Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 4.djvu/149

RAJPOOTS. butter, and milk. Nor has this affected their strength or endurance. Some of the Rajpoots are decidedly the finest men that India produces; many among them being six feet and upwards in height, and stout in proportion, with strikingly handsome features, fair complexions, and grey eyes—the unmistakeable evidence of purity of descent from the ancient Aryans. Rajpoots, as a rule, seclude their women, but they do not use them ill; and a Rajpoot matron, as the head of a family, is honoured and respected above all others. Their widows cannot re-marry.

The group photographed shows a party of Chohan soldiers, aimed in the native manner. The figure on the right has a broad shield at his back, which is slung over his left shoulder, and can be disengaged in a moment. It may be of rhinoceros hide, or of raw bullock or buffalo hide, pounded and cast, as it were, in a mould, which is nearly as strong. The central figure is a matchlock man; the other two, ordinary swordsmen. Every Rajpoot is master of his weapons, and most of them perform daily gymnastic exercises, of a difficult and arduous character, to an advanced period of life. They have no objection to agriculture, but, on the contrary, are excellent farmers. They refuse, however, to hold the plough, and only do this office under necessity, and when unable to hire a ploughman. In Oude they form the great hereditary proprietary of the country, and wherever tribes of them have settled, they have acquired land and retained it. In recent times some of them have taken up education, and are now attending schools, filling civil and other situations, for which, from their natural intelligence, hardly less than that of Brahmins, they are eminently capable.