“‘The Panjábí Jat, who is neither a Hindu nor a Hindi (Muslim). He first appears in Indian history as a nomad, alternately shepherd, robber, and temporary tiller of the ground. Many became Sikhs, and did good service to Nánah Shah’s faith by their zealous opposition to Muhammadan bigotry. As this was their sole occupation for many years, they gradually grew more and more warlike, and at one time they were as fighting a race as any in India. They have been identified by Colonel Sleeman and others with the ancient Getæ and their descendants the Goths.[92] “‘The Jat or Dyat of the Hazárah country, Jhang-Siyál, Kach (Kutch) Gandáva, and Sindh generally, where they may number two hundred and fifty thousand out of a total population of one million. They are all Muslims, and are supposed to have emigrated from the north during or shortly after the Kalhorá accession; hence their dialect is commonly called Belochki. In those days the Belochís were very little known to Sindh, whose aristocracy, the Amírs, Jágírdárs, and opulent Zemindárs, was either Sindhi or Jats. About Pesháwur “Jat” is still synonymous with Zemindár or landed proprietor; at times, however, it is used as a term of reproach. “‘The third is a clan of Belochís, who spell their name with the Arabo-Persian, not the Sindhi _j_. In the lower Indine Valley they hold the province of Játi, and other parts to the south-east. The head of the tribe is entitled _Malik_ (literally “King”), _e.g._ Malik Hammál Jat.[93] “‘The next is a wandering tribe, many of whom are partially settled in Candahár, Herát, Meshhed, and other cities of the Persico-Afghan frontier. They are found in Meckran; and they sometimes travel as far as Maskat, Sindh, and even Central India. They are held to be notorious thieves, occupying a low place in the scale of creation. No good account of this tribe has as yet appeared; and the smallest contributions upon the subject would be right thankfully received.’ “The fifth which must now be added is the _Jin-tchi_ of Central Asia. These people are not, as Mr. Schuyler[94] seems to think, ‘Káfirs from Káfiristan’; they are apparently true Jats--an idea once advanced by Mr. Andrew Wilson of the Abode of Snow.[95] “These tribes are looked upon as aborigines, which simply means that their predecessors are unknown.[96] “Such were the notices collected by me in manuscript some years before 1849. At that time the Orientalists of Europe were almost unanimous in identifying the Gypsies with the _Nat’h_, a scattered Indian tribe of itinerant tinkers and musicians, the ‘poor players’ of the great Peninsula, utterly ignorant of horse-couping, cattle-breeding, and even poultry-snatching. And the conviction still holds its ground; only lately my erudite correspondent, Dr. J. Burnard Davis, reminded me of it.