248 On the Sites of Nikaia and Boukephalon. [No. 3. 



portion of which is to this day found the Tazia or tiger-hound ; 

 though the spread of cultivation having extirpated the tiger, and the 

 antelope itself being rare, the Tazia hound will also soon disappear. 

 The robe flowing to the feet may still be seen in some districts. At 

 Singhoa on the right bank of the Jelum it is still worn. It is singu- 

 larly graceful. Whether the Kathaioi were the Kuttri tribe, or the 

 Rajpootre* tribe of Katul, the large number of their waggons seems 

 to denote that they were the Bunjaras, or itinerant grain merchants, of 

 the day. If the waggons had been used as in Scythia, the people had 

 not been found inhabiting a city. The name Kathaioi savours indeed of 

 China. In Russia it would signify Chinese. But the Kuttri at least 

 has no Tartar blood, although he may be one of the aboriginal tribes 

 of Kathay, driven to migrate by the spread of Tartar hordes west- 

 ward. However this be, there seems little doubt that the old town 

 Katooha on the right bank of the Ravi was founded by the Kathaioi, 

 whoever they were. 



We find it difficult to recognise in the cheating, lying Greek of 

 modern days the representative of the heroes of Leuctra and Thermo- 

 pylae; — in the over-reaching, crouching, sordid Jew, the valiant 

 guardian of the Divine oracles ; — in the peaceful Bhara and Parsee 

 devoted to gain, the murderous assassin and gallant ghubbre ; — and 

 it may be equally hard to think the Kuttri of the Punjaub the 

 Kathaioi who so long set Alexander at defiance, or to believe the asser- 

 tion of this mercantile race that they are of the same blood as the 

 hero Ram. Yet the handful of horse, who so electrified some of our 

 squadrons in the late war, were probably, one half at least, innocent, 

 meek, pains-taking, ghee-retailing Kuttris. 



It must be observed that in the Punjaub any profession but that of 

 arms degrades the Rajpootre. That, whereas in our provinces the 

 Rajpootre thinks it no disgrace to drive the plough ; in the Punjaub 

 he loses his name of Rajpootre thereby, and becomes merely Thakoor, 

 and can no longer aspire to the daughter of a house which has always 

 followed the profession of arms. Numbers of these degraded Raj- 

 pootres have become converts to Islam, and there seems to be some 



* This Rajpootre tribe I have found at Chota Soochaytgurh near Gumrola, and 

 they assure me that they have many families dwelling near Lahore. 



