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



at such elevations above them as insure them exception from malaria. 

 The above is the small amount of information regarding these people 

 which I have gained at this place from the Limboos and Lepchas, who 

 although constantly seeing these people, do not trouble themselves 

 much about them. As yet the Haioos have not found their way to 

 Darjeeling, although our proximity to their country, will probably ere 

 long add them to our visitors. 



The following notice of these people, is extracted from memoranda 

 made at Cathmandu, where I once only saw a few of the race. 

 Hamilton mentions the Haioos in his account of Nipal. " September 9th 

 1835." " Yesterday being the great day of the Indra Jattra festival we" 

 (the Residency party) " paid our annual autumnal visit to the durbar 

 at 8 p. m. The principal streets of the town were well illuminated, and 

 crowds of cleanly dressed people of all callings, castes, and ages throng- 

 ed the avenues to the palace. Groups of Newari dancers were station- 

 ed at short intervals in the crowd, picturesquely dressed, and suitably 

 masked to represent gods, demons, warriors, and comic characters, 

 and every now and then the dancing ceased, and the performance in 

 pantomine of scenes from the Ramayun and other Hindoo legends, was 

 recommenced. After taking leave of the Raja, we repaired with the 

 minister and some other chiefs to Bussunthpoor, the ministerial resi- 

 dence and place of business, to witness a nautch performed by a 

 strange tribe of hill people, recently arrived from the eastward, deno- 

 minated Haioo. The nautch was indeed a singular one, and novel ; 

 about thirty males and as many females were drawn up in line, as 

 closely packed as possible, the first a man, the next a woman, and so on 

 alternately, not standing side by side but back to belly, and all holding 

 on to each other by throwing forward the hands and grasping the arms 

 of the persons in front. The column thus formed, and preceded by 

 half a dozen men beating drums and cymbals, and shouting in a bar- 

 barous dialect what was said to be a metrical lament, moved slowly in 

 a circle, nodding and keeping time to the music. In this fashion, and 

 so closely packed that the circle of sixty individuals had the appear- 

 ance of a machine with a row of heads and feet set in motion, did they 

 revolve and mourn for an hour. 



" The dress of the women was romantic enough, and very becoming ; 

 a tartan jacket reaching to the waist, and fitting close to the bust, a 



