216 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



culties of their position by meddling with an English- 

 man. The soivar turned up a long time afterwards, 

 with marks of earth on his dress, and complaining of 

 having had a severe fall from his unmanageable steed. 

 Thus it will be seen I found Hhairwuttia, by no means 

 extinct in Kathiawar. That noble institution still 

 exists there, though in diminished vigour. 



Colonel Alexander Walker the first, and, con- 

 sidering his great work, the most prominent of our 

 officials concerned with Kathiawar has referred to 

 this subject of lliairwuttia in his Report to Govern- 

 ment of the 7th October 1807. He derives the word 

 from Wiar, " outside," and icat or war, " a road/' 

 Avhich evidently indicates people who are outside ex- 

 isting arrangements, and have taken to the road as a 

 means of subsistence ; but Kathiawar gentry of this 

 kind are a much more justifiable class than our own 

 Dick Turpins and similar "knights of the road." 

 Among its collateral supports, he mentions the per- 

 sonal independence characteristic of all the Rajput 

 tribes ; the right of avenging personal wrongs, as also 

 the wrongs of relatives ; and the recognised duty of 

 affording refuge to fugitives and criminals of almost 

 all kinds. "When a proprietor goes into outlawry, all 

 his dependants go with him, and his village and its 

 lands are left waste, as a sort of protest and standing 

 justification of his conduct. As the outlaw only 

 attacks his enemies, and the system is well understood 

 in the country, he receives a great deal of information 



