PART II.] Half -putrescent State of Fish, an Injudicious Diet. 



447 



Kumaon are even dirtier than their Kumaonee brethren. It is said they never 

 wash, such an act being considered by them as one certain to be followed by some 

 grievous misfortune, and yet they are, we are informed, practically free from leprosy.* 

 The census of Kumaon has been taken on three occasions within the last 

 twenty years — in 1852, 1864, and in 1872. The population on the last occasion 

 was found to be 406,042, and showed an increase of 46,000 during the twenty 

 years following the first census. This population is equal to about one-third of 

 that of North and South Wales together, and yields a mean of 58 persons to the 

 square mile. 



TABLE IV. 

 Population of the District of Kumaon. 



During our stay at Almora, General Ramsay very kindly placed these returns at 

 our disposal, and appointed a clerk to transcribe the data regarding the number of 

 lepers from the original census papers which were written in the vernacular. 



These were arranged under the immediate supervision of the Officiating Junior 

 Assistant Commissioner, Mr. Gr. H. Batten, to whom we are greatly indebted for the 

 care with which he sifted the statistical records for us. 



The country is divided into nineteen sub-districts or parganas, each of which 



* The " Report on the Census of British Burma " which, as already mentioned, reached us whilst 

 this Report was in " proof," contains the following remarks regarding the improbability of the dirty habits 

 of the people being, in the case of the Burmese, a predisposing cause of leprosy : — " This high ratio in 

 British Burma is deserving of attention. With reference to the conditions uiider which it has been 

 observed chiefly to prevail in other countries, it may be noted that the Burmese are neither a dirty nor an 

 under-fed people, although it has been stated that they are addicted to injudicious forms of diet. How 

 far the consumption of unwholesome wild vegetables, and fish in a partially salted, half-putrescent state, is 

 responsible for the presence of leprosy, it is beyond the scope of this summary to inquire." 



The preparation of fish referred to is the well-known " Ngap6," which Colonel Yule thus describes : 



" The paste of mashed and pickled fish, resembling very rank shrimp-paste, which is the . favourite 

 condiment of the Indo-Chinese races. It is the Balachon/j of the Malays, and the Xapee of Siam. 

 Putrescent fish, in some shape or other, is a characteristic article of diet among all these races, from the 

 mountains of Sylhet to the isles of the Archipelago. To the Chinese also, Sir John Bowring observes, fish 

 is the more acceptable when it has a strong fi-agrance and flavour to give more gusto to the rice." With 

 regard to the extent of its consumption in Burma, Colonel Yule mentions in another passage that during 

 the year, from 1st November, 1854, to 1st November, 1855, 13,500 tons of JVgape passed through the 

 custom-house at Thayetmyo as export from British to Independent Burma.— Yule's Mission to the Court 

 of Ava. 



In connection with this subject, compare the foregoing with the remarks regarding leprosy in Sicily iji 

 the footnote at page 483. 



