PHANSIGARS. 
1 25 
progressive initiation in practices the most sanguinary 
and revolting. 
All Phansigars bring up their children to their 
own profession, unless prevented from pursuing it 
on account of constitutional weakness, or from some 
bodily defect. In that case they are left to follow 
the bent of their propensities, which generally inclines 
them to pass their lives in sluggish inaction. 
The process of initiation is progressive : a boy at 
the age of ten years is first permitted to accompany a 
party of Phansigars upon an expedition of plunder, 
having been gradually prepared for this by being inured 
to sights of cruelty apart from their profession almost 
since the period that perception first dawned upon his 
mind. Upon those occasions, when the boy is to be 
initiated, he is placed under the guidance of an ustade, 
or tutor, who is usually one of his near relations, and 
whom he is taught to treat with extreme deference 
and respect, submitting with perfect acquiescence 
to everything his preceptor requires of him. He 
first serves him in a menial capacity, carrying his 
clothes, taking messages, dressing his food, washing 
his linen, and performing various other acts of servile 
employment. Upon many occasions the father be- 
comes his son’s instructor, but the boy is no more 
obedient to him than to a tutor not related to him : in 
both cases the authority is absolute and the obedience 
implicit. 
Should the child happen to be questioned by any 
travellers in the road, so well is he prepared against 
betraying the slightest hint of his companions’ oc- 
cupation, that he always renders a plausible ae- 
m 3 
