1868.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 193 



servative of their customs as such races are, it is scarcely likely that 

 they would have forgotten it. It is therefore not unreasonable to 

 suppose that there was a period, anterior to the advent of the Hindus, 

 when iron was quite unknown to them, when, owing to the absence 

 of cultivation in the plains, they were even still more dependent on 

 the supply of jungle food than they are at present. 



In those times their axes and their implements for grubbing up roots, 

 were in ail probability made of stone, and their arrows had tips made 

 of the same material. 



Owing to the timidity of the Kheriahs, I have not had many oppor- 

 tunities of speaking to them ; frequently, on my approach to a house, 

 the whole family fled, and hid themselves in the jungle, at other times 

 I have found the houses empty, all the family having gone out into 

 the jungle to collect food. 



On several occasions, however, I have had the men brought into 

 camp, when I have questioned them as to their language and customs ; 

 in this way I have formed a vocabulary which, however at present in a 

 crude state, I hope to have further opportunities of testing its accuracy, 

 and correcting it by the elimination of words of Bengali and Hindi 

 origin. 



In their persons, the Kheriahs are very dirty, seldom if ever wash- 

 ing themselves. Their features are decidedly of a low character not 

 unlike the Bhumij ; but there seemed to me to be an absence of any 

 strongly marked type in their faces or build, such as enables one to 

 know a Sonthal, and even a Kurmi, at a glance. They undoubtedly 

 belong, however, to the races who excited so much disgust on the part 

 of the Hindus, when they first came into the country, and whom the 

 author of the ' Annals of Rural Bengal,' quoting from the Sanscrit > 

 calls in language probably more appropriate when first written than 

 now, " The black- skinned, human-sacrificing, flesh-eating, forest 

 tribes." 



Some conversation ensued in which Dr. D. B. Smith, Mr. Woodrow, 

 Dr. Ewart, and Mr. Ball, took part. 



