728 Tour in H. H. the Nizam's Territories. [No. 117. 



complexion, to pronounce the Telingana Brahmins a mixed race. The 

 poojarees wear no turbans, and daub their countenances with paint 

 to a much greater extent than is the custom to the westward. Many 

 Zemindars are Brahmins. 



Aylmas. — This is a caste peculiar to Telingana; they affect for 

 themselves a high descent, which however is denied by the other 

 castes, who assert that the bhaats (bards) sung them into repute from 

 a very humble origin; they are respected and feared throughout the 

 country, as gallant soldiers, and dangerous enemies. They seclude their 

 women, a practice in all probability derived from the Moosulmans, 

 and which would seem to give countenance to their being but newly 

 sprung up. Several of the Khummumait and Worgungul Zemindars 

 ar^ of this caste ; they are a well-made, rather a good-loolting, set 

 of men, very fond of the chase and of all active exercises. 



Mahomedans. — With the exception of troops, Government employes, 

 and a few tradesmen, there is scarcely a Moosulman in the Telingana 

 country. I, of course, leave the city of Hydrabad out of the question. 



Bedurs, — This race, or rather tribe, is found chiefly in the Chinnore 

 Circar, where they take the place of the Dhurs, and act as a sort of 

 Gibeonites to the Brahmins and higher castes. Their chief, it is well 

 known, resides at Shorapoor ; they are an industrious, contented class, of 

 a darker hue, perhaps, than the Telingana Coombees, but with scarcely 

 any other distinguishing mark. 



Goands. — It has been customary to consider this people as the 

 aborigines of India : If, by this, it is meant that, as far as records go, 

 they have been what they now are, there is little to be objected to the 

 term, although one that is less decisive ought, in our ignorance, to be 

 applied ; but, if it is assumed from any fancied absolute difference in 

 their physical appearance from the inhabitants of the plain or cultivated 

 districts, it is positively to be rejected, as leading to error. It is said 

 that they are a dwarfed, stunted race; but an under- fed, oppressed people, 

 with limited resources, will become so in the course of a iew genera- 

 tions. Their not professing Hindooism is surely, with the history of 

 religion before us, no argument that they must be necessarily distinct 

 and separate ; nor is their peculiar language (if peculiar it be) a better 

 proof. None of the marked distinctions of form, feature, shape 

 of head, character of hair, by which different races are characterized, 



