Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/294

 246 AN EARLY DUTCH ACCOUNT OF INDIA are farmers. The Moutrea are chiefly soldiers. The caste of Tolowa doth exist no longer, and they say that only the name is known. The caste of Palla is the meanest of all the castes of Soudraes, although it hath somewhat better fame than the Perreaes (Pariahs), of whom we shall speak hereafter. To the Soudraes belongeth also the caste of Correwaes, which is a caste that hath somewhat strange and peculiar; for these people have no home or abiding city, like the other castes, but ever go to and fro through the land with wife and children. They live in little huts, which they set up for a brief space without the cities; and whensoever they depart, they put these huts with their scanty house- hold stuff, together with their pots and pans, on little asses, which they have by them for this end. These people gain their livelihood by making little fans wherewith to fan the rice when it is threshed, and by making covers wherewith the pot is covered when the rice is cooked, so that the water may be let run off from the rice through them. These people also carry salt from the seashore into the coun- try on their little asses; and because that their asses are small and can carry little, therefore are they free of tax in the land and left unmolested. It is said that the women of these Correwaes, who commonly go with a basket under their arm, can prophesy; and since they AN INDIAN SPINNING - WHEEL.