1841.] Account of Arakan. 705 



These are cut to the required size for the platform and roof supports, 

 split and crushed for the walls and floor ; the leaves formed into slate- 

 like pieces, bound with battens ; thin strips are cut to tie the whole fa- 

 bric together, and in less than an hour, out of the confused rush of fifty 

 dark forms, each has found his proper place and work, and there stands 

 a comfortable house, which will shelter one from a severe storm, 

 should it appear. 



The villages of the remoter tribes are generally built on the tops 

 of hills not easy of access ; in these situations there is a scarcity of 

 water for six months in the year, and the people are obliged to 

 descend daily to the lowest dells for that necessary of life. These 

 villages are invariably stockaded, and the ground in the vicinity 

 thickly studded with sharp bamboo spikes, to prevent the approach 

 of foes ; they are as hard as iron, and to bare- footed men are a great 

 hindrance, especially in the night time. The tribes somewhat within 

 our border, have abandoned or neglected this system of stockading 

 their villages, and unfortunately some of them have suffered severely ; 

 but no tribe within our border has attaciied another so situated 

 since April 1837.* Different clans of Ku-mis attack each other ; there 

 is a feeling of jealousy between clans of the same tribe living upon 

 different streams, and those clans of Ku-mis living beyond the British 

 frontier, consider those within as fair game. Their native arms for attack 

 and defence are spears, bows, arrows, and square leathern shields, about 

 three and a half feet long, by two feet broad. Even the most distant 

 tribes now possess muskets and ammunition, which are conveyed 

 up the Kola-dan by petty merchants, and thence passed from tribe to 

 tribe far into the interior. They use poisoned arrows in the chase, 

 but I think not in war. 



One grand necessary of life — salt, the remote tribes have great 

 difficulty in procuring. The Ku-mis of the Kola-dan procure it and 

 salt fish from Akyah ; among them it is plentiful. The tribe living 

 higher up the Kola-dan^ beyond the British frontier, receive a good 

 deal from Cox's Bazar, through the Khy-oung-thas, living in the hills 

 east of Ramoo. Some tribes further removed, and isolated by savage 

 feuds, cannot procure salt at all times, so content themselves with an 



* When a terrible slaughter was made of a Khyeng village on the Le-myo, by a 

 Kumi chief of the Kola-dan. 



