1874.] C. Brownlow— v4 MiUr Bachelors' Hall. 17 



Mr. Phear said if the identifications were well founded, as to which an 

 opinion could hardly be formed upon the short extract from the paper which 

 had been read, they would be valuable contributions to ancient Hindu his- 

 tory. The interest, and at the same time the difficulty of questions such as 

 those dealt with by the paper, might be illustrated by some curious facts. 

 Col. Dalton in his Ethnology of Bengal remarks, that the dances of the 

 Santal girls of the present day almost precisely correspond with the descrip- 

 tion given in the Vishnu Purana of the dances of the cow-girls in which 

 Krishna formed the centre point, and he, Mr,- Phear, would say from his own 

 observation, that he thought it impossible for any one who witnessed the 

 joyous light-hearted dances of the young people both Oraons and Kols on 

 the Chutia Nagpur plateau not to be at once struck with their resemblance 

 to the scenes of the Puranic traditions. And thus we seemed to have arrived 

 at the noteworthy fact, that marked peculiarities of social manners and habits, 

 which the Puranas depict as obtaining among supposed Aryans of the purest 

 water, are now to be observed among non-Aryans ; and it may be added are 

 to be observed there exclusively, for it is hardly too much to say that the 

 hilarious enjoyment of life, and the vivacious dances still to be seen on the 

 outside of the Hindu populations, have become at this time, whatever was 

 the case in the days of antiquity, foreign to the Hindus. It is also remark- 

 able that perhaps the best illustration, which could be given of the system of 

 internal state administration among the ancient Aryans, so far as it is dis- 

 closed to us by Manu, would be drawn from the actual administrative 

 organization of the Kol, i. e, non- Aryan, community as it existed down to 

 very recent times. 



5. Description of a Bachelor's Hall among the Mihir Trihes, Assam, 

 with certain Symbols connected therewith. — By C. Beownlow, Esq., Kachhar. 



At a point on the Gumrah river where it makes its exit from the north 

 Kachhar range, or rather just where it leaves the higher ridges and comes out 

 among low outlying hillocks on which stands the tea plantation of Kalline- 

 cherra, at this point and nearly opposite the Kallinecherra garden, is one of 

 those old fortifications that occur at points all along the range. 



It consists of an earthwork thrown up along the south face of the hill, 

 and all along the top of the mound there are traces of ancient masonry- 

 work now fallen to pieces or removed. 



The bricks are large and squarish, not very thick, and well burnt. 



xP On the mound stands an immense Artocarpus (Cham) tree, which must 



^ have taken root after the mound was formed and which is certainly not less 



^ and probably much more, than a hundred years old. The west side of the 



fortification is a steep natural scarp descending sheer down to the river, 



and on the east side is a ravine almost equally steep. The position is 



