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MARWARREES.

difficult to read, even by the writer. There are many jokes current against the sect in the mouths of the people on this subject. One story is, that a body of them being assembled for the purpose of deciphering a family letter from home, the following awful words were read. "Your father, 'Aj-mur-gya,' died to-day;" upon which the usual noisy demonstrations of grief began, and the shop was shut up. Some days after, another reading of the letter took place, and the passage was found to signify, "your father, Ajmeer gya, is gone to Ajmeer;" and the result may be imagined. 

Marwarrees, go where they will, never lose their national peculiarities. They are among themselves a kind, hospitable, self-adhering, intelligent, and cheerful people. They are fond of gay dress, especially of the brightest turbans, plain and chequered, that the dyer can contrive to dye, and pieces of one colour are not unfrequently, as in the case of the right-hand figure in the Photograph, tied over others. They marry only within their own gotes or clans, and most usually only one wife. They are a fine, handsome race, with strong features; sometimes, especially their women, very fair, and even ruddy, with grey or blue eyes, the evidence of a pure descent from most likely an ancient Aryan stock. In every point of view, therefore, they are perhaps the most remarkable mercantile race in India.