Umarkot.
The Fate of the Sodha Tribe. Assassination of Mīr Bijar.
This episode, which properly belongs to the history of Marwar, or to Sind, is introduced for the purpose of showing the influence of the latter on the destinies of the Sodha princes. It was by Bijar, who fell by the emissaries of Bijai Singh, that the Sodha Raja was driven from Umarkot, the possession of which brought the Sindis into immediate collision with the Bhattis and Rathors. But on his assassination and the defeat of the Sind army on the Rann, Bijai Singh reinducted the Sodha prince to his gaddi of Umarkot; not, however, long to retain it, for on the invasion from Kandahar, this poor country underwent a general massacre and pillage by the Afghans, and Umarkot was assaulted and taken. When Fateh Ali made head against the army of Kandahar, which he was enabled to defeat, partly by the aid of the Rathors, he relinquished, as the price of this aid, the claims of Sind upon Umarkot, of which Bijai Singh took possession, and on whose battlements the flag of the Rathors waved until the last civil war, when the Sindis expelled them. Had Raja Man known how to profit by the general desire of his chiefs to redeem this distant possession, he might have got rid of some of the unquiet spirits by other means than those which have brought infamy on his name.
Chor.
The Sodha, and the Jareja, are the connecting links between the Hindu and the Muslim; for although the farther west we go the greater is the laxity of Rajput prejudice, yet to something more than mere locality must be attributed the denationalized sentiment which allows the Sodha to intermarry with a Sindi: this cause is hunger; and there are few zealots who will deny that its influence is more potent than the laws of Manu. Every third year brings famine, and those who have not stored up against it fly to their neighbours, and chiefly to the valley of the Indus. The [317] connexions they then form often end in the union of their daughters with their protectors; but they still so far adhere to ancient usage as never to receive back into the family caste a female so allied.[[34]] The present Rana of the Sodhas has set the example, by giving daughters to Mir Ghulam Ali and Mir Sohrab, and even to the Khosa chief of Dadar; and in consequence, his brother princes of Jaisalmer, Bah and Parkar, though they will accept a Sodha princess to wife (because they can depend on the purity of her blood), yet will not bestow a daughter on the Rana, whose offspring might perhaps grace the harem of a Baloch. But the Rathors of Marwar will neither give to nor receive daughters of Dhat. The females of this desert region, being reputed very handsome, have become almost an article of matrimonial traffic; and it is asserted, that if a Sindi hears of the beauty of a Dhatiani, he sends to her father as much grain as he deems an equivalent, and is seldom refused her hand. We shall not here further touch on the manners or other peculiarities of the Sodha tribe, though we may revert to them in the general outline of the tribes, with which we shall conclude the sketch of the Indian desert.
Tribes.
Of the Muhammadan there are but two, Kalhora and Sahariya, concerning whose origin any doubt exists, and all those we are about to specify are Nayyads,[[36]] or proselytes chiefly from Rajput or other Hindu tribes:
Zjat; Rajar; Umra; Sumra; Mair, or Mer; Mor, or Mohor; Baloch; Lumria, or Luka; Samaicha; Mangalia; Bagria; Dahya; Johya; Kairui; Jangaria; Undar; Berawi; Bawari; Tawari; Charandia; Khosa; Sadani; Lohanas.
The Nayyāds.
On the Bhattis, the Rathors, the Chauhans, and their offset the Mallani, we have sufficiently expatiated, and likewise on the Sodha; but a few peculiarities of this latter tribe remain to be noticed.