185.5.] Memorandum on an unknown Forest Race. 207 



Memorandum on an unknown Forest Race (of Indian Veddas ?) in- 

 habiting the Jungles South of Palmow ; and on the deserted city 

 ofDhoolmee in Manbhoom. — By Henry Piddington. 



About the year 1 824 or 25, being then extensively engaged in 

 Coffee-plantings I used to have large gangs of Dhangur and Cole 

 coolies coming direct from their country to work on the plantations. 

 The principal factory where I resided was, so to say, accessible by 

 one road only, being situated in a deep nook formed by an extensive 

 jheel. 



Shortly after the arrival of a large gang of Dhangur coolies, I 

 noticed on my rides and walks that great numbers of the village 

 people were constantly coming and going to and from the factory. 

 They used always to come and go freely on their little affairs with 

 the coolies or servants of the establishment, but the concourse now 

 was almost like that to a hat or meld. Remarking this, I at length 

 enquired of my principal assistant, a very respectable Portuguese 

 man, what the reason of it was. He told me in reply, that the peo- 

 ple were flocking from all quarters to see what they called the 

 " monkey people." Upon enquiring who these people were, he 

 informed me that with the last gang of Dhangurs there had arrived 

 two persons a man and a woman, " who are exactly like great mon- 

 kies, Sir, and the natives call them the monkey people (^TfTjT C^Tt^). 

 They cannot even talk the Dhangur language properly, Sir, but have 

 a language of their own." 



I desired these persons to be sent for, and certainly they in 

 all respects, and especially the man, justified the epithet which 

 the villagers had applied to them. He was short, flat-nosed, had 

 pouch-like wrinkles in semicircles round the corners of the mouth 

 and cheeks, his arms were disproportionately long, and there was a 

 portion of reddish hair to be seen on the rusty black skin. Altoge- 

 ther if crouched in a dark corner, or on a tree, he might well have 

 been mistaken for a large Orang-Utang. The woman was equally 

 ugly : I shall state presently why I did not take down an exact 



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