June, 1850. CUSTOMS OF THE KHASIAS. 275 



contiguous villages. All inflections are made by prefixing 

 syllables, and when using the Hindoo language, the future 

 is invariably substituted for the past tense. They count 

 up to a hundred, and estimate distances by the number 

 of mouthfuls of pawn they eat on the road. 



Education has been attempted by missionaries with par- 

 tial success, and the natives are said to have shown them- 

 selves apt scholars. Marriage is a very loose tie amongst 

 them, and hardly any ceremony attends it. We were 

 informed that the husband does not take his wife home, 

 but enters her father's household, and is entertained there. 

 Divorce and an exchange of wives is common, and attended 

 with no disgrace : thus the son often forgets his father's 

 name and person before he grows up, but becomes strongly 

 attached to his mother. The sister's son inherits both 

 property and rank, and the proprietors' or Rajahs' offspring 

 are consequently often reared in poverty and neglect. The 

 usual toy of the children is the bow and arrow, with which 

 they are seldom expert ; they are said also to spin 

 pegtops like the English, climb a greased pole, and run 

 round with a beam turning horizontally on an upright, to 

 which it is attached by a pivot. 



The Khasias eat fowls, and all meat, especially pork, 

 potatos and vegetables, dried and half putrid fish in 

 abundance, but they have an aversion to milk, which is 

 very remarkable, as a great proportion of their country 

 is admirably adapted for pasturage. In this respect, how- 

 ever, they assimilate to the Chinese, and many Indo-Chinese 

 nations who are indifferent to milk, as are the Sikkim 

 people. The Bengalees, Hindoos, and Tibetans, on the 

 other hand, consume immense quantities of milk. They 

 have no sheep, and few goats or cattle, the latter of 

 which are kept for slaughter ; they have, however, plenty 



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