168 On the Boksas of Bijnour. [No. 3, 
if it is avoidable, yet they make no special difference on account of 
the risk of fever. Thus those whose turn it is to go out and spend a 
night up in the tdénd, in order to drive away wild beasts from the 
crops, do so in the rains as at other times. Nor are the Boksas the 
only people who may become “ acclimatized.” I met at least one Sdné 
who had spent two complete years in a Boksa clearing and had no 
fever. Again, some others do not so easily undergo the “ acclimatiz- 
ing” process. I inspected one gote of herdsmen from near Almora, of 
whom a certain number had that season (as in other years) remained 
down to tend their herds throughout the rains, a very large propor- 
tion of them had had fever severely and at least one had very bad 
spleen. Very many of these gotvyas suffer severely in the forests during 
the unhealthy season. 
If we cannot as yet explain fully the cause of this difference, I may at 
least state in what respects the habitations of the Boksas and of the 
gotiyas ordinarily differ from each other, more especially as the differ- 
ences observed tend to confirm the truth of modern views as to — 
sanitary improvements. The Boksa villages are generally situated at 
some distance from forest and jungle, in or near the centre of the wide — 
open space comprising their fields; they consist of one very wide, 
roomy, clean street, unencumbered by out-houses, &e., the floors of the 
houses are raised a foot or more above the surface of the ground, and 
are kept beautifully clean; the cattle are almost never lodged under 
the same roof with the human residents, except when there is great 
fear of tigers, and then they are in a separate chamber divided off by 
a well-lipped wattle and dab partition; nor is their dung allowed to 
accumulate close to, far less in the house. 
In almost all these respects, a gote shews a very marked difference 
from a Boksa village. The former consists of immense quadrangular 
sheds, which are not necessarily or often pitched in an open space, but, 
as more frequently happens, are surrounded close up to their doors by — 
forest and brushwood. In these sheds the herdsmen and their herds 
live in common, the former occupying the inner, the latter the outer 
end of a shed. The floors of these are not raised above the level of 
the ground outside, and the dung of the animals is not, so far as I 
could learn, removed for many weeks or months at a time, or at most 
only to just outside the doors, so that the whole place is one vast 

