1869.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 239 



race, the Meenas, inhabiting the North Eastern districts under the 

 same political jurisdiction, were yet revelling in the excesses of their 

 immemorial lawlessnesses. And as this is the race referred to in the 

 title of this paper, I may mention, in explanation of the circumstances 

 under which the Meenas fell particularly under my observation, that 

 in the year 1854 the lawless excesses of the tribe emboldened by long 

 impunity had reached to such a pitch of audacity, that they attacked 

 and pillaged several walled towns in the British district of Ajmeer, 

 carrying off not only the entire plunder to their hill fastnesses, but 

 numbers of the inhabitants also, holding them to ransom. It fell to 

 my duty then to take them in hand, and proceeding to Jehazpoor, the 

 centre of the disturbed district in question, measures for its tranquilli- 

 zation and for reclaiming the race were there devised and set on foot 

 as remaining in progress at the present day. 



From time immemorial, Jehazpoor, in the State of Odeypoor, had 

 been a notoriously disturbed district. A brief period of tranquillity 

 was accorded to Jehazpoor during the early part of the present century 

 by the appalling severity of the measures of the noted minister Zalim 

 Sing, after Jehazpoor fell into the possession of Kotah in 180G. 

 On a robbery being traced to a village, it was surrounded, all the men 

 found in it at once decapitated, and the women compelled to carry the 

 bleeding heads in baskets-full upon their own heads, and walk in pro- 

 cession through the neighbouring villages singing their usual jubilee 

 songs. There are men still living, and I have conversed w T ith them, 

 who have witnessed these grim processions. To guard against the 

 possible recurrence of such fatal surprises, the inhabitants of some of 

 the Meena villages have distributed themselves in detached huts on 

 the surrounding knolls, serving as a chain of watch towers for mutual 

 security. However revolting the system referred to, it succeeded in 

 effectually checking the excesses of the Meenas during the period that 

 Jehazpoor remained in the possession of Kotah. A gold bangle might 

 drop off a woman's ankle (so an ancient of those days illustrated the 

 fact), and there it would lie till the drift sand covered it ; for woe to 

 the village to which the bangle might be traced. On the restitution 

 of the district, however, to Meywar in 1819, it soon relapsed into its 

 former disturbed condition. Jehazpoor was in truth a position weTl 

 chosen for the lawless occupation of professional marauders, being a 



