1 SINDE. 219
2 over the face on the approach of a stranger. The filth of the
3 Sindians cannot be denied or extenuated; it is proverbial, and
4 may, perhaps, be attributed to their poverty.? Sinde is supposed * Burnes, Bokh.
5 by Sir William Jones to have been the original country of the ay.) ™"""
6 gypsies,4* who, according to Adelung,® fied from India to escape eae te
7 the massacres of the ruthless Tamerlane. The Sindian language 198; iv. 488.
8 is a branch of the Sanscrit or Indo-Germanic stock, merely a
9 little differing in spelling and inflexion from the pure Hindi® of Notice of Wa-
10 Upper India, and is by some considered the elder of the two, ne aaar
11 being more eluborate and regular in the inflexions of its nouns mae na
12 and verbs. Macmurdo? states, on the authority of native scho- Beng. 1837, pp.
13 lars, that ‘‘ it has fewer modern innovations, and a greater ee cee Mak ae
14 number of Sanscrit words, than the Gujarati, which is a pure Sec: 18%, p. 248.
15 Hindoo dialect.” It has a character peculiar to itself, which is
16 written from left to right. Belochee,? another of the Indo- ® Leech, Grammar
17 Germanic tongues, is of course largely spoken, especially in the ee a
18 hilly country; and Persian may be regarded as the language of
19 the court ® and of the higher order of the people. 9 Havelock, 1. 151.
20 From the period when Sinde was visited by the Greeks
21 under Alexander, its history is in a great degree a blank.
22 Native annalists appear to be magniloquent in regard to the
23 grandeur, power, and resources of some of its princes; and, on
24 the event of a revolution, brought about through the criminal
25 passion of a queen for a young Brahmin, who was enabled by
26 her favour to ascend, first to the office of chief minister, and sub-
27 sequently to the throne, the historian who records the facts
28 indulges in the following burst of mingled grief and admira-
29 tion :'— Such was the close of the race of Rajah Sazee, which ' Pott. 387.
30 had governed the kingdom of Sinde for upwards of two thousand
31 years ; whose princes, at one period, received tribute from eleven
32 dependent kingdoms, and who had set the threats of the greatest
33 monarchs of the world at defiance.” According to Pottinger,? the ? sss.
34 dominions of the Rajah Sazee (including his tributaries) are de-
35 scribed by native authorities as extending, ‘‘on the north, to the pre-
36 sent provinces of Kashmir and Kabool; southward, to Surat and the
37 island now called Dieu ; westward, along the sea-coast to Meck-
38 * Besides the older work of Grellman on this subject, see ‘‘ Harriot on
39 the Oriental Origin of the Gypsies,’’ in Transact. of Royal As. Soc., vol. ii,
40 518—558 ; also Richardson on the Bazeegurs, vol. vii-457, of As. Researches;
41 and Klaproth (Asia Polyglotha) on the branches of Sanscrit,