Page:From Kulja, across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).djvu/48

Rh and brakes about the marshes. They are small, black men, with long matted hair, and shun the society of other men. Whenever they see any strangers, they run away and hide in the thickets and reeds. Nobody knows whence they came, or where they live, and nobody understands their language. They are very timid, but, though only armed with bow and arrow, and long pike, are brave hunters. They keep cattle, and have no cultivation. They wear clothes of a coarse strong material called luf, the fibre of a plant which has a flower and a pod like the wild liquorice. It protects the wearer from the attacks of gnats and mosquitoes, which never alight on this cloth.

The population of the Lob settlement is reckoned at 1000 houses. There are no permanent houses, but the inhabitants live in reed huts, or else in boats. There is no cultivation, and the people live on fish, and the produce of their flocks and of the chase. They govern themselves according to their own customs, and are little interfered with by the authorities. At all events, during the Ameer's rule it would appear that there was little hope of getting any revenue out of them. Some of their customs, as told to Dr. Bellew, are peculiar. They always swear upon the gun, and if any one wishes to free himself from an accusation, he appeals to the accuser to produce his gun, and kissing the muzzle, places it against his breast, and bids him fire. This throws the responsibility