are natives of Hindostan. They inhabit almost impenetrable woods, and are under the absolute direction of their own chieftains. In time of peace they are professionally robbers, but in times of war are the guardians of the country. The general name of these people is Polygar. Their original institution, for they live in distinct clans, is not very well understood. It probably took its rise from the municipal regulations relative to the destruction of tygers and other ferocious beasts. Certain tracts of woodland were indisputably allotted as rewards to those who should slay a certain number of those animals; and those lands approximating, probably laid the foundation of the several confederacies of Polygars.

"The Pollams, or woods, from which is derived the word Polygar, lying in profusion through all the southern parts of Hindostan, the ravages committed in the open countries by these adventurous clans, are both frequent and destructive. Cattle and grain are the constant booty of the Polygars. They not unfrequently even despoil travellers of their property, and sometimes murder, if they meet with opposition: yet these very Polygars are the hands into which the aged and infirm, the wives, children, and treasure, of both Hindoos and others are entrusted, when the circumjacent country unfortunately happens to be the seat of war. The protection they afford is paid for; but the price is insensible, when the helpless situation of those who fly to them for shelter is considered, and especially when their own very peculiar character is properly attended to. The native governments of Hindostan are under the necessity of tolerating this honourable banditti. Many of them are so formidable as to be able to bring 15,000 and 20,000 men into the field.

"The Hindoo code of laws, in speaking of robberies, hath this remarkable clause, 'The mode of shares amongst robbers shall be this:—If any thief or thieves, by the command of the magistrate, and with his assistance, have committed depredations upon, and brought away any booty from, another province, the magistrate shall receive a share of one-sixth part of the whole. If they received no command or affiance from the magistrate, they shall give the magistrate in that case one-tenth part for his share, and of the remainder their chief shall receive four shares; and whosoever among them is perfect master of his occupation, shall receive three shares: also, whichever of them is remarkably strong and stout, shall receive two shares, and the rest shall receive each one share.' Here, then, we see not only a sanction, but even an inducement, to fraudulent practices.—Another singular inconsistency among a people who, in many periods of their history, have been proverbial for innocence of manners, and for uncommon honesty in their conduct towards travellers and strangers.

"At the first sight, it would appear that the toleration of the Polygars is owing to their great numbers, and to the security of their fortresses, which are in general impenetrable but to Polygars; that the government licence, in this manner given to them, to live on the spoils of the industrious, might have originally occasioned the formal division, and encouragement to perseverance, which we have just quoted: but the cause I should rather suppose to lie in the nature of certain governments, than to have arisen from any accidental circumstance afterwards: and I am the more inclined to this opinion, from the situation of the northern parts of Hindostan, which are, and always have been, uninfected by these freebooters.

"The dominion of the East was, in former days, most probably divided and subdivided into all the various branches of the feudal system. The vestiges of it remain to this hour: rajahs and zemindars are nothing more than chieftains of a certain degree of consequence in the empire. If, then, experience has shown, in other parts of the world, that clans have always been observed to commit the most pernicious acts of depredation and hostility on each other, and that the paramount lord has seldom been able effectually to crush so general and so complicated a scene of mischief—may we not reasonably venture to suppose, that the Hindoo legislature passed this ordinance for the suppression of such provincial warfare, and for the wholesome purpose of drawing the people, by unalarming degrees, more immediately under the control of the one sovereign authority? The conclusion, I own, appears to me satisfactory. Moreover, Polygars cannot but be of modern growth; for the law relative to thefts is antecedent to the mention of Polygars in history." Sullivan's Philosophical Rhapsodies.