At present the Bowrees confine themselves almost exclusively to robbing tents; they do not steal cattle, or cut into ("dig through") houses; but they will rob a cart on the highway occasionally--any other trade than robbery they never take to." During the absence of the men on some thriving expedition, their wives and families were protected and maintained by the Zemindar, on whose land they resided, and who likewise was ever ready to advance a small sum of money to enable his respectable tenants to take to the road--secure of repayment with usury. Before setting out they sacrificed a goat to Davee, and offered burnt offerings. They also presented sweetmeats to the goddess, and vowed no stinted quantity should they return successful from their wanderings. To omens they paid great regard. A couplet in familiar use among them was to the effect, that "if the cow and the deer cross from the left to the right, and the snake from right to left, and the blue jay from left to right, even the wealth that has gone from thee shall come back." Of the cognate tribes of Sanseea and Bereea Dacoits some interesting details may be gathered from the official reports of the Commissioners for the suppression of Dacoitee. According to tradition there lived a long time ago, in the province or Mharwar, two uterine brothers named Sains Mull and Mullanoor. Sains was very illiterate and found it extremely difficult to earn a livelihood by his own exertions. So he went to the god Bhugwan and represented his case. The deity heard him with compassion and gave him an order upon every village in the world for the payment of half a crown from each. Returning home the foolish fellow showed the paper to his brother, who, moved by envy, tore it in pieces. A fraternal squabble naturally ensued, which at length terminated by both of them repairing to Bughwan. But the god declined to give a second order, and advised Mullanoor to assume the life of a mendicant, while his brother was to maintain himself by singing and dancing. From the former were descended the Bereeas, who wandered about the country, playing the _dhol_ (a kind of drum), begging and stealing: the men and women living together in a promiscuous state of extreme socialism. The descendents of the other brother were called Sanseeas, also a roving tribe, pretending to deal in cattle, goats, horses, cloth, grain, or anything else that came into their hands. They were generally in great request as _Bhâts_, or Bards at the marriage festivals of the Jats. Their business was to trace the lineage of their entertainer to the founders of the Jat family, and celebrate the heroic virtues of his ancestors. If the host proved a niggard, and refused to comply with the exorbitant demands of these vagabond minstrels, they would make an effigy of his father and parade it up and down before his house;--or even, in extreme cases, suspend it from a bamboo and fix it over his door, by which means he temporarily lost caste, so