122 The Ethnology of India, 
It has been reserved for us to enlist them in regular regiments, and 
to try to raise them to a good position. Like most low-placed men, 
they look low, when in low case performing low offices; but that they 
are well grown and powerful, is always clear. I had recently an 
opportunity of looking at them carefully, in a body drawn up on 
Regimental Parade, and looked especially with the view of seeing 
whether I could detect any ethnological peculiarity. I was quite 
satisfied that nothing of the sort is to be found. There may not be 
so large a proportion of good looking men as among the higher castes, 
but as a body they are fine Arians, not very materially inferior to the 
other people of the country. The only physical peculiarity that I 
have noticed among people of this class in the Punjab is, that a large 
proportion of them have only one eye. I apprehend, however, that 
this is not an ethnological peculiarity, but the result of inferior labour 
in a dry and dusty country, as may be seen in Egypt. 
In Scinde also the low caste people are mentioned as large men of 
Punjabee origin and speaking the Jatee language. They are there 
called ‘Bale Shahe’ or Royal, a term also I believe applied to the 
sweepers in some other parts of India, and which may seem ironical, but 
may possibly be founded on some traditions of their former rule. 
In the Punjab, in addition to the functions which I have mentioned, 
the Chooras are generally the village watchmen ; and it may be observed 
that this office is all over India very generally held by the represen- 
tatives of the oldest races, especially when they possess any fighting 
capacities. It may be supposed that when conquerors came in, they 
would find the headmen of the conquered races best acquainted with 
the localities, and most capable of dealing with those of their brethren 
who had taken to the jungles. I should always be inclined to look 
to the watchmen for ancient ethnological traces. The same races who 
do the watching also often do the thieving, and the Punjab Chooras 
have done a good deal of theft and robbery and some thuggee. 
What may be the origin of these Punjabee Helots, I must leave to 
conjecture. Hither they may represent an old aboriginal tribe, whose 
features have been wholly absorbed by infiltration and intermixture, 
and who have left no ethnological traces but a dark tinge in the 
colour of the Punjabees and Affghans of the lower hills, or they may 
be early Arian inhabitants, conquered and enslaved by subsequent 
tribes of Bramins, Khatrees, Rajpoots, and Jats. 
