1844.] Natives in Central India. 3 



our successes have restored order to India, and have sent our troops 

 to cantonments, and with the return of peace, nothing occurs to inter- 

 rupt the labours of the husbandman, and scarcity seldom prevails. 

 These changes have done much to make the Binjarries poor, and where 

 disease has swept away their bullocks, the community, unable to pur- 

 chase others, has broken up and dispersed. When thus reduced, the 

 women bring firewood to the towns to sell, which their husbands cut 

 in the jungles. They were at all times considered a bold and formi- 

 dable race, and when traversing the country with herds of bullocks 

 transporting grain and salt, they frequently perpetrated robberies in 

 gangs, and they are not over-scrupulous in committing murder on 

 these occasions, if they meet with opposition, or deem it necessary for 

 their security. With the approaches of poverty, too, vice has grown 

 apace ; many are convicted of stealing cattle and children, and Thugs 

 have also been detected among them. 



A community of Binjarries is termed a Tanda. In each Tanda an 

 individual is selected to whom the title of Naek is given, but his rank 

 would seem to clothe him with but little authority. No rules exist 

 among them to regulate their conduct or guide their society, and 

 though they keep together in large bodies, it would seem more from 

 their intermarriages and the security numbers give, than from any 

 laws binding them to the tribe. The Tandas in their movements 

 encamp on wastes and uncultivated spots, sometimes near, but more 

 frequently remote, from towns. 



The Binjarries pull down the wild boar with dogs of a powerful 

 and peculiar breed, which they keep in all their Tandas ; but with the 

 exception of the wild hog, they live, as regards food, like other Hindus. 

 A few are met with who can read and write. Their wandering life 

 precludes them from residing in towns ; they live under tents while 

 the hot weather continues, and on the approach of the monsoon, con- 

 struct grass huts to shelter them from the piercing rains that fall. 



Their features are dark and bronzed. The men have tall and mus- 

 cular frames. Their dress differing much from the nations and com- 

 munities around them, attracts attention to the females of the tribe, on 

 whom nature has bestowed the most faultless forms ; tall and exqui- 

 sitely moulded, these dark children of the desert move with a grace 

 unwitnessed among a civilized people, their loose and peculiarly form- 



