66 Tlw Ethnology of India. 



north of the Gogra and Granges all the way into Tirhoot there are, 

 I believe, many Bramins. South of the Gogra and thence across the 

 Ganges, into the Arrah District (Bojpore), runs the Rajpoot dominions. 

 But about Benares, and still more in the greater part of Bahar, the 

 dominion is held by a numerous class of bastard Bramins called 

 1 Banians' or ' Bhabans,' to which belong both the Raja of Benares 

 and almost all the great landholders of Bahar. There seems to be 

 no doubt that this class is formed by an intermixture of Bramins with 

 some inferior caste. They live in strong and pugnacious brother- 

 hoods, and are in character much more like Rajpoots than Bramins. 

 The main country of the Bramins may then be described to be that 

 part of Hindustan (between the Yyndyas on one side and the Hima- 

 layas on the other), from the longitude of Kanouj and Lucknow 

 to near the frontiers of Bengal, with a large segment of more 

 especially Rajpoot country (stretching from Lucknow to Bojpore) 

 cut out of the centre of this tract. 



The Hindustanee Bramins are all strict Hindus of the modern type. 

 They are generally good sized and on the whole well-looking men, 

 not I think particularly fair among the higher castes, but seldom so 

 dark as the lower. Their features are good, but by no means 

 generally of the peculiar High-Arian and sub-aquiline type. In. fact 

 the breed has here lost some of the purity of its blood, and the 

 features are very much as in Europe. I think I have noticed among 

 many of the Hindustanee Bramins a good deal of the open, blunt, 

 bullet-headed, and as it were anti-aquiline style of countenance ; not 

 so handsome as more High-Arian features, but still pleasant enough. 

 I do not think that in appearance they have any decided superiority 

 over the higher castes of Hindustanees in general, though the higher 

 castes have some general advantages over the inferior castes. By 

 far the greater number of them are quite illiterate and have nothing 

 of the clerkly character about them. The priests and Pandits are learned 

 enough in their way, but they have never taken to the use of the 

 Persian character. I doubt whether Hindustanee Bramins are as a 

 body much more clever that several other classes ; if they had been, 

 they would have held their own better in spite of Mahommedan rule, 

 as they have done in several other parts of India. As it is, they 

 have scarcely any share of high office and very little literate service. 



