236 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



regarded the Nagars with much jealousy, and took 

 every opportunity of finding fault with the condition 

 of states under the charge of these latter. The 

 enemies of the ^Tagars derive the name from nay, the 

 Indian word for a cobra, the most venomous of all 

 snakes ; but they themselves have a more compli- 

 mentary derivation. K"o doubt they have a good deal 

 of the wisdom of serpents ; but they also struck me 

 (and I have had a great deal of intercourse with them) 

 as having something of the harmlessness of doves, in 

 so far as manners and kindness of disposition go. 



Euncharji, the celebrated former Dewan of this 

 state of Junaghar, was a Xagar Brahman ; and his 

 praises have been sounded by so many persons of 

 very different character, that he must have been a 

 man of high qualities. Mrs Postans, describing him 

 in her ' Western India in 1838,' spoke of his "purity 

 and high-mindedness," of his dignity and grace, of 

 his liberal opinions, and of his remarkable acquaint- 

 ance with Eastern history. General Jacob, in his 

 General Report of 1842, said that Euncharji was 

 "the nearest approach to an educated native gentle- 

 man the country contained ; his tastes and habits of 

 thought were above his age." He was one of the 

 first in giving effectual aid to the suppression of 

 infanticide ; and Dr "Wilson, in his ' History of the 

 Suppression of Infanticide in Western India,' says of 

 him that he was one of the best-informed natives 

 whom we have met in India. He had even a know- 



