Narrative by Major-General John Campbell of his Operations in the Hill Tracts of Orissa, for the suppression of human sacrifices and female infanticide

Chapter I

Geography of Orissa— Changes of Masters — Its Condition as a Portion of British India — Antiquities in the Ancient Capital- Novelty in Agriculture — Remains of Native Sculpture in the Temple of Grameswara — Travels of a Chinese Hiocien Thsang — His Account of the Capital — Ruined City of Bhuhanesar — Rock Caves of Khandigiri — Temple of the Sun at Kanarak — Military Operations of the East India Company in Orissa at the Commencement of the Present Century — Wild Tribes of the Hill Districts — Vegetation — Villages — The Khonds — Cultivation of Cotton — Costume and Arms — Music — Dress — Food — Court Ceremonials — Ooryah and Khond Languages — Proceedings of the Missionaries in Khondistan .3

Chapter II

The Khonds Descendants of the Aborigines — Their Ooryah Rulers — Pride of Ancestry — Annual Tribute from the Hill Chiefs to the Anglo-Indian Government — Description of Goomsur and Its Rajah — Streckarah Bunge defies the British Government — His Overthrow and Subsequent Revolt — His Son's Rebellion — Military Force sent against Him — I am appointed Assistant and Secretary to the Political Agent — A Seven Years' Campaign in the Hills— The Dora Bissye — Conquest of Goomsur — Casualties by the War CONTENTS. VI

Chapter III

Mountainous Region known as Khondistan — Hardships endured by English Officers Campaigning in so Wild a District — The Khonds and their Language— Lord Elphinstone's Description of them— Their Superstitious Practices — Drinking and Hunting- Attacking a Bear— Native Dress— Singular Head-dress— Martial Costume — Combat of Tribes— Khond Women and their Ornaments— Abduction — Marriage — Belief in Magic— Tiger Witches .... 37

Chapter IV

Khond Villages and Houses — Rice Cultivation — Village Authorities — The Bissoi — Agricultural Implements — System of Human Sacrifice— The Earth Goddess and Blood Red God of Battle— Possiapoes, or Adopted Children — Mr. Russell's Report of the Ceremonies performed during a Human Sacrifice — Account furnished by Mr. Rickett's Commissioner at Cuttack — Price of Victims — Contradictory Statements — Attention of the Anglo-Indian Government attracted — My Appointment as Political Agent and Magistrate among the Sacrificing Tribes .... 49

Chapter V

My first Crusade against the Meriah Sacrifice — Native Corps raised by myself— Goomsur Chief — "Bahadur Bukshi," otherwise Sam Bissoi — First Meeting with the Khond Leaders — A Conference — My Address — A Compromise Suggested — Reply of the Assembly — Surrender of One Hundred Intended Victims — Oath of the Goomsur Chiefs — My Administration of Justice among the Khonds — My Four Years' Residence among them — Bargaining at Fairs — Construction of Road — Satisfactory Result of my First Campaign — Registration of Serfs .... 65

Chapter VI

I am ordered for Service in China— Mr. Banuerman's Commendation of my Proceedings — Captain M'Pherson appointed my Successor — Ts prejudiced against Sam Bissoi — Report of Mr. Smollett the Commissioner — Increased Powers conferred on the Agent Re- CONTENTS. VII volt of Goomsur — Oppression of the Native Assistants employed in the Agency — Descent of Armed Khonds into the Low Country — My Return to my Former Post — 1 recall Sam Bissoi — Take the Command of a Force against the Rajah of Ungool — Flight of the Rajah — His Pursuit and Capture — Description of the Country ..... S3

Chapter VII

Intrigues of a Khond Chief in Boad — Measures taken there by me, assisted by Captain Macviccar, to suppress Human Sacrifice — Discussions with the Leaders — Comparison of New Zealand Savage and Khond — The Young Warriors — My Prolonged Sojourn in Boad — Effects of the Unhealthy Climate — The Chiefs Pledged not to permit Human Sacrifice — Rescue of Two Hundred aud Thirty-Five Intended Victims — Ceremonies during a Sacrifice— I quit Boad ...... 105 CHAPTER VHI. Description of Chinna Kimedy — Superstitious Practices there — I proijose a plan of Operations — By a Hasty March I prevent a General Sacrifice — Conciliate the Rajahs — Condition of these Mountaineers — Elephant Idols Overthrown — Recovery of Two Hundred aud Six Intended Victims — Successful Results of the Mission — New Road in Progress — The Khond Language — Effects of Fever — Am ordered to the Cape . . . 119

Chapter IX

A Visit to the Tribes of Sooradah — Practice of Infanticide — Origin of the Custom — Remedy for Female Infanticide — Apathy of the Mothers — Prejudice in Favour of Marriage with Women of - ither Tribes— I propose a Remedy — The Khonds agree to rear their Female Offspring — My Report to Government — Establishment of Schools — The Astrologer at the Birth of an Infant — His Predictions — Influence of the Native Priests . . . 139

Chapter X

Antiquity of llumau Sacrifice — Traditions — Idea of the Inferiority of Women — Self-immolation encouraged — Murder an Act of CONTENTS. VIII Religion — The Hill Tribes of Orissa— Extraordinary Report forwarded to Government in 1841 — Its Classification of the Deities of the Khonds— No Trace of them to be found during my Sojourn among them — Dancing and Drinking — Some Account of Sunderah Singh and Baha Khan — Notes and Queries ...... 153

CHAPTER XL

Captain Frye — His Visit to the Hill Tribes of Chinna Kimedy — His Arrangements on behalf of Rescued Meriahs — A Sacrifice prevented—Visit to Upper Goomsur by Captain Macviccar — Establishment of Schools — State of Boad — Khonds of Maji Deso — Their Practice of Human Sacrifice — Patna— Suppression of the Rite there — Captain Macviccar's Views respecting the Present Condition of the Country — Result of his Labours . 173

Chapter XII

Return to my Duties and proceed to Mahasingi — Description of this District — Go on to Bissum Cuttack — The Tat Rajah, Narraindur Deo — His Feud with the Rajah of Jeypore — Rescue of Meriahs — Ryabiji — Chunderpore — Godairy — Lumbargam — Attack on my Camp — Attack repelled and Meriahs brought in — Bundari — Junnah Sacrifices — Revisit Sooradah — Infanticide — Flight of Khonds to my Camp — Account of the Meriahs settled in the Low Country ...... 193

Chapter XIII

I revisit the Infanticidal Districts— Results — Again enter Chinna Kimedy and prevent a Sacrifice in Bondigam — Further Submissions in these Districts — Restoration of some Original Meriahs — Conduct of the Tribes of Toopunga— Collision and Subsequent Surrender of these Tribes— Proceed to Bundari in Jeypore — Revisit Ryabiji— The One Exception in Jeypore — Some Account of the Kootiah Khonds — Kalahundy — Patna — Ruined Temples —Muddenpore— Mahasingi— Revisit Boad— Number of Victims rescued during the Season— Return to the Low Country . CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER XrV All the Tribes of Upper and Lower Chinna Kimedy visited — Their Prosperity and Increasing Familiarity —Proclamation — Reply of Khond Chiefs — Act of Courage of a Rescued Victim—Tigers in the Jungle — Delivery of Runaway Meriahs — Capture of a Notorious Kidnapper — Reception at Jeypore — No Sacrifice there since 1852 — Ryaghur and Linkapore — Some Account of them — Tooamool — Sickness — Account of People and Country — Bundusir — Rajah Futty Narrain Deo of Kalahundy — Concluding Remarks 237

Chapter XV

Native Councils and Debates respecting the Abolition of the Meriah Sacrifice — Opinions of Captain Hill respecting their Rajahs — Their Ministers — My Efforts to secure their Co-operation — Ceremonious Visits — Proceedings of the Durbar — Ooryah Chiefs — My Attempts to conciliate them — Loyalty of Narraindur Deo — Report of Mr. Stubbins — Villages established by me — Captain M'Neill's Account of them — Number of Rescued Victims — How they were disposed of — Liberality of the Government — I leave India .... 251

Chapter XVI

Recent Geological Survey of Lidia — -The Coast of Orissa — Chilka Lake — Arrangement of the Beds — Alleged Discoveries of Coal and Iron— Alluvial Plain — Hills — Jungle — Rare Minerals — Talcheer and Aturgh Basins — Sandstone Series — Carboniferous Series — Up_^er Grit — River Gold— Building Materials — Report of Lieutenant Rigby on the Stone and Timber of the Country — Manufacture of Salt — Rice — Vegetation, and Character of the Flora — Oil Producing Plants — Sugar Cane — Tobacco — Abundance of Fish 273

Appendix

ILLUSTRATIONS. Rescued Meriah Woman and Children, . . . Vignette I Ium an Sacrifice as practised in Goomscr, Khondistan, Frontispiece Ooryah (Hindoo) Chief, of Khondistan — Khond Weapons in the background, . . . To face page 16 Sebundies at Russelcondah preparing for their Departure to the Khond Hills, . . „ 65 Khond Chiefs of Chinna Kimedy in their ordinary Costume, ,, 120 Meriahs rescued from Sacrifice, ... ,, 132 Rescued Meriah Victims, .... ,, 213 Sketch Map. For a more particular description of the above Illustrations. see Appendix, p. 316.

Chapter I. Geography Of Orissa

— CHANGES OF MASTERS — ITS CONDITION AS A PORTION OF BRITISH INDIA — ANTIQUITIES IN THE ANCIENT CAPITAL NOVELTY IN AGRICULTURE — REMAINS OF NATIVE SCULPTURE IN THE TEMPLE OF GRAMESWARA — TRAVELS OF A CHINESE HIOCIEN THSANG HIS ACCOUNT OF THE CAPITAL — RUINED CITY OF BHUHA NESAR — ROCK CAVES OF KHANDIGIRI — TEMPLE OF THE SUN AT KA NARAK — MILITARY OPERATIONS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY IN ORISSA AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT CENTURY — WILD TRIBES OF THE HILL DISTRICTS VEGETATION — VILLAGES — THE KHONDS CULTIVATION OF COTTON — COSTUME AND ARMS — MUSIC — DRESS — FOOD — COURT CEREMONIALS — OORYA AND KHOND LAN GUAGES PROCEEDINGS OF THE MISSIONARIES IN KHONDISTAN. i;

CHAPTER I.

It is probable that in England few persons possess any great knowledge of that portion of our Indian empire which is formed out of the kingdom of Orissa, and still fewer take any interest in its ancient or modern history. Although this narrative will have almost exclusive reference to the Khonds and tribes inhabiting the mountain ranges of this once renowned sovereignty, it may not be unacceptable to general readers to learn some particulars of a province once held in the highest estimation in the East. Orissa lies between the eighteenth and twenty-third parallels of north latitude, and the eighty-third and eighty-seventh of east longitude. Its boundaries are the Bay of Bengal on the east, Gondwana on the west, the river Godavery on the south, and Behar and Bengal on the north. Its extreme length is about four hundred miles, its average breadth seventy ; and it B ORISSA. encloses an area of twenty-eight thousand square miles.

This description, however, it must be observed, applies to the low country as well as to the hills, but the tribes amongst whom I so long laboured inhabit the latter only, and deserve to be regarded as amongst the most interesting vestiges of the ancient kingdom. A great Oriental scholar has said, that " of all the regions of the earth, Burata Khond is the most distin guished ; and of all the regions of Burata Khond, Utkala Khond boasts the highest renown. In its entire extent it is a place of pious pilgrimage. Its happy inhabitants live secure of a reception into the world of spirits, and those who visit the country, and bathe in its sacred rivers, obtain remission of their sins, though they may be as heavy as mountains. Who shall adequately describe its blessed streams," continues the enthusiastic Pundit, " its holy temples, its fragrant flowers, its delicious fruits, and all the attractions and advantages of dwelling in so favoured a land ?

But where can be the necessity of attempting its panegyric ? — it is a paradise, in which the devotees delight to dwell." Bharadwagee Muni, in the Russila Sanhita, another Indian authority, one of the famous generals of the renowned Emperor Akbar, when marching an army through this attractive province, was so amazed CHANGES OF MASTERS. 5 at the crowd of Brahmins who peopled it, the magni ficent stone temples and other structures of its ancient capital, Bhuvaneswar, and by the marvellous beauty of the holy river, Mahanuddy, that flowed through its verdant lands, that he solemnly exclaimed, " It is not proper that this country should be sought as an object of human ambition, it belongs exclusively to the Gods ; it is a place of continual pilgrimage." The country once so highly esteemed appears to have parted with the majority of its claims to such regard, for the English traveller might penetrate its jungles and its marshes, climb its steepest hills and ford its deepest rivers, without coming upon any evidence either of the wonderful beauty of its landscape, or the marvellous magnificence of its cities.

Orissa has had several changes of masters. An inscription found on a stone taken from a temple in Cuttack, translated in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, commences with reference to its conquest, by Janamajaya, the King of Telinga ; but the country had been appropriated by foreign conquerors long before. India suffered under three moral cataclasms, that produced the most complete revolution ; these were the Buddhistic, the Brahminical, and the Mahomedan, and their influence penetrated to Orissa. Some remains of its ancient great ness were evident as late as the year 1838, when FORMER GREATNESS OF ORISSA. 6 Lieutenant Kittoe, during a tour in the country, acknowledged that it possessed more temples, sacred spots, and relics, than any other province in Hin dostan. The ancient Orissa, as it existed under the rule of the Princes of the Gunga Vansa line for nearly four centuries as an independent monarchy, or as it flour ished as a principality of the Mogul empire, is scarcely to be recognised in that dependency of British India, now known as the Zillah of Cuttack, which includes the most considerable portion of the hill districts or country of the Khonds.

It has gone on diminishing in extent from the conquests of the Uria or Ooryah nation (whence its name), when it included a considerable portion of Bengal and Telingana, till it was con fined to what was known more than fifty years ago as the district of Cuttack, to which Mr. Sterling de voted a quarto volume, entitled, "An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical of Orissa Proper, or Cuttack." Much of the country, which native authorities de scribe as the Eden of their deities, is in a state of wilderness, marshy woodland and thick forest, abound ing in wild animals ; and the enterprising English sportsmen, who have penetrated these haunts of the tiger, the panther, the buffalo, and the bear, have brought back, with the spoils of the chase, only slight REMAINS OF THE ANCIENT CAPITAL. 7 contributions towards a knowledge of the geography of. the district.

As a sketch of the natural history of the country will be found in the concluding chapter of this volume, I shall confine my attention here to an account of some interesting features of its history. Lieutenant Kittoe made an exploration of the country in the year 1838, an account of which he published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal of that year. Of the ancient capital of the kingdom, which he calls Kurda, at the time of his visit, nothing remained but the rough walls of the palace, and some of the gateways of the city. He describes the temples on the hill of Kassilas, a place of pilgrimage, as well as an annual fair for the people of Orissa, and other ancient temples at Badeswar. At Atturva, a considerable village on the banks of the Brahmini, he met for the first time with large herds of buffaloes and other cattle, and came upon an extensive field of cultivation.

" I here," he states, " observed a method of tilling the land quite novel to me ; the fields are dug with long and heavy crow-bars, each clod, as it is turned up, is bruised with the bar, and thus prepared for the seed without using the plough ; indeed, the stiff nature of the soil would not admit of its being ploughed in the dry season. This practice I found HISTORICAL NOTICES. to prevail throughout the valley of the Brahmini, which tract is very fertile." His description of the sculptures in the temple of Grameswara, near Ratrapan, shows to what extent the art had been cultivated in Orissa in the era of its prosperity, and his transcripts of the various inscrip tions discovered by him at Dhauli, in Cuttack, discovered to be edicts promulgated by Asoka, king of India, assist in establishing the ancient importance of the country.

A few historical notices may be gleaned from much earlier authorities, and I will refer *.o some of them in illustration of the bygone greatness of Orissa. A Chinese traveller, disguised as a religious men dicant, penetrated this now obscure district within the second quarter of the seventh century, when it was a place thought worthy of being visited by a great man on his travels. This personage, who was known as Hiocien Thsang, managed to achieve a durable reputation for himself among his countrymen for his geographical knowledge. His travels in India were compiled by two of his scholars, and have been trans lated into French by M. Stanislas Julien.* There is another work,f produced in the Central * Histoire de la Vie de Hiocien Thsang, et de ses Voyages dans l'Inde, depuis Fan 629 jusq'en 645. t "Si-ya-ki, on Memoires sur les Contrees Occidentales."

HIOCIEN THSANG'S TRAVELS. 9 Flowery Land, by a distinguished Chinese author, known as Pien-ki, which M. Julien has also trans lated. It describes the adventures of the illustrious Hiocien Thsang. From both these works a digest has been made for English oriental scholars by the late Professor H. H. Wilson, for the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain, and is published in the thir teenth volume of their Journal. From this account it is evident that, before the middle of the seventh century, the capital of the kingdom of U-cha (Orissa), where Hiocien Thsang remained for some time, was an important city, and the seat of a powerful government. Indian reports, therefore, of the glorious past of this land of jungle and barbarism, are not to be entirely discredited. The narrative is very curious — indeed, the picture it gives of Hindostan and the adjoining countries, during the sixteen years' wanderings of the accomplished tra veller, deserves to be regarded as unique.

He anticipated Marco Polo by about six hundred years, and explored a much larger portion of India. So com plete, however, are the changes which have passed over nearly all these states since his visit, that it is very difficult to identify the places he describes. There is room for very little question, however, that the people of Orissa, at this date, were better off than their contemporary Anglo-Saxons. ROCK CAVES OF KHANDIGIRI. Among the monuments of interest in Orissa is the ruined city Bhuhanesan. A recent explorer says : — " The traveller emerges all at once from paddy fields into the midst of a deserted city — another Pal myra — ruins of temples all around, but no wor shippers." * These are vestiges of a greatness that has long passed away. Similar changes have fallen upon African cities, but in India they are not con fined to this district.

Jungle may have overgrown many of its popular places, just as a similar rank vegetation has obliterated the residence of the once powerful Janak and his court, in the Nepal Terai — five such cities and a busy population have been swept away from the Sunderbunds, and the ruins of another are to be found in Perulia. About six miles from the Palmyra, are to be found the rock-cut caves of Khandigiri, where a colony of Buddhist hermit monks once resided, their Pali in scriptions having stood there for at least two thousand years. One of the verandahs has been fashioned like a tiger's head, yet probably that animal was less a subject of superstitious regard to the ancient Orissans than it is to their descendants, the increase in the jungle having made its savage characteristics more familiar to and more dreaded by the latter. * Rev. J. Long.

" Notes and Queries suggested by a Visit to Orissa, in 1859." Journal of Asiatic Sociey of Bengal, xxxiii., 191. TEMPLE OF THE SUN. The temple of the sun at Kanarak, erected about the twelfth century, is ornamented with clever carvings, representing the planets, as well as with well-cut figures of lions and elephants ; these prove that the plastic as well as the mechanical arts had made greater progress in Orissa than they had con temporaneously in England. There used to be ruins also in the ancient city of Cuttack, which indicates a remote antiquity, as well as an advanced civiliza tion. In short, there can be no doubt that the country had sunk from a flourishing kingdom to something approaching a wilderness. It has gone through various religious phases — has been Buddhist, is now Hindoo, in the low lands ; whilst in the hills is a worse heathenism than either.

Revolution after revolution swept over Orissa, changing the aspect of the country materially ; still it maintained a name among the states of Hindostan till the year 1558, when its sovereignty ceased, and it became an out lying province of the Great Mogul's empire. Upon the breaking up of this powerful state, the more valuable portions of the country were seized by the Nizam of Hydrabad. Change, however, succeeded change. European settlements began to be made in Hindostan, and Christian masters succeeded Makome dan, Buddhists, and Brahmins. A part of the country long known as the Northern Circars be- MILITARY OPERATIONS. came a French colony. The French made a vigorous effort to drive the English, who had also made trading settlements in the same part of the world, out of India, but did not succeed.

The Mahrattas had seized upon part of Orissa in 1740, but were forced to surrender this to England in 1803. The result of our struggle with France for supremacy in India is well known. Almost at the commencement of the century, the soldiers of the East India Company were marched into Orissa ; but arrangements being made by which the chiefs agreed to pay tribute, the only warlike operation was that performed by a detachment of 7000 men sent against a strong fort, commanded by one of the native princes, at the head of a numerous army, com posed of Ooryas, a brave native race, that partly sub dued the Khonds; but the English rule was soon estab lished, and the principal chiefs and princes paid tribute to the amount of 118,687 rupees to the Anglo-Indian Government at Calcutta, the said Government stipu lating to perform certain services for the advantage of the said country — one maintaining the river em bankments amounted in the year 1814 to 40,514 rupees.

The princes were to retain a more than nominal independence, for the power of life and death remained in their hands, and they could levy war against their neighbours without seeking or obtaining THE K1I0ND TERRITORY. the permission of the British Government. So long as they paid their annual tribute they did pretty much as they pleased. The hill districts of Orissa, termed in their lan guage Maliah, from the Sanscrit Mala, a garland, so called from the abundance of jungle, are peopled generally by Khonds, or Kui, as they call themselves. There are, however, other wild tribes, named re spectively Koles, Gonds, and Sourahs. It is, how ever, chiefly with the Khonds that I have had to do. These are all subjects, to a certain extent, of the Rajah or prince ruling over the lowland territory in their neighbourhood.

The relation they owe and the obedience they yield their Rajahs will appear more clearly as my narrative proceeds. Much of the Khond territory is little better than a wilderness, although it comprises some thousand square miles, where valleys and stretches of level ravines occasionally intersect the forest of thick brushwood. Wherever the land is cleared, it is cultivated for rice or dhall, a kind of bean much prized for food. The highest elevation is not more than three thousand feet. The ascent to the Khond hills, from Goomsur up the Khoorminghia Pass, is upwards of two thousand feet, and there is another sharp ascent from Serampur to Guddapur. Coarse grass and shrubs cover these acclivities, THE KHONDS. where no attempt at cultivation has been made. Beds of rocky torrents occur frequently, but running streams are sometimes found, such as the Bugundi, which waters the valleys of the Maji Deso, and feeds the Mahanuddy river, near Sohnpore ; in short, as in all mountain lands, there is abundance of water, though it is turned to less account, by the inhabitants of the villages, for agricultural purposes than it might be.

The Khonds consider themselves the lords and owners of the soil, and no tribe will ever part with land for any consideration whatever. The property in a single tree will be tenaciously defended for cen turies, and never yielded save in obedience to over whelming necessity. Their villages, of which I will say more by-and-bye, vary greatly in extent and population, sometimes consisting of a single street with a few families, and sometimes of a community numbering three to four hundred. As a race, the Khonds are not remarkable; the men are often well formed, and in every way superior to the women, the latter being short in figure, and very plain in feature. To European ideas they are certainly most repulsive. If, as some have asserted, they are the descendants of the Indo-Tartar tribes that fled for refuge to the mountainous forests from the pursuit of the destroyer, I can only say that they AGRICULTURE AND TRADE. have contrived to lose all the intellectual and nearly all the physical attributes by which these people were characterized.

The Khonds are a degenerate race, with all the ignorance and superstition of savages. Although it cannot be affirmed that the Khonds turn the resources of their country to the best account, still they are not a slothful race, as they bring very much more of the land into tillage than is required to supply their wants. The head man of each village usually acts as chief merchant, buying and bartering whenever he can profitably do so. If no travelling merchants pass through the villages and purchase their produce, then the Khonds carry it in baskets, slung at each end of a pole, to neighbouring fairs and markets in the low country. In this way, mustard, castor oil seeds, ginger, turmeric, sweet potatoes, yams, plantains, citron, gourds, pumpkins, beans, to bacco, are reared and sold. The cotton shrub is abundant everywhere, but turned to no account.

I have heard it asserted that cotton might be extensively cultivated on the Khond hills, but I am not competent to give a decided opinion. The presence of the cotton shrub al most everywhere certainly favours the idea, but if very careful European supervision is needful success fully to cultivate this plant, then I do not think very much of it can be expected from the hill tracts of Orissa. COSTUME AND ARMS. Constant exposure in this climate would soon prove fatal to any European constitution, and this circumstance alone must prevent these obscure districts from ever becoming the seats of prosperous industry or great commercial enterprise. Oranges and lemons abound, but generally of a very inferior description. The Khond usually carries a long staff, but when armed he wears a turban ornamented with a showy crest of feathers, and a strong cloth encircling his loins ; he carries a bow and arrows, and a battle-axe with the blade in two divisions.

He marches to battle singing, shouting, and brandishing his battle axe, most commonly under the influence of strong potations. The matchlock and shield are the favourite weapons of the people inhabiting the Southern district ; but the curious and formidable battle-axe seems most relied on by the heroes of Boad and Goomsur. They are not without musical instruments, of a rude kind, with which they contrive to make a good deal of noise at their festivals, drums and trumpets being most in request. There is also a lute, of two wires, stretched over a gourd, and a shepherd's pipe. Their concerts are pastoral as well as elegiac, the instru ments accompanying rustic and marriage songs — the ceremonial of the priest, and the amatory confession of the lover. Something in the way of verse is OOHYAU fHIl I' | I BIEF OF KHONDISTAN: KHOND WEAPONS IX THE BACKGROUND.

MUSIC AND POETRY. attempted, with pretensions to rhythm and metre ; but the composition scarcely amounts to poetry. The poet chants rather than sings, accompanied by a player on the two-stringed lute, something after the fashion of penillion singing in Wales, only that the Welsh bard is much better off for music. Neverthe less, the effect is wild, and not unpleasing, even to refined European ears. Probably these performances have degenerated, like the people who flock, to them, and are vestiges of musical and poetical excellence that flourished in the ancient kingdom — the ruins of a lost civilization, that distinguished Orissa in a far distant age. Nothing, however, very flattering to either Ooryah or Khond can be made out, either of the melodies or of the versification. They are as barbarous as the country and the people.

The toilet of the Khond does not require much attention or expense, seeing that his entire costume usually consists of a piece of coarse cloth worn round his loins — a narrow strip, woven in the country, with the ends of a gay colour, having a smart fringe. The head-dress, however, is a much more elaborate affair. The hair being worn very long, is drawn and rolled into the fashion of a horn, that projects from between the eyes, and is wrapped in a piece of red cloth, decorated with bright feathers. In this the c DRESS OF THE KHOND WOMEN. Khond generally places his comb, pipe, and other little domestic requisites. The Bissoi, or chief, and his family, are much better off for clothing ; indeed, he not unfrequently assumes robes of state, varying from a red blanket with a gaudy fringe, to a dress of honour of silk or other expensive fabric, which he has received as a present from the Sirkar, or European agent of Government.