Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 3.djvu/254

 NILTOO.—HINDOO. (170)

HE subject of this photograph is Niltoo, a coolie or hill porter, carying milk. He is a Hindoo, and by caste a Rajpoot of low degree, resident of Gurhwal. He feeds upon all flesh except that of the ox tribe. He worships Buddrinath, or Siva, whose shrine is in the Almora (Kumaon) district; but in common with. most of his class, his reverence is extended to all Hindoo deities, and also to deified heroes or demigods. Large numbers of this class go every year to Gwalior, where the Maharajah Scindiah distributes to each a garment, and from four to eight rupees, to mark his devotion to the deity Buddrinath, in whose locality they Kve. He is stated thus to distribute to about 10,000 persons a year. Niltoo's dress consists of a white blanket coat. His complexion and eyes are dark; age about eighteen years. Men of this class possess great strength and endurance, and, though by no means of robust proportions, are wiry and muscular. His load of milk consists of several strong jars, which are placed in a rough rope net hung over his shoulders, and his burthen, whether produce of the hills, or the trunks, tents, and other equipments of English travellers, is always earned in the same way. With this he trudges up the steepest mountain paths at a steady enduring pace, rarely stopping to take breath, so perfect is his training, and covering ten to twenty miles in his day's march. In character, the Himalayan hill porters are a simple ignorant race; crime is rare among them, and with their patches of cultivation, and what they earn by their work, appear to be in more comfortable circumstances than their representative class of coolies in the plains. They have no particular military character, yet are brave and resolute, fond of sport when they have an opportunity of indulging in it. Many of them have regular Aryan features, and none are of very dark complexion.

Niltoo is a good specimen of his class and people. Many of the younger women are fair and handsome, with good figures. These people many one wife only, and the practice of polyandry prevalent in the mountains among other tribes, does not exist among them. They are, as may be supposed, very ignorant and superstitious.