The Ethnology of India, 123 
- At any rate it may generally be said, that the whole population of 
the Punjab, both high and low, is above the average Arian type. 
I have before mentioned that the lower class of cultivators and 
labourers in the Simla hills are called “ Kolees.”’ I have not noticed 
among them any marked aboriginal features, 
I have alluded to the Chamars as the labourers of Hindustan, 
but there the functions of the Punjabee Helots are divided; the 
Chamars are the labourers (besides their own proper profession of 
curing skins), and the out-caste sweepers are an entirely separate and 
lower class. I have never quite made out whether the Chamars are 
considered to be properly Hindus. ‘They are not considered abso- 
lutely offensive to the touch like the unclean out-castes, but their 
name is commonly used to signify a low man, and the greatest insult 
commonly proposed is to beat a man by the hands of Chamars. 
They used to be sworn ina court by a peculiar Gooroo of their 
own, not by the ordinary name of God; and the sweepers again had 
a different Gooroo. They really are the modern Sudras of Hindu 
society, and no Hindustanee village could get on without them. 
Like others, they do not appear to advantage when engaged in 
menial offices, but to judge them fairly we should take them clean 
and decently fed and dressed. Most of our Hindustanee Syces are 
of this caste, and any one in Northern India may among them satisfy 
himeelf of their general style. It seems to me that they are a 
good specimen of the lower grade of the low-Arian type. An ancient 
proverb, quoted by Sir H. Elliott, speaks of a black Bramin and a fair 
Chamar as perversities to be avoided. In these days I think many 
Bramins may be found darker than many Chamars; but as a rule and 
on an average the Chamars are very decidedly dark, also rather small, 
though active and well knit. In features they are as it were quite 
the opposite of the high-Arian; there is a want of prominence, a 
simplicity as it were of feature; but still they do not I think show 
anything whatever that can really be called aboriginal. Judged by 
a European standard, and colour and size apart, I think that their 
features are quite as good as the average of Huropeans of inferior 
degree. 
The Chamars have never been soldiers, though I believe that we 
haye enlisted some of them since the mutiny ; nor have they generally 
