gives rise to an opinion, that many of the scrupulous habits regarding women are the inventions of the priests of more modern days. The facilities for separation are equally simple. If tempers do not assimilate, or other causes prompt them to part, the husband tears a shred from his turban, which he gives to his wife, and with this simple bill of divorce, placing two jars filled with water on her head, she takes whatever path she pleases, and the first man who chooses to ease her of her load becomes her future lord. This mode of divorce is practised not only amongst all the Minas, but by Jats, Gujars, Ahirs, Malis, and other Sudra tribes. _Jehar le aur nikali_, ‘took the jar and went forth,’ is a common saying amongst the mountaineers of Merwara. =Oaths, Food, Omens.=—Their invocations and imprecations are peculiar. The Chita or northern Mer, since he became acquainted with the name of the prophet, swears by ‘Allah,’ or by his first proselyte ancestor, ‘Duda Dawad Khan,’ or the still more ancient head of the races, ‘_Chita, Barar ka an_‘. The southern Mers also use the latter oath: “By my allegiance to Chita and Barar”; and they likewise swear by the sun, ‘_Suraj ka Sagun_,’ and ‘_Nath ka Sagun_’; or their ascetic priest, called the Nath. The Muhammadan Mer will not now eat hog; the southron refuses nothing, though he respects the cow from the prejudices of those around him, and to please the Nath or Jogi, his spiritual guide. The partridge and the _maloli_,[4.26.18] or wag-tail, are the chief birds of omen with him, and the former ‘clamouring’ on the left, when he commences a foray, is a certain presage of success. To conclude; colonies of the Mers or Meras will be found as far north as the Chambal, and even in the peninsula of Saurashtra. Merwara is now in subjection to the Rana of Mewar, who has erected small forts amidst the most influential communities to overawe them. The whole tract has been assessed; the chiefs of the districts being brought to the Rana’s presence presented _nazarana_, swore fidelity, and received according to their rank gold bracelets or turbans. It was an era in the annals of Mewar to see the accumulated arms of Merwara piled upon the [687] terrace of the palace at the capital; but these measures were subsequent to our sojourn in the glen of Kumbhalmer, from which we have yet to issue to gain Marwar.