Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 7.djvu/118

 BHEELS OF JHABOOA. (365)

HE male figure represented is Nar Sing, a private in the Malwah Bheel corps. He has been drilled, and has lost his original wild appearance. The Bheels of Jhabooa are, however, of an industrious class, cultivating the ground, selling grass, firewood, and jungle produce, and thus earning a decent livelihood. Nar Sing is five feet eleven inches in height, unusually tall for a Bheel, and his features are more regular than those of Bheels in general.

His wife, Chundi, is five feet in height; she is twenty years old, and is well dressed for her station; she wears a sari, printed blue and white, with an oniamented bodice, a dark blue petticoat of strong cotton cloth, with a scarlet border of a double stripe. Her legs, from the knees down to the feet, are encased in rings of brass, to the upper one of which, as noticed in the preceding article, is fastened a string of bells, which tinkle as she walks, and she carries her child in a fold of her sari. Her husband holds his bow in his hand, which appears to be about four and-a-half feet long, and his arrows are in his left hand.