Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 1.djvu/174

Rh agreeably acid, and very refreshing. This is drunk at all times when procurable, and is carried in a large bamboo chunga by travellers, and diligently applied to throughout the day. They have no distilled liquor of their own, but they oreatlv admire and prize all our strong liquors, our port and sherry, cherrybrandy, and maraschino. Tea is a favourite beverage; the black sort, brought from China in large cakes, being that preferred. It is prepared by boiling, after which the decoction is churned up hi a chunga with butter and salt. Milk is never taken with tea.

The Lepchas, like true Buddhists, bury then dead. In person they are short, averaging about five feet hi height. Five feet six is above the usual height, and four feet eight is a common stature among the men. The total absence of beard, and the fashion of parting the hair along the crown of the head, adds to a somewhat womanly expression of countenance in the men, and the loose jacket with wide sleeves which they wear, contributes still more to render it rather difficult for strangers to distinguish the sexes, especially in middle age. The Lepchas are poor agriculturists; then labours hi this art being confined to the careless growing of rice, Indian corn, niurwa, and a few vegetables, of which the brinjal, cucumber, and capsicum are the chief.

Then habits are incurably erratic. They do not form permanent villages, and rarely remain longer than three years in one place, at the expiration of which they move into a new part of the forest, sometimes near, often distant, and there go through the labour of clearing a space for a house, building a new one, and preparing the ground for a crop. The last-named operation consists in cutting down the smaller trees, lopping off the branches of the large ones, which are burnt, and scratching the soil with the Ban, after which, on the falling of a shower of rain, the seed is thrown into the ground. The Lepchas are a very cheerful and happy race. The flute is their favourite musical instrument. It is of bamboo, with four equidistant holes, and its tone is remarkably low and sweet—"singularly Æolian."

The Khámbá, although now the same in all essentials of language, customs, and habits, as the Rong, is professedly and undoubtedly an emigrant from beyond the Himalaya. The Khámbás represent themselves as having emigrated from a province of China called Khám, which is described as lying to the east and north of Lassa, about thirty days' journey. This province has not been very long annexed to the Chinese empire, and, if the accounts received from the members of the Nipalese missions to Pekin are to be relied on, its rulers and inhabitants are even now far from being well governed and peaceable subjects of the Celestial dynasty. They are represented as a herd of lawless thieves and robbers, through whose country it is scarcely safe to travel, even when under the protection of an escort from the Court of Pekin.—(MS. Documents.)