206 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
so that it is impossible for the wearer to take an 
extended step, the extreme inconvenience of which, 
in a mountainous country, may be readily conceived. 
The villages of the Burgas are as singular, and 
apparently as comfortable, as the apparel of the 
females. They are built upon the hill-side, so as to 
form three faces of a square, with the open side 
towards the valley ; the whole range being divided 
into cots, the dimensions whereof must certainly 
require that the inmates, considering their usual 
numbers, should be stowed away in layers reaching to 
the roof. What the arrangement may really be I 
am unable to declare, but certain it is, that in the 
evening when all have returned home, however full 
the huts may seem to be of chattering men, the 
common square is filled with scolding women and 
naked screaming children. Yet at night all have 
retired within their narrow domiciles, and nothing 
w T ould indicate the presence of so great a multitude, 
save a loud yet stifled noise, which might be taken 
for the hard breathing of the gigantic Bam, suffering 
under the oppression of an elephantine night-mare. 
The Thodas are in every respect superior to their 
fellow-mountaineers, the Kotas and Burgas, par- 
taking more of the character of highlanders, being 
equal in stature to Europeans, nearly as muscular, 
enjoying hardy constitutions, excellent intelligence, 
and having withal regular, handsome, Boman 
features, with fine clear brown complexions, and full 
