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GON
520
being dirty impostors, with a pretence to low magic, who wander about from fair to fair with a five legged cow, or some other natural or artificial monstrosity, which they exhibit for alms, attracting spectators by jingling a staff covered with cowries and ringing a bell. They are not particular in the matter of food, but prefer taking charity, if possible, from the true Goshains, and wiU use their maths as halting stages when on their sense,
peregrinations. classes, the Chhattris are generally worshippers of some the Brahmans, of some incarnation of Vishnu. The lower are not much troubled with dogmatic theology, and when they have failed with one deity will address their prayers to another, frequently turning as a pis aller to some Muhammadan saint. Many a tazia is presented to Imam Husen, many an offering made on the tomb of Ghazi Sayyad Saldr at Bahraich, by devout Hindus, whose sickness they have cured or debts There is generally a very strong current of monotheism underalleviated. lying their bizarre creeds, which is aptly expressed in the ^following proverb:
Of the higher
efiigy of Shiva;
"
Ma ma
sab kihu kahe, bab^ tabe na koi
Mai ke darbar men -
i.
e.,
every one
calls
jo
bdba kabe so howe,"
on mother (Bhaw^ni), no one calls on father (the father bids in the court of the mother shall
Supreme Deity), yet what the come to pass.
The
local
measures of length are based on the length of the fore^™^ ^^^ *^® stride of an ordinary man, and are as of
Local measures length.
follows: 14 batb = l qadam,
2 20 100
qadams^l
kasi,
kasis=l badh, badbs = l kos.
A
kachoha bigha is a square badh. Though these measures have no unvarying standard, and are subject to considerable fluctuations, it will be found, as a rule, that the- kasi is about five and the bMh about one hundred feet. Thus, taking the kos, one hundred badhs of one hundred feet each give ten thousand feet or 1899 of a mile, i. e., little short of two miles, which comes very near what our experience teaches us a kos in these parts to be. The traveller to the forests of Tulsipur will be astonished to find that at every succeeding stage, the villager will put his destination further and further off, Let him restrain his anger, for in the north the kos is subject to sudden diminution, and decreases rapidly from nearly two to little over half a mile.
The bigha
of a square badh gives in the same way ten thousand square one thousand one hundred and one square yards. The standard bigha of settlement is three thousand and twenty-five square yards, or 2'72 kachcha bighas, which again is very near the mark. There are few measurements that vary so much as the local bigha, and farmers wiU sometimes aim at a cheap reputation for liberality by ostentatiously reducing their tenants' rate of rent, and at the same time diminishing the size of the bigha. The desire to exaggerate the area of small plots of land has, feet, or
