CHITTAGONG II ILL TRACTS are a portion o; the great chain of mountains running from Aasair southwards to Cape Negrais, and the Blue 31onir tains, on the frontier of Chittagong, rise 800( feet above the sea. Several rivers rise in these mountains, amongst others the Karsiafuli, which flows into the Bay of Bengal. The bill tribes o Chittagong call themselves Kyoung-tha, or 6011 of the river, and Toung-tha, or sons of th hills. The latter, to which the Lushai belong are the morn savage and independent, an speak different languages. The former have written language, and even possess several eopie of the Raja wong, or History of the Kings c Arakan. They are of Arakantaie origin, speak the Ra-khui dialect, and are Buddhists. All are Mongolian in physique. They have an honest, bright look, with frank and merry smile, and their look is a faithful index of their mental charac teristics. They live in bamboo houses raised above the malaria of the ground. They practise Jinn, Cheena, or Kumari cultivation, burning down the jungle to prepare the soil for mixed seed scattered broadcast, and moving off to a new site next season. And they have a mild form of debtor slavery, which Captain Lewin thinks the British too suddenly interfered with, so that the hillmen fall victims to the usurer.
The Kyoung-tha, or Juuda Magli, have 15 clans, who dwell in village communities under a itoaja, or village head.
The Toung-tha tribes, a wilder and less civilised group, are the Tiperah, Kumi, afro, and Khyeng, Bangi, Pan-kho, Lushai or Kuki, and the Shindu, the last four being independent. Their villages are generally situated on lofty hills. They worship the elements.
The Chakma (Teak or Tsakma, or in Burmese Thick) is the largest of all the tribes. It has 40 clans. Their habits are similar to those of the Kyoung-tha. Tho tribes all practise the Jum or Kumari form of agriculture • and rice, cotton, tea, tobacco, and potatoes are their chief crops. The elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger, and the leopard are numerous, with the Malay black bear, the wild buffalo, the sambur (Russ Aristotelis). The python grows to a large size.
Among the independent tribes beyond the British border, prisoners of war are sold like cattle. Raids are caused by the usage of wehr geld, which they call goung hpo, or the price of a head ; for when a villager dies, his friends charge the village which he may have last visited with his death, and demand a price for his life. Raids for women seem to keep up the necessary supply. Chastity is enforced only after marriage. All the unmarried lads sleep in one house in the village, tinder the care of a goung' or headman. The merry-makings and customs which arc connected with this bachelor's hall,' as Colonel Dalton calls it, are the same as in the kol and Gond countries.
In the hills marriages are unions of affection, not of convenience or interest. Girls marry at 16, lads at 19. The moat favourite offering to a sweetheart is a flower ; and the lover will often climb the hills before dawn to procure the white or orange blossom of some rare orchid for the loved one's hair. One of Captain Lewin's police sought a week's leave of absence on this ground : A young maiden of such a village has sent nee flowers and birnec rico twice as a token, and if I wait any longer they will say I am no man.' Among the Kyonug-tha, a leaf of pawn, with betel, and sweet spices iuside, accompanied bya certain flower, means I love you.' If much spice is put inside the leaf, and one corner turned in a peculiar way, it signifies Come.' The leaf being touched with turmeric means I cannot come.' A small piece of charcoal inside the leaf is ' Go, I have done with you.' Tho love songs are as pure as they are pretty, and no improper ditties are allowed in the hearing of the village maidens. As the lads and lasses work in a crowd at harvest times, they respond in chorus, or, when the leader has finished, the whole party break out into the hoia or hill call, like the jodel of Switzerland, and the cry is taken up from hill to hill, till it dies away in the distant valleys. In their mode of kissing, instead of pressing lip to lip, they apply the mouth and nose to the cheek and give a strong inhalation. They do not say, ' Give me a kiss,' but ' Smell me.' The religion of these tribes is a mixture of Buddhism and nature-worship. At the Maha Muni temple in Arakan, the bamboo is adored by some as the impersonation of the spirit of the forest. But wherever, as in the case of the Chakma, the tribes come into contact with the Bengali, they show a tendency to gravitate towards Hinduism, the caste of which would soon kill the joyousness and check the freedom of their life. The Khumia and Kuki tribes occupy the hills of Sylhet, Tiperah, and Chittagong •, the Kuki at the tops of the hills, and the Khumia on the skirts. The Kuki are the ruder or more pagan race, though also tinctured with Hinduism. They term their chief deity Khojein Putiang, to whom they sacrifice a gyal ; and to an inferior deity, named Shem Saq, a rude block of wood put up in every quarter of a village, a goat is offered; and they place before it the heads of the slain in battle, or the heads of animals killed in the chase. The Kuki say that they and the Mug are the off spring of the same progenitor.—Captain Lewin.