Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 6.djvu/148

NOTE ON THE FRONTIER TRIBES OF SIND.—BELOCHEES. In addition to these are liinds, Jutts, Jettooees, Mhars, and other minor tribes, who are of no great account, and have neither the position, organization, or military bearing of the principal tribes above enumerated. Some of these belong to the Punjab; but others, as the Murrees, Bhoogtees, &c., reside partly in the Punjab, and partly in Sind.

Of the general conduct of the Belochces, Captain Minchin gives on the whole a very favourable account. Many of the sections of the tribes have become industrious agriculturists. Several old canals, and some new ones, have been opened by chiefs of tribes and their sections, at the very considerable cost of Es. Io0,000, or £15,000, in four years, the outlay, in most instances, being provided by the chiefs alone, or in shares by the clans. Many wells have been dug, and the streams from the mountains employed for irrigation, without which nothing can be grown. The land now under cultivation by the tribes, and by irrigation from wells, canals, hill streams, &c., amounts to 323,271 acres, yielding a revenue of Rs. 319,959, which appears to be materially on the increase; and when it is considered that before the British occupation of the country, they supported themselves mainly by plunder and predatory occupations, the above result furnishes at once the most satisfactory and triumphant proof of the beneficent efforts of a just and powerful Government, able alike to encourage, to restrain, and to punish.

As has been before observed, the system of management of these tribes differs in the Punjab from that pm-sued in Sind. In the former many of the chiefs have charge of, and are responsible for, the police of their own districts, on some the honorary grade of deputy magistrate has been conferred, and most, or all, receive payment for their services in lands and money, or both. This system has been found to work well, not only as regards the security and tranquillity of the country at large, but in suppressing, or at least controlling, the internal jealousies and feuds of the subdivisions and sections, which, liable to be taken up by other parties, threw whole districts into confusion. Of fanaticism, like that which exists among the northern Afghan tribes, none of the reports make any mention: nor has, at any period, such a feeling or disposition manifested itself The force of the tribes is estimated at about 29,000 men; but it must be considered that union is impossible among them, that any combined movement is impracticable, and that the stakes most have invested in agriculture, and the prosperity which has ensued thereon, renders their old life as distasteful, it may be hoped, as it would be unprofitable. In Captain Minchin's report, the present condition of each tribe, the characters and lineages of the chiefs are given at length; but to the general reader these particulars, eminently valuable for Government record, would be of comparatively little interest, and are therefore omitted.