POLYANDRY. 
47 
nearest kindred with themselves, where they might 
be the most readily found. As the Himalaya moun- 
taineers, on the southern side, claim an affinity with 
the Rajpoots, the draughts of women from the former 
to supply those which have been immolated in obe- 
dience to the barbarous prejudices of a proud but no- 
ble race, whose customs, however sanguinary, are 
inviolable laws to them, may account for that paucity 
of females in the mountains which renders polyandry 
a necessary evil. Certain it is, that the daughters 
of these highlanders are frequently taken to the plains 
and disposed of for prices according as the promise 
of beauty is greater or otherwise ; so that the defi- 
ciency caused by this singular trait of sordidness and 
parental indifference, may account for a practice which 
however revolting to our better feelings, becomes a 
matter of civil expediency. The Rajpoot immola- 
tions* must reduce that tribe to the necessity of seek- 
ing for wives somewhere ; and if it be a matter of 
uncertainty whence they obtain them, the existence 
of polyandry among the inhabitants of the Himalaya 
mountains appears to me at once to solve the problem. 
* Until within the last thirty years, it was a practice among 
the Rajpoot tribes to destroy their female children as soon as 
they were born, lest their parents should not be able to find them 
suitable alliances. This horrible custom was suppressed through 
the instrumentality of Mr. Duncan, formerly Governor of Bom- 
bay, and, I believe, no longer exists. 
