306 Notes on the South Mahratta Country, fyc. [No. 160. 



tance in the geology of India, and to which I would fain call the atten- 

 tion and endeavours of all geological observers to fix, by searching for 

 fossils, &c. If the rocks of the second group belong to the Devonian 

 series, the hypogene schists must be either the rocks of the Silurian or 

 Cumbrian series, as their unconformable stratification points out a 

 greater age than the less disturbed and superimposed beds of lime- 

 stone and sandstone. We need not even despair of finding fossils in 

 gneiss, chlorite, and mica slates of India, since that illustrious geologist 

 Elie de Beaumont displayed to the wondering eyes of the Savans of 

 Europe the instructive fact of belemnites, (a fossil of the chalk period,) 

 in chlorite schist. 



An Account of the early Ghiljdees. By Major R. Leech, C. B., late Po- 

 litical Agent, Tordn Ghiljdees at Kdldt-i- Ghiljdee. From the Political 

 Secretariat of the Government of India. 



[The character of part of this paper is somewhat of a lighter order than 

 usually appears in our pages : but our readers will at once understand the 

 motives which have led us most readily to avail ourselves of it, almost as 

 written. The traditions of the Ghilzaees recorded by Major Leech, give a 

 valuable insight into the manners and habits, the social condition and the 

 ordinary train of thoughts, of a race of men very little known. The acute 

 observation of the writer of the memoir has let no point escape him which 

 may illustrate the real character of the curious tribe whom he describes ; 

 and the student in ethnography will, we are convinced, be thankful for the 

 exposition of social peculiarities thus afforded to him. — Eds.] 



The following account has been compiled from notes taken partly 

 when Political Agent at Candahar in 1839-40, and partly while in politi- 

 cal superintendence of the expedition under Colonel Chambers against 

 the Toran Ghiljaees in 1841, and while Political Agent at Kalat-i- 

 Ghiljaee in 1841-42, (during the siege,) and partly from a written 



