64 The Ethnology of India. 
they are separated by great tribes of Kanoujeas and others, and their 
own traditions point to Harriana as their original country. I would 
suggest the following explanation. The principal tributary of the 
Saraswatee is the ‘ Guggur’ or ‘ Ghargar’ which now gives its name to 
the main channel where it passes through the Harriana district. 
May not the name of ‘ Gour,’ borne by these Bramins of Harriana, be 
a mere abbreviation of ‘Guggur’ or Ghargar? May not the Gour 
Bramins be simply Bramins of the Guggur or Lower Saraswatee ? 
Generally speaking I think it may be said that in the western 
parts of the present N. W. Provinces, in the Rohilcund, Meerut and 
Agra Divisions and in Western Oude, the Bramin population is not 
specially numerous. They are scattered about everywhere here and 
there, both as cultivators and in other capacities, but I know no large 
body of them. I don’t know that they follow much any profession 
involving manual labour, except cultivation and almost any kind of 
service; unskilled labour as Coolees or spade labourers, they may 
undertake when pressed, but I do not think that they are artisans. 
There are a few considerable Bramin bankers in Hindustan, er at 
least one great house, but that trade is not generally in their hands. 
Farther east, in the Lower Doab, Eastern Oude, and the adjoining 
districts, is the great country of the modern Hindustanee Bramins. 
Kanouj, the ancient head-quarters of the race, is on the old Ganges 
50 or 60 miles above Cawnpore. It is now an insignificant place, 
and the mass of the Bramin population lies to the east of it. In 
the districts of Cawnpore and Futtehpore I believe that the Bramin 
cultivators far exceed in number any other class ; in Cawnpore alone 
there are some 250,000 of them. It is much the same immediately 
on the other side of the Ganges, in the adjoining parts of Oude. 
The country of which this is the centre may then more than any 
other be considered especially that in which the Bramins are now 
settled as a people. And in the far distant country in which also 
they are very numerous, the Western Coast of Southern India, the 
Bramins claim to be colonists from the same region, saying that 
Paras Ram led them from Calpee (the great Ferry of the Jumna 
opposite Cawnpore) and causing the sea to recede, settled them under 
the Western Ghats. The Lower Doab is well-known all over Central 
and Southern India as the ‘‘ Unter-bed.” 
