128 Notes on the Dophlds and their Language. [No. 2. 



surface ; which, though nowhere troubled with excessive heat, is so 

 by excessive moisture, generating a rank vegetation, considerably aided 

 by a deep stratum of luxuriant soil. 



The Dophlas are divided into innumerable petty clans, who maintain 

 among themselves an oligarchical form of government, and acknowledge 

 the authority of from two or three, to as many as thirty or forty chiefs 

 in each clan. The influence exerted by these chiefs, seems to be mild in 

 the extreme. The people appear to have no legal provisions whatever 

 for the well-being and conservation of society — the enlightened end 

 of civilized legislation — and yet exhibit among themselves in an emi- 

 nent degree, that social order which is the greatest blessing and 

 highest pride of the social state. A sort of tacit common-sense law 

 governs them, which notwithstanding all that has been written on the 

 inborn lawlessness of the human race, has its precepts graven on 

 every breast. The grand principles of virtue and honour, however 

 they may be distorted by arbitrary codes, are the same all the world 

 over ; and where these principles are concerned, the right or wrong 

 of any action appears the same to the uncultivated as to the enlight- 

 ened mind. And it is to this indwelling, this universally diffused 

 perception of what is just or otherwise, that the integrity of these 

 mountaineers in their intercourse with each other is to be attributed. 



Their ideas of religion are exceedingly crude. They acknowledge 

 the existence of one Supreme Creator and Ruler of the world, but Him 

 they never worship, and their religious rites consist almost exclusively 

 in the propitiation, by offerings and sacrifices, of the spirits or Genii, 

 whom they believe to inhabit their hills. Their worship consists of 

 invocations of protection for the people, and their crops and domestic 

 animals, — and of thanksgivings when recent troubles are passed. 

 Sacrifices are considered more worthy than oiferings, and hogs and 

 fowls are the animals most frequently sacrificed. Libations of ferment- 

 ed liquor always accompany their sacrifices, and as every sacrifice gives 

 occasion for a feast, the people on these occasions indulge pretty freely 

 in copious potations. The ofhce of the priesthood, is not an indefea- 

 sible right vested in any family, nor is the profession at all exclusive. 

 Whoever chooses to qualify himself, may become a priest, and may 

 give up the profession whenever he sees fit. Diseases are supposed to 

 arise entirely from preternatural agency, hence the priests are also 



