1851.] Notes upon a Tour through the Rdjmahal Hills, 505 



disinterestedness in the matter, had given me as much pleasure in the 

 making as it had him in the receiving, he seemed partly satisfied, but 

 repeated the question at intervals during my stay at the village. 



The men of these central hills tie their hair much more on the back 

 of the head than do the men further north, neither have they the 

 flattened noses nor such thick lips as their northern brethren ; neither 

 do they pay that attention to dressing their hair or ornamenting their 

 ears or necks with beads and trinkets which is so striking a feature 

 in the northern tribes ; the women in the same manner have scarcely 

 any ornaments, are poorly dressed and untidy in their appearance ; 

 their great distance from any market or bazar may in a measure account 

 for the difference of dress. 



The Mangi gave me six young men with axes to cut a road through 

 the forest ; I started in a northerly direction through the finest sakua 

 jungle I have yet seen in the hills ; the trees are all of the very largest 

 growth, affording an abundance of good timber ; a few sal and dhow 

 trees are in company with the sakua. 



To my right, as the path inclined to the west, I had a high range 

 of thickly wooded hills ; to the left a deep valley filled with fine Son- 

 thai clearings, the road lying along a perfectly level steppe of trap, the 

 decomposition of which has clothed the hills with a jet black soil, 

 highly productive of vegetable life. As usual the forest met over head 

 forming a complete shelter from the sun's rays. 



On these hills, I found an abundance of a bulbous root, which I 

 take to be the squill, it is as large as a common onion and intensely 

 bitter ; the Sonthals use it to thicken newly woven cloth, by applying 

 its bitter juice to the surface of the piece. 



On the right of our party and far up the hill, a furious drumming 

 and screaming was being carried on, which proved to be a party of 

 hill-men driving from the neighbourhood a leopard that had been 

 annoying their cattle. 



In the thickest parts of the jungle, I fell in with several places of 

 worship as used by the hill-men ; the spots are generally occupied by 

 two upright posts supporting a horizontal one. On the latter were 

 threaded so to speak, several old baskets, calabashes, earthern pots, 

 rings of date leaf, an old wooden mortar without a bottom, bundles of 

 leaves tied up like a porter's knot, bamboo winnowing baskets and 



4 g 2 



