624 Note on the Mechis. [August, 



at Nagol Bundi, on the right bank of the Mechi river, there are about 

 20 families; at Kalikajhar about the same number; and, west from 

 these places, in the thickest parts of the forest, there are several small 

 colonies, amounting in all to about 150 or 200 families. In the Sikim 

 Turai, between the Mechi river and the Mahanuddi, there are about 

 400 families ; to the east of the Teestah river, and in the Dooars of 

 Bootan they are still more numerous, and to this latter portion of their 

 habitat they point as the original seat of the tribe, although its name 

 would indicate its derivation from the Mechi river. I believe that 

 Mechis are also to be found on the northern confines of Lower Assam. 



The tribes immediately in contact and mixed with the Mechis, are 

 the Koochias or Rajbungsi Bengalese, (whose original country is Kooch 

 Behar,) the Dimals, Thawas, and Garrows. These neighbours of the 

 hills are the Limboos, Kerantis, Lepchas, Murmis, and Bhotias ; of these 

 several tribes, I hope to furnish some particulars anon. As they associate 

 much with the former, and frequently meet the latter at the frontier 

 marts, their habits and manners are naturally a good deal modified by 

 the contact ; still their peculiar usages, form of religion, language, and 

 appearance, entitle them to the acknowledgment of their claim as a 

 distinct people. They are fairer than the Koochias, and have little of 

 the regular features of the Hindoo, which characterize that tribe. The 

 cast of the Mech countenance is strongly Mongolian, but accompanied 

 by a softness of outline which distinguishes them readily from the 

 more marked features of the same order — of the Lepchas, Limboos, 

 and Bhotias. They resemble the Newars of the valley of Nipal, in 

 complexion and feature, more than any other people I have seen in 

 or near these mountains; they are taller, however, and the fairness 

 of complexion is entirely of a yellow tinge, whereas the Newars are 

 frequently almost ruddy. Many of the Mechis strongly resemble the 

 Mugs and Burmese in face and figure, and like them are much 

 addicted to drinking spirits, smoking, and eating pawn. In common 

 with the Assamese, they are fond of opium eating. 



They never live on the hills at a higher elevation than 800 or 

 1,000 feet, and scarcely ever settle in the cleared and inhabited parts of 

 the Turai, but, keep entirely to the forest in which they make clearances, 

 cultivating crops of rice and cotton with the hoe, and grazing buffaloes. 

 The malaria of the forest so deadly to strangers, does not at all aifect 

 them ; on the contrary, they are a remarkably healthy race, and dread 

 visiting the plains, where they are subject to severe fevers. They have 

 no towns, and rarely even live in permanent villages, generally quit- 

 ting a clearance after having had two or three successive crops from the 

 land, to take up their abodes in a fresh portion of the forest. In the 



