1836.] An account of the Maun Shows. IT 



tinue their wanderings, and take up their residence for the 

 monsoon in any village where they have some friends, or 

 where they are likely to experience from the inhabitants civi- 

 lity and attention. It frequently happens that they collect in 

 considerable numbers at the same village. Last year an as- 

 semblage of between six and seven hundred of them pass- 

 ed the monsoon at the village of Tembah near Sooltanpoor 

 in Kandeish : during the eight months they are occupied in 

 perfuming their peregrinations they endeavour to lay by a 

 part of what they receive in charity* for the monsoon season : 

 and some of the rich merchants or wealthy persons, either for 

 the sake of the bubble reputation or in the hope of expiating 

 some sin they may have been guilty of, undertake to supply 

 the pilgrims with the necessary quantity of provisions for 

 their consumption for some time ; and if a sufficiency is not 

 obtained in this way, and the rains have not terminated, they 

 will borrow money from any money-lender to defray the ex- 

 pense they may have to incur while they remain in the place. 

 The sum they borrow, they engage to pay off in. a few months 

 — and they generally effect this with comparative ease; for 

 when they recommence their wanderings, and are busy "beg- 

 ging from door to door, to such persons as they know to be 

 of a liberal disposition, they communicate the circumstance of 

 their being in debt and their anxiety to pay it off : it is very 

 seldom such an appeal from a Maun Bhow does not meet with 

 consideration : however they say that within these few years 

 past, the inhabitants within the British territory do not show 

 them that attention and liberality they experienced from 

 them in former years : they add that the people excuse their 

 present conduct, by informing them that they are prohibited. 

 granting aims now as m times pas k c _ 



is at the period of tTie" general halt in the wet weather,, 

 that they teach their converts to read and write ; for the 

 Maun Bhows consider it indispensably requisite, that every 

 member of their society should be sufficiently educated to 

 be capable of reading one of the commentaries on the Geeta ; 



* If they succeed, in collecting any considerable quan tity of grain and its trans- 

 portation would be inconvenient, they convert it into cash, 



