124 ASSAM AND RHINOCEROS 



healthy in parts, and the fever-stricken inhabitants 

 reminded me of the Maremma folk of old days. 



The population seems to be a collection of 

 various races, chiefly Mongolian: the Mech, the 

 Rabha, the Kachari, and the Garos all very wild- 

 looking and mostly somewhat yellow; but there are 

 also considerable numbers of Santhals, who come 

 from the Nagpur districts and who are quite black. 



The province generally appeared to me to have 

 been administratively neglected, and the ex- 

 ecutive staff seemed to be overworked and 

 somewhat discouraged. 



The weather on the whole was fair. Brilliant 

 and intensely hot sun one day. Cloudy and almost 

 chilly another day, with violent, pitiless hail- 

 storms thrown in. 



The Brahmaputra is a beautiful river, the banks 

 where I was being rocky, often high, and covered 

 with trees and shrubs of the brightest green. Some 

 of the bends of the river are not unlike narrow 

 bits of a Swiss lake. I have enjoyed it all in- 

 tensely, but I have contracted a severe attack of 

 malignant tertiary fever. 



