710 Account of Arakan, [No. 117. 



goes to the sky ; all men, whether good or bad, go there. Our fathers 

 who have gone before, we see in dreams, and they see us." 



I learnt from Leng-kung some particulars respecting the Tsein-dus 

 nation. It consists of the following clans : — 



1. Tjin-dza,'' 8. Ting-lhoul, 



2. Za-tang, 9. T'i-a-dai, 



3. Keng-lot, 10. Rul-hu, 



4. Lhon-shiriy 11. Boi-kheng, 



5. Til-teng, 12. Chung-ngla^ 



6. Rwol-lweng, 13. Hlaing-ju, 



7. MHhul, 



This last clan the Lung-khe chief originally belonged to; there are 

 still some villages of it, he said, remaining among the Tsein-dus. 



The Tsein-dus observe the same ceremonies in burying their dead 

 that have been mentioned above. Their country is very extensive, 

 fifteen days' journey, my informant said, from one end to the other. f 

 There are several hundred villages of them. The village sites are not 

 moved periodically like those of the Ku-mis and Lwig-khes, for much 

 of their cultivation is in elevated plains, and comparatively broad 

 valleys, which admit of continued cultivation ; they work with hoes 

 or spades, not ploughs ; they have not so much cotton and rice as the 

 Ku-mis^ but a greater variety of vegetables, as yams, pumpkins, &c. 

 They manufacture their own salt from brine springs existing in their 

 country ; the salt, said my informant, " is like stone, white and some- 

 what bitter in flavour ;" to obtain it, they boil the brine in iron vessels, 

 which they obtain from the province of Yan in Burmah. No salt is 

 obtained from bamboo ; in fact my informant declared positively there 

 were no bamboos in the Tsein-du country, a statement scarcely credi- 

 ble ; the houses are built entirely of plank ; the roofs are of plank for 

 great men, but the poorer classes use grass ; men chiefly perform field 

 labour ; the wives of very poor men only perform out-door work. The 

 religious notions of the Tsein-dus correspond with those of the Lung- 

 khe chief. 



* The head of this clan is Van-u, whose sister named Terk-rhal, Leng-kung 

 married. 



f I have been informed that Kumi tribes bordering on the Tsein-dus have heard 

 from them of white foreigners far to the North, to whom some of their clans paid 

 tribute. The country these clans paid to, they called A-syn. It can scarcely be 

 Assam; they may probably mean Cachar. But it is certain that they are acquainted 

 with the fact of Europeans having possessions to the north of them. 



