596 Note on the Limboos, and other Hill Tribes. [No. 102. 



from them in language, religion, and habits, a few among them state 

 that they have heard China mentioned as the land whence they emi- 

 grated, but from what part of that vast empire, and in what age of the 

 world, they are quite unable to give any idea. It is doubtless that 

 they belong to the great Mongolian family of the human race. This 

 is clearly evidenced in their form of features, absence of beard, and 

 yellow colour of the skin, but to which of the numerous divisions of 

 this family, to be found between the Himalaya mountains and the 

 Yellow Sea, they especially belong, and are an offshoot, it remains for 

 the comparisons of their language and their religion, with those of 

 other known or unknown Mongols to decide. Although they have 

 been long in close contact with the Hindoos, there is not any percept- 

 ible mixture of the blood to be observed, in more regular features, or 

 in the absence of the small low nose, and presence of the beard. That 

 they have mixed much, and for long, with the Lepchas, is evident 

 enough from the number of persons to be met with, whose tribe cannot 

 be settled except by a very practised observer, or by reference to the 

 individuals themselves ; and in more recent days, during the last twelve 

 years, since the great migration of the Lepchas from Sikim to the 

 westward has been in progress, the mixture of these two tribes has 

 greatly increased in frequency. The Limboo is a very little taller in 

 stature than the Lepcha, somewhat less fleshy, and more wiry in the 

 limbs, as fair in complexion, and as completely beardless. He is 

 scarcely ever ruddy as the Lepchas sometimes are ; his eyes are if any 

 thing smaller, and placed more to the front than the Lepchas ; and his 

 nose, although somewhat smaller, is rather higher in the bridge than 

 that of the Lepcha. He wears his hair long, but does not plait it into 

 a tail ; has no fancy for bead necklaces ; wears a Kookri instead of the 

 Ban ; and wide trousers and a jacket, or Chupkun, in preference to the 

 robe and long jacket of the Lepchas. To a person used to closely 

 observing the different people of this neighbourhood, it becomes intui- 

 tively easy to recognise a Limboo from a Lepcha by his features and 

 figure alone ; but as no man can describe even his horse or dog, and 

 far less his sheep and camels, leaving out the colours, so as to render 

 them cognizable to another person, neither is it easy to give the differ- 

 ences by which a Limboo is recognised from a Lepcha, in such a manner 

 as to render them obvious to strangers. 



