The Walt Bohm of Surat, those trading in Bombay, and a few others, are highly trained la the vernacular language of their owe locality, and also in Urdu and Arabic.
The Afehtnan are cultivators, shopkeepers, artisans. They aro believed to be converts from Ilinduiam. They are distributed through the Kuracheo dis trict.
In Sind, the Malik and the Mel Islam are other divisions, and In Aden are the lintunya and Zaidiya.
Fakirs are Muhammadan devotees; among them the fakir or darvesh belong to several schools, the Azad, lianawa, Chishti, Iraq, RIM, Jalalia, Kad aria, Kalandaria, and Nbularirt. The founder of the huit-montioned school, Shah Media, lived in Makhanpur, 60 miles front Lucknow, The Karl aria take their name from Abdul Kadin., Jalanl, of Baghdad ; Jalal 13okhari of Balinwidpur founded the Jalalia, and the Azad are a section of the Jalalia, and are celibates; and the Kalandari ulnito as their founder 1111 Ali Kalandar, whose tomb is hold in great reverence.
More than GO per coat. of the Muluumnallans reside In Sind, Tito Muhammadan,' are largely converts from some of the Ilindu tribes, and descendants of immigrants. from the adjoining districta of Baluchistan, Afghanistan, the Punjab, mid the Indian desert.
The Porrfes are a prominent, though not a numerous body of the population. They have separated, on very unimportant points, into two sects, one of these, the Kadinti, or old firm, reckon by the old Persian era, which is n month earlier than that used by the Shahanshahi, Shensoi, or Exgni, who form 92 per cent. of the sect.
The Jews take a humble position, largely artisans, masons, carpenters. They came from the Persian Gulf or Arabia in the 15th or 16th century. They call themselves Ban-i-Israil.
The homeless broken tribes and predatory sections of the Dekhan population have received much attention from several writers.
In 1843, the Editor furnished to Jameson's Edinburgh Journal notices of the homeless tribes of the Southern Mahratta country. In 1852, Captain Harvey, of the Bombay police, described seventy-one races wandering in that presidency; and in the following year, Major Douglas Graham enumerated thirty-eight of the moving commun ities in the Kolhapur territory, additional to those described by Captain Harvey. Little more than the names of these can find room here.
The Beder extend along the western part of the Dekhan plateau in all its extent, from the Tapti to Mysore. The Beder attained their highest power about the 16th century. Harponhully, in the Bellary district, was founded by two brothers, one of whom married a daughter of the Polygar chief of Chittuldrug. In A.D. 1517, Raidrug was given
to a Beder chief who built the present fort. There, are now two Beder chiefships, Zorapur and Gur gunta, to the south of Sholapur. Until early in the 19th century, the Beder in the Southern Mabratta country were under a Naik, who held the fortified village of Chikuldini, at the foot of the western hills ; they were eminently predatory, tillage extending no farther than around their houses. They are a simple-mannered race, civil and good-humoured, and communicative, but very poor. The ancestor of the Zorapur chief aided Aurangzeb in the siege of Bijapur, for which he was rewarded with the title of raja, and was made a mansabdar of 5000. They number 118,335 in the Bombay Presidency, and in all India 171,269 is the return. The Berad, 263,896.
The Bhaori, or Him Shikari, or Him Pardi, are a migratory race of fowlers and hunters, who are to be seen in most parts of the Peninsula. They snare game and wild animals of all kinds, jackals, foxes, wolves, leopards, tigers. They are of short stature, black and shrivelled, greatly wanting in intelligence, and timid in their intercourse with people in the towns to which they bring their cap tures for sale. The women earn a little by selling antidotes for snake-bites and scorpion stings,— simple roots and parts of the animals they kill ; and the jackal's horn, a projecting part of the frontal bone, is eagerly purchased from them as a charm against the evil eye. They are in all parts of India, but chiefly in Marwar. They have several tribes, Rathor, Mewar, Chauhan, Sawandia, Korbiar, and Kodiara. They dwell in distinct hunting-grounds, generally with rivers as bound aries, and have hereditary chiefs, termed Haulia, who assembles the tribe on occasions. One portion of the reward for capturing tigers is allotted to the river deity ; the forest deity has another. They are wretchedly poor, with a few rags for clothing, but they steal from fields and grain-pits ; and the settled population think they are wealthy. When the beard first appears, it and the hair of the head is cut once annually, for five success ive years, but afterwards it is left, unshorn. Their girls are married about the time they grow up ; the rejoicings last five days, during which the couple, smeared with turmeric, remain seated on the ground. They bury their dead.