1834.] 



History of the Ramoossiesr 



236 



adding an account of a considerable loss sustained by a rich Parsee 

 banker, named Doorabjee who was chiefly employed by the British 

 troops around Poona, during and subsequent to the late war. In 

 the month of July 1818, when order had been restored in the Dek- 

 han, this banker forwarded from Poona to his agent at Satara 

 the sum of 16,000 rupees, in charge of two peons. The money 

 was placed upon four tatoos, and a man accompanied each. Five 

 days afterwards, he dispatched a further sum of 20,000 rupees to 

 Satara. When this latter sum reached his correspondent, he ac- 

 knowledged the receipt, but mentioned that the sum of sixteen thou- 

 sand, which he had alluded to had not reached him. Several per- 

 sons were immediately sent off on receiving this information to dis- 

 cover what had become of the peons and the treasure they had charge 

 of. They traced the party to Jejoory, and learnt that they had s-lept 

 at a Gossynes Muth the night they halted at Jejoory, and pursued 

 their journey early the following morning, but nothing could be 

 heard of them beyond this. The men searching for information 

 went to the Neera bridge, where a Karkoon and a strong detach- 

 ment of Sibundies were stationed ; when they were questioned on 

 the subject, they stated that no men or horses answering the de- 

 scription given, had approached the bridge, or been heard of by 

 them. The circumstances being reported to the Collector, he im-= 

 mediately adopted such measures as were likely to discover wha^ 

 might have happened to the party, or where they could have pro- 

 ceeded to ; notwithstanding the active search that the Collector 

 caused to be kept up for about a year, not the slightest clue could 

 be laid hold of to enable him to learn what had become of the mo- 

 ney or the persons who had charge of it. 



The Poorundur Ramoossies were suspected of having had a hand 

 in making away with the money, and as they were pressed hard on 

 this point, they wished ,to attach blame to the Poona Ramoossies, 

 and those along the plain north of the AUundy hills. With this 

 view, some of them went to Wurky, and dug up the bones of some 

 Ramoossies that had been buried in a field near the village ; these 

 they conveyed to the Collector, who was some distance to the north 

 west of Poona, stating that they had gained intelligence of the 

 bodies of several persons having been buried in the fields, and that 

 Ihey now placed the bones before him. The Collector however was 

 too intelligent to be imposed on by such a device ; for the bones 

 were much too old, and besides, the relatives claimed them as those 

 of their fathers, iinckB; and brethreo. 



