els he gets his food for doing so. When
the tenants have marriages he performs the same duties for the whole
wedding party and receives a present of one or two rupees and some
clothes if the families are well off, and also his food every day
while the marriage is in progress. In his capacity of waterman the
title Baraua is used to him as an honorific method of address; and to
his wife Baroni. In a hot country like India water is revered as the
source of relief, comfort and life itself, like fire in cold countries,
and the waterman participates in the regard paid to his element.

Another business of the Dhimar's is to take sweet potatoes and
boiled plums to the fields at harvest-time and sell them. He supplies
water for drinking to the reapers and receives three sheaves a day
in payment. On the fifteenth of Jesth (May) the Dhimar goes round
to the cultivators, throwing his fishing-net over their heads and
receives a small present.

10. Palanquin-bearer and personal servant.

At the period prior to the introduction of wheeled transport when
palanquins or litters were largely used for travelling, the carriers
belonged to the Kahar caste in northern India and to the Dhimars
or Bhois in the south. Though litters are now practically not used
for travelling except occasionally by high-caste women, a survival
of the old custom is retained in the marriage ceremony, the bride
and bridegroom being always carried back from the marriage-shed to
the temporary lodging of the bridegroom in a _palki_, though for
the longer journey to the bridegroom's village some less cumbrous
conveyance is utilised. Four Dhimars carry the _palki_ and receive
Rs. 1-4. Well-to-do people will be carried in procession round the
town. When employed by the village proprietor the Dhimar accompanies
him on his journey, carrying his cooking-vessels and other necessaries
in a _banhgi_ or wooden cross-bar slung across the shoulders, from
which two baskets are suspended by loops of rope. Water he will
always carry in a _banhgi_ and never on his head or shoulders. From
waterman and litter-carrier the Dhimar has become a personal servant;
it is he to whom the term 'bearer' as designating a body-servant was
first applied because he bears or carries his master in a _palki_
and his clothes in a _banhgi_. He is commonly so employed in native
houses, but rarely by Europeans, whether because he is too stupid
or on account of caste objections of his own. When empl