ASAM AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES. 373 



they are of four or five inches diameter, and beaten into a carved or spheri- 

 cal form, but they appear to be rather ornamental than useful ; a pouch 

 of monkey's skin at the girdle is also suspended to a belt containing 

 tobacco, the small pipe, and the case for flint and tinder, armed on one side 

 with a strong steel. Both this and the pipe are commonly of Chinese manu- 

 facture, and are frequently engraved with letters. The Chinese of Yunan, 

 readily interpreted the characters upon one, to signify " made at the shop 



of" " should it prove bad please to bring it back to the maker, who 



will exchange it." A spear is constantly carried in the hand, the head of 

 which is manufactured by themselves, of soft iron, procured from the 

 Singfos, the shaft is of a porous and brittle wood, and it has little 

 resemblance of a weapon fitted for war. Their swords are Chinese made, 

 very long and perfectly straight, and of equal breadth, ornamented 

 sometimes with a kind of red hair. They have excellent cross bows. 



The Chiefs are seen wrapped in long cloaks of Thibetan woollens, or 

 in handsome jackets of the same, generally dj r ed red or striped with many 

 colours. The head dress is not remarkable : in the fields, it is merely a 

 hemispherically-shaped cap of split cane, and in their homes they prefer to 

 wear a red strip of muslin, encircling the head as a turban: their ear-rings 

 differ according to their wealth ; those most esteemed (and when the lobe of 

 the ears has been sufficiently extended) are formed of a cylinder of thin 

 plate silver, tapering in diameter to the center : the latter being often one 

 inch, and the former one inch and a half. 



The wives of the Chiefs are habited in petticoats, brought from the 

 plains; they wear a profusion of beads, frequently a dozen strings, and 

 when they are of a sort of white porcelain, their equipment must 

 weigh at least ten pounds; other necklaces are of colorless glass, mixed 

 with oblong pieces of coarse cornelian, and all of Thibetan or Chinese 

 manufacture. The ornament for the head is a plate of silver, as thin as 



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