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In these excursions I saw a variety of tumblers and vaullers of 
a different description; being in general young Hindoo women, 
educated for the purpose, who travel in companies throughout 
Ilindostan, and perform surprising feats of agility on the tight 
rope; turn themselves round with a girdle of drawn swords, on 
the top of a tall upright bamboo, and exhibit many other spec- 
tacles; while the elders of both sexes who accompany them, fill 
up the interludes by sleight of hand, uncommonly dexterous and 
entertaining. Sometimes a set of people, more resembling the 
combatants in an ancient gymnasium, exhibit athletic exercises to 
the assembled crowds: they generally perform in the large court 
of a durbar, or some open place selected for the purpose. 
At one of these exhibitions in the Concan, where a prodigious 
number of spectators surrounded the square, four pelwans, or com- 
batants, suddenly entered from the left side, with a brisk bounding 
step, and a shrill yell, or shriek, peculiar to themselves; something 
like that uttered by the Bheels and wild mountaineers, when they 
make their sudden attacks, and which in a solitary place would 
be dreadfully alarming: they were dressed alike in white turbans 
and short-drawers, with a strong cotton sash, bound tight several 
times round the loins, and passing between the thighs: their tur- 
bans were ornamented with chaplets of mogrees and champahs, 
and their wrists with bracelets of other fragrant flowers: they 
were all large full-bodied men, not remarkably tall; after a few 
manoeuvres they made a respectful salam to the company, and 
retired. Presently after four other men, who, we were informed, 
were to be their antagonists, came in from the opposite side of the 
area: these were tall, lank, and bony, with much darker com- 
