The Rajpoots are the most remarkable of these aboriginal tribes, and they are described as a noble race, tall and athletic, with symmetric features, half-way between the Roman and Jewish types, large eyed, and with fine long hair falling in natural locks upon their shoulders; high-bred, though with the decline of their country under British rule the decline of their character has kept pace. Revolutions have done their work upon them, if, indeed, the word "revolution" may be applied to the insurrections and mutinies that have kept this portion of India in a state of petty warfare for the last three hundred years. The comparatively treeless character of the hills where they dwell appears to indicate that, in former times, large spaces had been laid under cultivation, whereas at present they lead a savage life as freebooters and robbers. Around these desolate hills and valleys cluster a variety of tribes and races, of diverse tongues and customs, creeds and religions,--worshippers of Mohammed and of the Buddha, followers of Brahma and of Indra, of Vishnu and Siva, of the many-breasted and teeming Dâvee, and the triple-headed and triple-bodied Dhupyâ. Over all these different peoples the Rajpoot, or warrior caste, has held for centuries an undisputed sway. Among all these tribes the "Meriâh" sacrifice prevails, as the only means of propitiating the earth-goddess. The victims for these yearly sacrifices are furnished by a regular class of procurers, who either supply them to order or raise them on speculation. They are bought from their parents in hard famine times, or they are kidnapped on the plains. Devoted often in their childhood to the earth-goddess Dâvee, they are suffered to grow up as consecrated privileged beings, to marry, to hold lands and flocks and herds and other worldly goods, and are cherished and beloved by the community for whom they are willing to be offered up to serve as mediator and friend in the shadowy world beyond the grave for the short space of one year, when the insatiable earth-goddess is said to demand a fresh victim. I ought not to omit to say here, as a faithful recorder of the facts that have reached me, that in spite of the tremendous doom that overshadows the victims consecrated to Dâvee's altar, they lead resigned and even joyous lives up to the last moment of their existence; and the saying is, that the soul of a god enters the martyr, and transfigures him into a divine, ineffable being, incapable of feeling any pain or regret at the moment of death.