The Ethnology of India. : 103 
are usually settled in separate villages of their own, and in the absence 
of pastoral and predatory opportunities are cultivators, like other 
tribes, though in most places indifferent ones. 
I shall here just mention ‘ Mewattees,’ not because I am prepared 
to class them as ‘ Pastorals,’ but because they are very frequently 
classed with Goojars, as ‘“‘ Goojars and Mewattees,’ 
” with reference to 
their plundering propensities. In fact, although I have always been 
familiar with Mewattees as a very thieving tribe of cultivators found 
here and there along the south-western borders of the North West Pro- 
vinces, I have not been able to make out what they really are. Theyseem 
to come from the Central country, from somewhere in Rajpootana or 
Central India, and their name might seem to indicate a connection 
with Mewar. I have seen mention of ‘ Mewassees,’ hill chiefs, in those 
parts, but don’t know if they are connected with the Mewattees. In 
fact, the Alwar country near Dehli seems to have been of late 
called ‘Mewat.’ Mewattees are mentioned as common in Malwa in 
the characters of irregular soldiers and depredators. They extend 
farther east than the Goojars. I think the villages razed to the 
ground in the station of Allahabad, for their predatory activity in the 
mutiny, were those of Mewattees. My impression is that they are 
mostly Mahommedans and not bad looking, but in truth I know and 
can find very little about them. 
The Goojars are succeeded as cattle-keepers to the east and south 
by the ‘ Aheers,’ who seem to be the pastoral element of the Rajpoot 
and Bramin countries, as the Goojars are of the Jat countries. 
Aheers and Goojars are sometimes spoken of as if connected, but 
that I believe is an error arising from mere coincidence of profession. 
Meeting as they do in the country east and south of Dehli, they keep 
entirely apart (in a social point of view), and are universally recognis- 
ed as entirely separate and distinct castes, with no connection what- 
ever. The Aheers are not a very strict sect of Hindus in the modern 
sense, and their widows re-marry, but still they are decided Hindus 
of the respectable position which their charge of the sacred animal 
demands. In the strictest days of caste there were a good many 
Aheers in the Sepoy army. They are good and upper-class-looking 
Hindustanees. Like the Goojars, they are not a mere cow-keeping 
caste, but have many independent villages, and in some parts of the 
