1866 ] Diseases of the Karens. Daf 
distant are nearly exempt, though located on the same hills, with the 
same geological formation. Three or four days’ journey beyond this, 
in an extensive region, where the rocks are exclusively secondary 
limestone, goitre is:again found in. excess, while other villages, on the 
same limestone range, are quite free from the disease. In neither of 
these districts has any metallic mineral been found. Still, there must 
be something special in the localities where it abounds to produce it; 
but what that is, remains to be discovered. All that can be said of it 
with certainty is, that it is a disease of the hills, for it is not found on 
the plains; nor did I ever meet with it on the hills in the Tenasserim 
Provinces. The Karens attribute it to the soil, and say. that the dis- 
ease is caught by eating beans, pumpkins, and other vegetables raised 
in the infected locality, and by drinking the water that runs through 
it. Their theory has probably some foundation in fact. 
Fowls and hogs that the Karens raise, are occasionally attacked by 
a violent disease by which they die off as.if they had the cholera ; and 
buffaloes. on the plains are subject. to a like complaint. 
Worms. 
Hntozoa are very abundant. The round worm, ascuris lwmbricoides, 
is often vomited up by Karens, both children and adults, The com- 
mon tape worm, tenia solum, is.a common inhabitant of the bowels, as 
are also thread worms, ascaris vermicularis. 
Deratu. 
When an elder among the Bghais,. with a large number of descend- 
ants, dies, the people build a place in the hall for the deposit of the 
corpse, and they hew a coffin out of the body of a tree, and hew a 
cover for it, like the Chinese coffins. ‘ 
The body lies in state three or four days, and during the time men 
blow pipes, and the young men and maidens march round the corpse 
to the music. At night, the piping is discontinued, and singing is 
substituted. 
When the piping and marching is not going forward, the exercises 
are diversified by weeping and mourning; or by the men knocking 
pestles together, and others showing their dexterity by putting their 
hands or heads in between, and yibhdrawane them quickly before the 
missiles come together again. 
