KHAMTI TO INDIA 



behind us in the mountains. We could not but feel very anxious 

 till we could succour them. As an immediate measure, people were 

 set to work preparing rice for the relief column. 



The village we had lit upon was Bouniang, on a confluent of 

 the Nam-Dapha, two days from Bishi. The inhabitants and their 

 language were strange to us. They were styled Khamangs by our 

 guide. These Khamangs, I discovered, were no other than the 

 Mishmis, the English calling them by the latter and the Singphos 

 by the former name. I was glad of the chance of seeing these 

 noted IVIishmis, of such fierce repute, among whom Fathers Krik 

 and Bourry met their death, and who are opposing the English by 

 the Dzayul valley. They are more like the Pais than the Kioutses, 

 being almost brown, with rather large noses and cheek-bones, and 

 small chins. They wear their hair in a knot on the top of their 

 head, and are clad in a sleeveless coat to the knees, open in front, 

 and a loin cloth ; over their shoulders they occasionally throw a 

 covering like the Pais, either striped brown or all scarlet. Their 

 ears are pierced with a metal tube, to which sometimes a ring is 

 hung. Slung across the shoulder are a slender sword, and a pouch 

 made of the skin of a wild animal. The women have in front of 

 their hair a silver crescent held behind by cowries, and the knot 

 above is transfixed by wooden pins. A thin silver circlet with a 

 small cock's feather is fastened to the upper part of the ear, and 

 necklets of brass wire or glass ware are also seen. They wear a 

 sort of waistcoat, brown, short-sleeved, and cut in to the figure 

 before and behind. 



The dwellings were small, and on piles. The construction of 

 their tombs seemed to point to a more religious, or at any rate super- 

 stitious, character than that of the Kioutses we had hitherto met, 

 nor were they less distinguished from them in their bellicose 



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