124 The Ethnology of India. 



held the office of watchman ; that is more frequently held by the unclean 

 out-castes. In their own trade as leatherworkers and shoemakers, they 

 are clever intelligent men, and they are the same as Syces and some- 

 times Coachmen, and as Coolees and hired labourers. In some parts of 

 the country, a good deal of the cultivation is in their hands ; but I 

 have not heard of their acquiring considerable landed rights or rising 

 high in the world, except in Chateesgurh in the Central Provinces, 

 where I understand that a colony of Chamars of a reformed faith 

 have come to occupy quite an aristocratic position. 



The Chamars generally are apt to be somewhat . foul feeders ; the 

 lower people of the race habitually eat the dead cattle which they skin. 

 They are also a good deal given to drink, when they can afford it. 



The unclean outcastes are generally by no means numerous in 

 Hindustan, and are for the most part confined to their own proper, 

 functions. There are various sub-divisions of them, and they are 

 somewhat indiscriminately known by various names, Bhangees, Meh-, 

 ters, &c. General Briggs, in an ingenious paper, tracing the names of 

 provinces to aboriginal tribes, makes the Bhangees the Aborigines of 

 Bengal, but the term is a Hindustanee one, not Bengalee. The term 

 ' Dome' is somewhat generally applied to these people, or if specially, 

 I should say that their particular function is more particularly con- 

 nected with dead dogs. It would appear, however, that in the north 

 of Hindustan under the Himalayas, the Domes were once a consider- 

 able tribe, and in the Kumaon hills, they are still a numerous Helot 

 section of the population, being in fact the only inferior class, and 

 assuming the functions of artizans as well as those of ordinary labourers. 



They are there described as very black, with curly hair, and alto- 

 gether very aboriginal in appearance. I had not myself noticed this, 

 but when I knew Kumaon I had not much taken up ethnology. In 

 the plains where races have been longer and more mixed, and where, 

 as I have said, the lowest caste are few in numbers, they do not, I think, 

 exhibit aboriginal features. The fact is that so small a class has been 

 recruited by people turned out of other classes, to a degree which has 

 quite obliterated their original type. There are now many decidedly 

 good-looking people among them, and their women often take up with 

 men of other caste. On the average, I should say, that they are now 

 decidedly better looking than the quiet decent Chamars. 



