that they may 

 obtain a valuable stock to maintain themselves and 

 their wives and children for a long time. One of 

 their party then takes off his turban, which is cut 

 into three, five, or seven pieces, and moistened 

 with ghee to serve as torches ; a light is struck, 

 tbe torches are kindled, and the village entered : 

 the actual robbery is almost always effected by vio- 

 lence, and generally accompanied by the barbarities 

 attending such scenes in India. If any of their 

 party is killed, they are careful to remove the body 

 to prevent discovery; or if they are hard pressed, cut 

 off the head, and take it axvay with them; they 

 are so apprehensive of discovery, that they will 

 even cut off the head of any one who is so severely 

 wounded as to be unable to make his escape, 

 though not mortally. But they rarely come to 

 this extremity: cunning is their usual weapon, and 

 it is mostly successful. They are so very skilful in 

 imitating the ciies of the various wild animals 

 which are so frequent in the neighbourhood of the 

 native villages, that their occurrence excites no at- 

 tention. When separated in flight, or divided for 

 the purpose of a more effective attack, the whist- 

 ling of birds and the howling of jackals form a sort 

 of language of signals, by which their movements 

 are known to each other, though unsuspected by 

 those uninitiated. The cawing of crows is some- 

 times imitated very soon after midnight, to pretext 

 the approach of morning, in order to induce sleep- 

 ing travellers to rise and march before the hour 

 that prudence would dictate; and in a country 

 where clocks are unknown, many a traveller has 

 been led by such means to set out hours before 

 the usual time, lured to a secure spot, and there 

 plundered. 



In these expeditions gain is the chief motive ; 

 and although violence is often practised, murder is 

 rarely perpetrated ; stories are told of their having 

 suffered much from their unwillingness to imbrue 

 their hands in blood. In former times they were 

 less scrupulous, but even at the worst, they sel- 

 dom murdered without the stimulus of revenge. 

 In gratifying this passion, they rivalled the Chil- 

 dren of the Mist ; it was disgraceful to forgive an 

 injury, and a parent on his death-bed accounted it 

 a sacred duty to call together his children, to re- 

 mind them of any insult which remained unatoned 

 for, and to enjoin them not to let slip the first op- 

 portunity of vengeance. Theircharacterat present is 

 less dark, and they may be considered simply as bold 

 reckless adventurers ; their outrages are perpetrated 

 with every precaution that prudence could suggest, 

 but. an inconceivable heedlessness succeeds, and the 

 neglect of the most ordinary care is constantly visi- 



