=Slavery due to Gambling.=—Tacitus[3.4.17] describes the baneful effects of gambling amongst the German tribes, as involving personal liberty; their becoming slaves, and being subsequently sold by the winner. The Rajput’s passion for gaming, as remarked in the history of the tribes, is strong; and we can revert to periods long anterior to Tacitus, and perhaps before the woods of Germany were peopled with the worshippers of Tuisto, for the antiquity of this vice amongst the Rajput warriors, presenting a highly interesting picture of its pernicious effects. Yudhishthira having staked and lost the throne of India to Duryodhana, to recover it hazarded the beautiful and virtuous Draupadi. By the loaded dice of his foes she became the _goli_ of the Kaurava, who, triumphing in his pride, would have unveiled her in public; but the deity presiding over female modesty preserved her from the rude gaze of the assembled host; the miraculous scarf lengthened as he withdrew it, till tired, he desisted at the instance of superior interposition. Yudhishthira, not satisfied with this, staked twelve years of his personal liberty, and became an exile from the haunts of Kalindi, a wanderer in the wilds skirting the distant ocean [180]. The illegitimate sons of the Rana are called _das_, literally ‘slave’: they have no rank, though they are liberally provided for. _Basai_ signifies ‘acquired slavery’; in contradistinction to _gola_, ‘an hereditary slave.’ The gola can only marry a goli: the lowest Rajput would refuse his daughter to a son of the Rana of this kind. The basai can redeem[3.4.18] his liberty: the gola has no wish to do so, because he could not improve his condition nor overcome his natural defects. To the basai nothing dishonourable attaches: the class retain their employments and caste, and are confined to no occupation, but it must be exercised with the chief’s sanction. Individuals reclaimed from captivity, in gratitude have given up their liberty: communities, when this or greater evils threatened, have done the same for protection of their lives, religion, and honour. Instances exist of the population of towns being in this situation. The greater part of the inhabitants of the estate of Bijolli are the basai of its chief, who is of the Pramara tribe: they are his subjects; the Rana, the paramount lord, has no sort of authority over them. Twelve generations have elapsed since his ancestor conducted this little colony into Mewar, and received the highest honours and a large estate on the plateau of its border, in a most interesting country.[3.4.19]