1834.] 



History of the Ramoossies, 



224 



women, and children, that had heen captured, rather I should say 

 ensnared by promises of pardon and preferment, were destroyed — the 

 men were beheaded and blov;n from guns, and the v\on\en and chil- 

 dren mutilated and cast into wells. Trimbukjee Danglia is said to 

 have been chiefly the cause of so many unfortunate creatures being 

 put to death in cold b'ood. Fortunately, the Peshwah's Lady pos- 

 sessed more humanity than her Lord and his counsellor, — she con- 

 trived to have a number of the Bheel women and children saved that 

 had been thrown into the wells, by employing some persons with ropes 

 to drag them out ; in several other places similar tragical acts were 

 performed, although not to such an extent. 



The Ramoossies were depri ed of the Rukwalldar-ship of the se= 

 veral viUao:es on the Kutool Puthar, near Akolla ; the Bheels during 

 this disturbance took forcible possession of them, besides having 

 latterlv extended their jurisdiction over villages in the Kannoor Pu- 

 thar, of which the Ramoossies have been guardians since we had 

 possession of the country. In the borders of the Akolla district, near 

 Kotool, a considerable rivalship, and even enmity, exists between 

 the Bheels and Kolev Naiks. The Ramoossies residing in the Per- 

 gunnahs of Akolla, Sungumnair and Sinnure, do not appear lo have 

 been employed to any extent as village watchmen in those Talooks, 

 in the same manner that their kinsmen in the Poona collectorate 

 and south of the Neera have been ; so that, when we contrast the 

 conduct of the former with that of the latter, who are noted as being 

 unfeeling robbers, and the scouriJ'e and terror of travellers, and the 

 well disposed, defenceless, and wealthy classes of the society where 

 they reside, it affords us a source of pleasing reflection, to behold 

 those to the north of the Pera river, r-nd along its banks, under cir- 

 cumstances of a different description. How such a diversity in their 

 habits and characters originated, 1 am unable to say, unless we may 

 suppose that their commingling with the mass of the people, as they 

 have done, proceeded from d re necessity ; for when they moved 

 northward they found themselves m arly surrounded by the Bheels 

 and Kolies, and as they were a new people, few in number, arrived 

 among strangers, their conduct may have been closely watched, thus 

 they may have discovered that there was no possibility of practising 

 the predatory system, without being severely punished for every act 

 of delinquency; for here, we behjld Ramoossies as peaceable, in- 

 dustrious, and rather respectable members of the community. In 

 such villages as they are settled to the number of ten, twenty, and 

 even thirty, we find, that they form a portion of the industrious cul- 



