MY JOURNEY CONTINUED TO ASHAKA 209 



like the wheat-ear's, in his quick flight from rock to rock 

 and sudden cock of tail as he settles to utter his chattering 

 song. The path I took wound picturesquely up the hill, 

 sometimes climbing, where the side was steep, up steps cut 

 in the rock, at others taking its way by little passes in 

 the boulders, through tunnels of green leaves and natural 

 arches made by fallen rocks, to round a corner and discover 

 a crowd of naked children, who scampered off with cries to 

 the little cluster of huts that were perched half hidden in the 

 green upon a ledge of the hill. These were the dwelHngs of 

 Kagorra folk — whose hamlets were sprinkled in Httle groups 

 all over the hill. 



These pagan hill people are of fine build, but have coarse 

 and disagreeable features very much like the Munchi, 

 whom they resemble in their scanty costume, the men 

 wearing no more than a conventional covering, and the 

 women nothing at all. They are keen hunters and fighters, 

 using poisoned arrows, and their predilection is head-hunting. 

 They are continually raiding the gentler natives of the plain 

 as they work in the fields, and cutting their heads off. They 

 use small hill ponies the size of Shetlands, by means of 

 which they keep up a perfect system of communication 

 from one hill to another. Their huts are made of mud, 

 cemented on to the projecting rocks, with the floor generally 

 much lower than the entrance. In one of them I came 

 across a row of human skulls carefully polished and strung 

 together ; in others there were the little ponies hidden away. 

 From my tent at the foot of the hill I watched these 

 curious people squatting in groups like so many monkeys 

 and basking in the sun for hours at a time on the great 

 I o 



