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JOGIS.

Jogis are by no means habitually intemperate, though they have no objection to spirituous liquors at feasts for caste observances, and other ceremonies of sacrifice. They also smoke ganja, or hemp leaves and tobacco, and use opium; but none of these to excess. As they profess a debased form of Hindooism, they employ the lower orders of Brahmins to name their children, to point out lucky or unlucky days, for moving their camps, or undertaking any new pursuit. They also employ them at marriages; but by far the greater number of their ritualistic observances are rude ceremonies, perhaps aboriginal, or derived from foreign sources now untraceable. 

It is difficult to hazard even a supposition as to their antiquity or origin. They may be, most likely are, as old as the Egyptians, or Assyrians, or Jews, when there were professional snake charmers, as there are now. Jogis and their women are not black, seldom, indeed, even very dark, but bright and ruddy. They have no apparent touch of Turanian blood. Among themselves they invariably claim an immense antiquity, and assert, as they have every appearance of being, that they have been exclusively pure in race from the earliest times. They know they have no rank as to caste among Hindoos, but they are not a whit the less haughty or exclusive. These Jogis are not very numerous, and are widely scattered over India. They travel in small parties or families, and have places of rendezvous, as Shah Madar's tomb at Mukkinpoor, celebrated fairs, as Hurdwar, Gya, &c., in many parts of India, where they meet, discuss and settle caste affairs, make their propitiatory sacrifices, perform mystic rites, and again separate. No one knows of these meetings but the Jogis, and they concern no one but themselves. Among them there are hereditary chiefs, who are called Näiks, who are elders of the tribes, if no more. Some of the men are Bhats, or bards, and are the depositaries of legends and traditions. In short, among them there would seem to be maintained a sort of internal economy or polity which has hitherto preserved them as they are for possibly thousands of years; and it is with a strange feeling that such a class is now looked upon, when it is considered that the same performance, by identically the same people, may have taken place in the palace of a king of Egypt or of Assyria, and that either, or both, and their subjects, may have listened to the same sweet but monotonous little tune which the Jogi plays to his snakes, now loud, now soft, from his gourd pipe, while the railway train whirls onward with a shriek, and away before him stretch the almost illimitable wires of the electric telegraph. What a period between these two ages to be filled up! and yet that the representatives of the one, and of the other, should meet on common ground is oncontrovertible.