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On-the Inhabitants ©f 



^s great burthens. Their hands, even thofe of the wives of the Booneabs, 

 bear evident marks of their laborious occupations. 



These people eat all manner of food, even dogs, frogs, fnakes, and 

 the blood of all animals. The laft is baked over a flow fire in hollow 

 green bamboos, till it becomes of a nafty dirty green colour. They are fond 

 of drinking to an excefs. Liquor is put into the mouth of infants, almoft 

 as foon as they are able to fwallow ; they have various forts of fpirits, 

 but that moftly drunk is extracted from rice, foaked in water for three or 

 four days before ufe. Their cookery is fhort, as they only juft heat their 

 provifions % excepting rice and guts, the firft of which is well boiled, 

 and the other Hewed till they are black. Indeed excepting thefe, their 

 animal food is eaten almoll raw. 



In times of fcarcity many of the hill people fubfifl: on the Kehul which in 

 growth is faid to be like the Palmira, and the interior part of the trunk* 

 when pounded, and fleeped in water, is an article of food, in fo much as to 

 be the common means of fuftenance. during a fcarcity of grain. When 

 boiled it is of a gelatinous fubfiance, and taftes when frelh, like a fugar 

 cane : thofe, who can afford it, mix rice with it. They alfo fubfift on the 

 Kutchuy a fort of Yam found in great plenty, about the hills. I faw three 

 forts, though I could not learn they had any feparate name. One has a 

 number of buds on it, is faid to be a cooling medicine, and is eaten boiled or 

 baked. Some of them I brought with me from the hills, and being bruifed 

 in the bafket ufed in bringing them from the hills, I cut off the rotten part, 

 which I found to be of no detriment to their growth, although out of the 

 ground. At Dacca I gave them to Mr. Richard Johnson, who, 

 I underftand, delivered them to Colonel Kyd, the fuperintendant of the 



