bitations were squalid beyond measure. Constructed with a rough
frame of tree-branches, fortified by wooden posts and rafters, roofed
over with a thatch of dried grass, the majority of them measured about
ten feet. They were built against the hillside, a strong bi-forked pole
in the centre of the structure supporting the roof, and were usually
divided into two sections, so as to give shelter each of them to two
families. They contained no furniture, and but few utensils of the most
primitive make. There were circular wooden bowls scooped out in the past
by means of sharp-edged stones, and more recently by cheap blades, which
were of Indian manufacture. For such cultivation as they were capable of
these people used primitive earth rakes, and they also possessed coarse
mallets, sticks, and net bags in which they kept their stores. Their
staple food in former days was river fish, flesh of wild animals, and
roots of certain trees; but they now eat grain also, and, like all
savages, they have a craving for liquor. The interior of Raot
habitations was so primitive and lacking of furniture, that it hardly
requires to be described, and the odours that emanated from these huts
are also better left to the imagination of the reader.

Entering one of the dwellings, I found squatted round a fire of wood some
women and men, the women wearing silver bangles and glass bead necklaces,
the men very little more than string earrings. Only one of the men had on
as much as a diminutive loin-cloth, and the women had scanty dresses of
Indian manufacture, obtained in Askote.

Scanning their features carefully, it struck me that in their facial
lines many points could be traced which would make one feel inclined to
attribute to them a remote Mongolian origin, modified largely by the
climate, the nature of the country, and probably by intermarriage. In the
scale of standard human races the Raots stood extremely low, as can be
judged from the accompanying photographs. The women, as will be seen, had
abnormally small skulls with low foreheads, and although they looked
devoid even of a glint of reason, they were actually fairly intelligent.
They had high cheek-bones; long, flattish noses, broad and rounded as in
the Mongolian type. The chin was in most instances round, very receding,
though the lips were in their normal position, thin, and very tightly
closed with up-turned corners to the mouth. The lower jaw was extremely
short and narrow, whereas