OF KAMAON. - 151 



assistance, exhibited such extraordinary incongruitys both with respect to 

 the proportion o£ males and females, and to the average rate of inhabitants 

 to each house in different villages, that no reliance could be placed on them. 

 This inaccuracy must be ascribed, no doubt, to a suspicion on the part 

 of the land-holders, that the information was required solely with a view to 

 some fiscal arrangement, as, under the former government, the amount of the 

 cultivating population had formed one of the principal grounds in the adjust- 

 ment of the village assessment. A recourse to the mode now adopted was, 

 therefore, found to be unavoidable ; and it remains to consider the principle 

 on which the estimated average has been founded. 



The state of population in the towns does not afford an exact criterion 

 on which to form a judgment of that in the interior, as the inhabitants of the 

 former, from the difficulties of procuring grain, are compelled to maintain a 

 part of their family in villages. To this cause must be ascribed the smallness 

 of the average exhibited in Almora and Srinagar, the former being five and a 

 half, and the latter not quite four and a quarter to each house, a rate which by 

 no means corresponds with the size of the houses, or can be reconciled to the 

 custom of the country. The erection of a house, from the nature of its mate- 

 rials, requires a very considerable outlay : this consideration tends greatly to 

 check the subdivision and separation of families, and many generations are 

 constantly to be found residing under the same roof. Under these circum» 

 stances, the proportion now assumed, of six and a half residents to each house, 

 will not perhaps be thought excessive. Taking, therefore, the number of 

 houses in Kamaon oxid. the annexed pergunnas of Gerhwal, as exhibited in 

 statement (a) at 44,569, the above average will yield a population for the 

 interior, including Bhote, 289,698 souls. To this must be added the inha- 

 bitants of the towns, amounting to 7348, and if a further addition of 4000 

 be made for troops, camp followers, and civil establishments, the total of 

 the residents in the province may be estimated at 300,046, giving about 27:^ 



