106 The Ethnology of India. 
apply the name (as to a profession), but a considerable and far extended 
people. On the Frontier, above the Salt Range and extending up into 
Peshawar, there is a considerable class of ‘ Mulleals’ who are I believe 
Mallies (though like most of the people of those parts now Mahom- 
medans), and who are very industrious cultivators and gardeners. 
Throughout the plains of the Punjab, there is again a very im- 
portant and numerous class who seem to be allied to the above, 
called Raees or Raeens. These people have generally villages of their 
own, or hold divisions of villages on equal terms with Jats and others, 
and under a similar constitution. They chiefly affect the best lands 
and finer cultivation, where they pay a high revenue and are much 
rappreciated by native governments; for they are probably, on the 
whole, the best cultivators in the Province. They are not martial, 
but are generally (like almost all Punjabee Mahommedans) fair and 
good-looking men. They are all, so far as I know, Mahommedans, 
which may account for their bearing a different name from their 
Hindu congeners, if congeners they be. So far as I am aware, they 
are not known by this name beyond the Punjab. 
A little farther east, long before we come to the Koormees, we meet 
with Hindu Mallies. I know that between Umballa and Dehli, in the 
Khytul country (one by nature very little suited for gardening 
operations), there are a good many Mallie villages. Inthe North West 
Provinces I do not think that they are much known as independent 
landholders, but as gardeners they are scattered about. I find men- 
tion made of them as common about Ajmere and on the Southern 
frontier of Hindustan. Beyond Jubbulpore they are common, mixed 
with the Koormees. Thence going onwards to the Maratta country, 
in Nagpere also they share the country with the Koonbees, and are 
the class next in importance to these latter. In fact, in all this part 
of Central India, (the southern limits of Hindustan and the Maratta 
country), Koormees and Mallies seemed to be classed together. The 
Patels, I learned, were either Koonbees or Mallies, and they often 
divided the same villages. The two classes (I was told by the Patels 
of the Nagpore country) will eat together, but do not intermarry. 
In this latitude both Mallees and Koormees extend far to the east. 
I find mention of the former in Orissa, and of the latter in Maunbhoom 
and other districts of Chota-Nagpore. 
