1834.] 



History of the Ramoossies. 



156 



considered trust-worthy, was employed to dispose of a number of 

 gold and silver ornaments about three years' ago. This man pro- 

 ceeded to PhuHun with his charge, but never returned to Sakoordy 

 nor has any information been gained respecting him, or the proper- 

 ty he carried with him. Had this man however, resolved on acting 

 a more honest part in the discharge of his master's service^ he would 

 have proceeded to Phultun, said he was a traveller from some dis- 

 tant part of the country, and would have cautiously avoided menti- 

 oning Oomiah's name, as doing so might have immediately led to 

 suspicion. When it is required to dispose of such articles, it is re- 

 presented that it is to enable a man to marry one of his children; or 

 that they had been received as part payment, of a debt, or bought 

 on speculation ; or very likely, the man will remark that they had 

 been many years in possession of the family, but still, for the sake 

 of preserving their character, they are anxious that the sale of their 

 property should not be so publicly proclaimed in their own village. 



The clothes they get into their possession, if they cannot dispose 

 of them immediately, they are obliged to give in charge to some 

 confidential friend, who either deposites them in his house, or in a se- 

 cret place in the vicinity. Koonbys, and even Chumbars or Moo- 

 chies, are frequently intrusted with bales of cloth ; for the Ramoos- 

 sy labours under the alarm of having his house searched, and the 

 proof of his guilt being established. They occasionally sell their 

 clothes to a class of Seempies (tailors,) whose trade it is to travel a- 

 bout selling cloth to the inhabitants of the surrounding small villa- 

 ges, and who are regular attendants at the weekly fairs held in rota- 

 tion in the different Kusbahs, or market towns. The Ramoossies 

 will let one of these tailors have a new turban worth eighteen or 

 twenty rupees, for ten and twelve rupees, and other clothes in the 

 same proportion : a shawl worth two hundred, or two hundred and 

 twenty five rupees, they will part with for seventy, a hundred, or a 

 hundred and twenty rupees. The Marwarry shop keepers, especi- 

 ally in the small villages, are in general in close connection with the 

 Ramoossies. The Marwarry will purchase their brass and copper 

 pots, which they sell to the Kassaurs, or Tambutgars, (coppersmiths) 

 of the principal town in their vicinity. The Marwarry, ifheisques- 

 tioned on the subject, says a poor traveller gave him the articles m 

 return for a certain quantity of floor or grain. This Marwarry also 

 purchases some of the inferior gold and silver ornaments, and clothes, 

 that have been sometime in use. In fact, some, of the Marwarry 

 shopkeepers in the villages in the hills around Poona, drive a rather 



