158 On the Boksas of Bijnour. [No. 3, 
They seem to have no spirit of inquisitiveness whatever, even in 
regard to points in which one would naturally suppose they might be 
interested. Thus it was frequently found, that they did not know 
who was the purohit of villages within half-a-dozen miles of their 
own: and several said that there were no Boksas beyond Nawab- 
poora, which is the most easterly village of this section of the 
tribe. As a specimen of their combined ignorance and credulity, 
I may mention, that a pudhdn of one of the largest villages having 
brought up his sick child, for some time declined to answer any 
questions, believing that by merely feeling its pulse the details of the 
disease would be discovered, and that any information from him would 
be superfluous. 
They have among them no arts or manufactures whatever, all clothes, 
leather, &c., being imported ; nor do they, so far as could be learned, 
use a single medicinal substance. I only met one Boksa who could 
read, and heard of one other. 
They are much more frank in manner than the villager of the 
plains of the North West Provinces, speaking their mind pretty 
freely, and they appear to have some sense of humour, which if the 
latter possesses, it never comes out in his intercourse with Europeans. 
One of the Boksas when asked what remuneration he got for being pu- 
dhdn, answered with a grin ‘“ Nothing but dikkat ;” the question, “ What 
will you get, for having guided me, if you do not wait till my servants 
come up?” elicited “ Plenty of kdéntd on my way back ;” an old fellow 
on seeing me examining under the ribs of some of the others for 
spleen, complacently patting his lank abdomen said with a droll 
expression such as is often seen to accompany some stroke of ‘ Scotch — 
wut,” “ Do you think I’ve got spleen?’ And I had a hearty laugh, 
one intensely cold morning, when on my suddenly stopping to ask the 
old guide who, with chattering teeth, was panting up an acclivity 
after me, some question about their traditions, he replied “ I may 
remember by and bye, but its so bara jéara just now, I can recollect 
nothing.” 
Their only amusement seems to be the pursuit of game, terrestrial 
and aquatic, and they complained bitterly that the recent carrying out 
of the Disarming Act had deprived them of a chief means of 
ivelihood. They are excessively greedy after animal food, and 

