Tlie Ethnology of India. 149 



to be something like the Mongols from beyond the Chinese wall, as 

 described in recent accounts. The Lopas, &c. of Bhootan seem to 

 be more difficult to deal with. Farther east are y I believe, still wilder 

 Thibetan tribes. All these people are idle, but very powerful ; and 

 when they do work, they cany enormous loads, both men and women. 

 They are said to carry up to Darjeeling as much as 250 lbs. in a 

 single load. And at some of the Hill Stations on the Eastern 

 Frontiers of Bengal, I understand it is the fashion that a European 

 visitor is carried up the hill in a basket on the back of an old woman. 



The people of the Eastern Frontier. 



The peqile of the very lowest hills of Bhootan and of all the low 

 country at their foot arc of another race, the Meches or Mcchis (before 

 alluded to in marking the boundaries of the Indian Aborigines), who 

 are apparently the same as Hodgson's " Bodo." They are, it appears, 

 now quite ascertained by their language to be Indo-Chinese of the 

 Lohitic or Burmese branch of the Turanian family, a connexion 

 which their physiognomy confirms. They seem to be a good-sized, 

 fair, but rather yellow-looking people, They are described as rude 

 in their agriculture (using the hoe, not the plough), and erratic in 

 their habits, but good-natured and tolerably industrious. They pro- 

 fess a kind of debased Hinduism, but are very omnivorous in their 

 habits. The Dimals are a smaller but somewhat similar tribe, 

 speaking a language which in some degree differs. 



Passing over the Garrow and Cossya Hills to Cachar, the Cachar 

 people again are of the same race as the Mechis. So, it would appear 

 (so far as I can gather), are the Nagas, Abors, and some other tribes 

 in the hills bordering on Assam. There are aboriginal tribes of 

 Tipperah and Munneepore, but of their ethnology I am not informed. 

 In the Cossya hills are an isolated body of people of the Taic or 

 Siamese race. Of this race were the Ahoms who once ruled Assam, 

 as are, it appears, the Khamtis and some other tribes of the more 

 distant hills of that Province ; also the Shan tribes of the Burmese 

 interior. The Karens are, I rather think, Lohitic. It is evident, 

 however, that on this Eastern Frontier I have got into a vast 

 ethnological region, with which I have no personal acquaintance, and 

 with which I cannot deal farther than to point out the vast field for 



