The Ethnology of India. 105 
Dhangurs and Aheers are nearly the same. It would be well to 
know more on the point. 
In Hindustan sheep and goat herds, ‘ Gaderias,’ form a separate and 
very inferior caste and profession. They have no villages of their 
own, but tend sheep in the villages in which they reside. 
In Bengal Proper and Orissa, the Aheers are succeeded by the 
Gwallas, whom I have already incidentally noticed as very different 
in their style, manners and occupations. ‘ Gwalla’ is not a tribal 
name, but merely means a cowkeeper (from the old Sanscritic word, 
go, acow), so that the name does not necessarily imply any tribal 
connection with the Gwallas of the south and elsewhere. The 
Gwallas (as I have before noticed) are, with their congeners thes 
‘Satgopes,’ by far the most numerous Hindu caste in Bengal; and as 
Bengal is not much of a grazing country, they constitute a large 
proportion of the cultivators, besides carrying palanquins, acting as 
domestic servants, and following some other ayocations. In the jail 
returns they are about 13 per cent. of the non-Mahommedans, that 
is, of Hindus and Aborigines of all sorts taken together; and as 
Aheers prevail in Behar, it is probable that in Bengal and Orissa the 
Gwallas amount to fully 20 per cent. 
There are no democratic villages in Bengal; indeed village commu- 
nities in the proper sense, with anything like a municipal constitution. 
of any kind, can hardly be said to exist; the Province is in that 
respect peculiar. Consequently it is unnecessary to add that the 
Gwallas are not in regular communities. They are scattered about the 
country. I believe that they have frequently acquired rights in the 
land and attained to respectable positions. They seem to be a quiet, 
decent set of people. 
I am not well versed in the manners and customs of the Beusullees! 
and there seems to be a great want of information on the subject, 
which I trust may be supplied. 
I have before hazarded a conjecture whether the Bengallee Gwallas 
may not have been formed on the basis of the Aboriginal Bhooyas. 
Of the fine cultivators or gardeners, the most important are— 
Tue Matuizs, 
to whom I have alluded as apparently allied to the Koormees, and 
who are not only the humble gardeners to whom Huropeans ordinarily 
