168 On the Boksas of Bijnour. [No. 3, 



if it is avoidable, yet they make no special difference on account of 

 the risk of fever. Thus those whose turn it is to go out and spend a 

 night up in the tdnd, in order to drive away wild beasts from the 

 crops, do so in the rains as at other times. Nor are the Boksas the 

 only people who may become " acclimatized." I met at least one Sdni 

 who had spent two complete years in a Boksa clearing and had no 

 fever. Again, some others do not so easily undergo the " acclimatiz- 

 ing" process. I inspected one gote of herdsmen from near Almora, of 

 whom a certain number had that season (as in other years) remained 

 down to tend their herds throughout the rains, a very large propor- 

 tion of them bad had fever severely and at least one bad very bad 

 spleen. Very many of these gotiyas suffer severely in the forests during 

 the unhealthy season. 



If we cannot as yet explain fully the cause of this difference, I may at 

 least state in what respects the habitations of the Boksas and of the 

 gotiyas ordinarily differ from each other, more especially as the differ- 

 ences observed tend to confirm the truth of modern views as to 

 sanitary improvements. The Boksa villages are generally situated at 

 some distance from forest and jungle, in or near the centre of the wide 

 open space comprising their fields; they consist of one very wide, 

 roomy, clean street, unencumbered by out-houses, &c, the floors of the 

 houses an; raised a foot or more above the surface of the ground, and 

 arc kept beautifully clean ; the cattle are almost never lodged under 

 the same roof with the human residents, except when there is great 

 tear of tigers, and tlum they are in a separate chamber divided off by 

 a well-lipped wattle and dab partition; nor is their dung allowed to 

 accumulate close to, far less in the house. 



In almost all these respects, a gote shews a very marked difference 

 from a Boksa village. The former consists of immense quadrangular 

 shids, which are not necessarily or often pitched in an open space, but, 

 as more frequently happens, are surrounded close up to their doors by 

 forest and brushwood. In these sheds the herdsmen and their herds 

 live in common, the former pecupying the inner, the latter the outer 

 end of a shed. The floors of these are not raised above the level of 

 the ground outside, and the dung of the animals is not, so far as I 

 (■•nil. I learn, removed for many weeks or months at a time, or at most 

 only to just outside the doors, so that the whole place is one vast 



