122 The Ethnology of India. 



It has been reserved for us to enlist them in regular regiments, and 

 to try to raise them to a good position. Like most low-placed men, 

 they look low, when in low case performing low offices ; but that they 

 are well grown and powerful, is always clear. I had recently an 

 opportunity of looking at them carefully, in a body drawn up on 

 Regimental Parade, and looked especially with the view of seeing 

 whether I could detect any ethnological peculiarity. I was quite 

 satisfied that nothing of the sort is to be found. There may not be 

 so large a proportion of good looking men as among the higher castes, 

 but as a body they are fine Arians, not very materially inferior to the 

 other people of the country. The only physical peculiarity that I 

 have noticed among people of this class in the Punjab is, that a large 

 proportion of them have only one eye. I apprehend, however, that 

 this is not an ethnological peculiarity, but the result of inferior labour 

 in a dry and dusty country, as may be seen in Egypt. 



In Scinde also the low caste people are mentioned as large men of 

 Punjabee origin and speaking the Jatee language. They are there 

 called ' Bale Shahe' or Royal, a term also I believe applied to the 

 sweepers in some other parts of India, and which may seem ironical, but 

 may possibly be founded on some traditions of their former rule. 



In the Punjab, in addition to the functions which I have mentioned, 

 the Chooras are generally the village watchmen ; and it may be observed 

 that this office is all over India very generally held by the represen- 

 tatives of the oldest races, especially when they possess any fighting 

 capacities. It may be supposed that when conquerors came in, they 

 would find the headmen of the conquered races best acquainted with 

 the localities, and most capable of dealing with those of their brethren 

 who had taken to the jungles. I should always be inclined to look 

 to the watchmen for ancient ethnological traces. The same races who 

 do the watching also often do the thieving, and the Punjab Chooras 

 have done a good deal of theft and robbery and some thuggee. 

 What may be the origin of these Punjabee Helots, I must leave to 

 conjecture. Either they may represent an old aboriginal tribe, whose 

 features have been wholly absorbed by infiltration and intermixture, 

 and who have left no ethnological traces but a dark tinge in the 

 colour of the Punjabees and Affghans of the lower hills, or they may 

 be early Arian inhabitants, conquered and enslaved by subsequent 

 tribes of Bramins, Khatrees, Rajpoots, and Jats. 



