408 Notes on the Tribes of the Eastern Frontier. [No. 4, 
tribes, having strongly marked Calmuck, or Mongolian features, with 
flat faces and thick lips. Those whom I saw were not in general 
shorter in stature than Bengalis, and were far more muscular and 
strongly made. I was struck, with the fair complexions of many of 
them, scarcely darker than a swarthy Huropean. The villages which 
I visited contained perhaps from 100 to 200 inhabitants each, and 
each house is raised on bamboo piles 4 or 5 feet from the ground. 
This is done, as I was told, partly as a protection against wild beasts, 
and partly to keep the houses out cf the reach of floods after a heavy 
rain ; (1 may remark, that though I heard a good deal of wild animals 
being numerous upon these hills, yet I saw none whatever; indeed 
the hills appeared to be remarkably bare of life, even birds being very 
scarce.) The “'Tipperahs” understand and speak Bengali, the better 
class of them correctly enough and the lower class imperfectly : but 
they conversed with each cther in a dialect of their own, which none 
of my party understocd. They appear tc maintain no caste restrictions, 
and eat any kind of food; even taking with perfect readiness some 
which I offered them. They keep pigs, fowls and pigeons, but they 
do not seem toe have any bullocks, nor did I see any ploughs in their 
villages. 'They cultivate cotton and rice upon patches of the hills 
which they clear of jungle. They pay no rent, I was informed, for 
the lands they occupy; but they pay a nuzzer of cne rupee to the 
Rajah of Tipperah upon every occasion of a marriage among them, 
