Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 6.djvu/187

 TWO SINDEES. (318)

HE figures aftbrd good representations of the ordinary idle Sindees, who frequent bazars without any ostensible object, except perhaps chance flirtations. They are therefore snicn-t and rakish youths, though their looks are not in their favour. "Light-hearted, vain, reckless creatures," writes the describer of them, "they may come to grief or to good, just as circumstances may turn the cards." Their dress is the degagé. turban, a loose kind of blouse, and very wide trousers called touban, with a scarf as usual over the shoulders. Of the Sindee men. Captain Burton's History of Sind affords the following particulars:—"The Sindee proper is a taller, stronger, more robust, and more muscular man than the native of Western India. His hands, feet, and ancles have none of that delicacy of formation observable among the natives that inhabit the broad lands lying on the other side of the Indus, The Sindee, in fact, appears to be a half breed between the Hindoo, one of the most imperfect, and the Persian, probably the most perfect, specimen of the Caucasian type. His features are regular, and the general look of the head is good. The low forehead and lank hair of India are seldom met with in this province. His beard, especially among the upper classes, is handsome, though decidedly inferior to that of Persia or Afghanistan. At the same time the dark complexion of the Sindee points him out as an instance of arrested development. In morale he is decidedly below his organization; his debasement of character being probably caused by constant collision with the brave and hardy hill tribes, who have always treated him like a serf, and by dependancy upon Hindoo Shroffs and Bunneas, who have robbed and impoverished him as much as possible. He is idle and apathetic, unclean in his person, and addicted to intoxication; notoriously cowardly in times of danger, and proportionably insolent when he has nothing to fear. He has no idea of truth enprobity, and only wants more talent to be a model of treachery. The native historians praise him for his skill in tracking footsteps, a common art in the eastern world, and relate more wonderful instances of such sagacity than were