[60]. The ‘Daurayat’ or runners, the term applied to the bands who swept the country with their forays in those periods of general confusion, are analogous to the armed bands of the Middle Ages, who in a similar manner desolated Europe under the term routiers, tantamount to our rabars (on the road), the labars of the Pindaris in India. The Rajput Daurayat has as many epithets as the French routier, who were called escorcheurs, tard veneurs (of which class Gopaldas appears to have been), mille-diables, Guilleries, etc. From the Crusades to the sixteenth century, the nobles of Europe, of whom these bands were composed (like our Rajputs), abandoned themselves to this sort of life; who, to use the words of the historian, “préférèrent la vie vagabonde à laquelle ils s’étoient accoutumés dans le camp, à retourner cultiver leurs champs. C’est alors que se formèrent ces bandes qu’on vit parcourir le royaume et étendre sur toutes les provinces le fléau de leurs inclinations destructives, répandre partout l’effroi, la misère, le deuil et le désespoir; mettre les villes à contribution, piller et incendier les villages, égorger les laboureurs, et se livrer à des accès de cruauté qui font frémir” (Dict. de l’ancien régime et des abus féodaux, art. ‘Routier,’ p. 422).
We have this apology for the Rajput routiers, that the nobles of Europe had not; they were driven to it by perpetual aggressions of invaders. I invariably found that the reformed routier was one of the best subjects: it secured him from indolence, the parent of all Rajput vices.
[61]. Mund, ‘the head’; kati, ‘cut.’
[62]. [The double jasmine, Jasminum sambac.]
[63]. The rebellion broke out during the reign of this prince.
[64]. Salvamenta.
[65]. Dues.
[66]. Transit duty.
[67]. Ditto.
[68]. Different descriptions of thieves. [The Moghias are settled principally in E. Mewār; if not identical with, they are closely allied to, the Bāori (Luard, Ethnographic Survey, Central India, App. V. 17 ff.). Gen. C. Hervey (Some Records of Crime, i. 386 ff.) makes frequent references to dacoities committed by them from their headquarters, Nīmach. The Bāori or Bāwariya are a notorious criminal tribe (Rose, Glossary, ii. 70 ff.; M. Kennedy, Notes on Criminal Classes in Bombay Presidency, 173 ff., 198 ff.). The Thori in Mārwār claim Rājput origin, and are connected with the Aheri, or nomad hunters (Census Report, Mārwār, 1891, ii. 194). According to Rose (op. cit. iii. 466) those in the Panjāb are rather vagrants than actual criminals.]