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clan had been victorious. Slabs of sand-stone set on edge here 

 and there (besmeared with the blood of some auimal) he told us 

 were in memory of the tigers that had been killed : thus far I count- 

 ed five of these marks, the blood-stains on the last still being 

 fresh. Acheenoung was a capital companion, and full of anecdote 

 and information. Now he pointed to a craig in the far distance 

 occupied by the Kakhyen hamlet of Kyoungtoung, which we pre- 

 sently came to, and found to comprise nine houses of the usual 

 type. It was approached by a cul-de-sac : we halted here a few 

 minutes beneath a zizyphus tree, the fruit of which all commenced 

 to gather. The place was almost deserted, the inhabitants being 

 out harvesting. At a distance of some two miles further on, we 

 left to our west a small group of buildings known as Kottar, 

 inhabited by recent settlers, who were still busy clearing and 

 constructing terraces for cultivation. Mantat, the next Kakhyen 

 village, met en route, is one of considerable size and importance. 

 We were detained here some little time, while our guide called on the 

 Tswabwa to demand the tusks of an elephant his clan had wounded 

 within his limits some months ago, and ultimately tracked up and 

 killed within the Kowkar Tswabwaship last week. This placed us in 

 rather an awkward position, for it was probable that we might have 

 been drawn into the dispute, and indeed it almost appeared as though 

 Acheenoung had brought us this way for the express purpose of 

 assistance. Fortunately, the Tswabwa was not at home, and 

 although his wife, family, and Pomine were present, and the ele- 

 phant's tusks rested against the posts of the verandah, yet it not 

 being customary with these people during an unsettled dispute to 

 enter one another's houses in the absence of the male proprietor, 

 I was glad to find the matter had to lie over for future discussion. 

 Mantat was once the seat of the Ayandoomar clan, who, after a 

 blood-feud extending over three years, were finally defeated and 

 ousted ; they have since established themselves on the banks of 

 the river in a village bearing the name of the clan. Certainly, 

 Mantat is the largest and most flourishing Kakhyen village I had 

 yet seen : it numbers some forty substantially built houses, and 

 allowing each house contained thirty inhabitants, the population 

 would have amounted to 1,200. Besides the usual ornamentation 

 in the form of animals' skulls and trophies of a similar nature, the 

 Tswabwa s house was decorated with bamboo appointments. At 

 the four corners of the building were carved open-work bamboo 

 bells, suspended by a chain of the same material cut out of a single 

 culm, and finished off with a sort of coronet and fibrous fringe also 

 of bamboo. The day was fast drawing to a close, and our guide 

 proposed taking a short cut, which meant proceeding in a straight 



