the abuse of excessive animal powers, to the possession of which the formation of his skull strongly testified, but they assumed extraordinary brilliancy as his fury increased. He opened them wide, apparently with an effort, and showed the entire circle of his iris. The pupils were dilated, notwithstanding that the light upon his face was strong at the time.
Following his example, some of the rest displayed their discontent in a similar fashion, but others, among whom I especially noticed two youths with sad languishing faces, drooping large eyes, and luxuriant growth of black hair, stood apathetically apart, with head reclining towards the right shoulder, their features perfectly composed, and supporting their chins on their hands. Even if they had overcome their stupor, they did certainly not betray it, and appeared perfectly emotionless as far as their countenances were concerned.
One fellow with an extraordinary head, a mixture it seemed of a Mongolian and a Negroid type, was the first to calm himself of those who were so madly excited. With piercing though unsteady eyes, and with nervous twitching movements, he scrutinised my face more closely than the others, and seemed to reassure them all that I had not come to hurt them. He made signs to the rest to desist from their threats, and then, squatting down himself, invited me to follow his example, by sitting on my heels. When the storm had subsided and they had all sat down, I drew out of my pocket some coins and gave one to each of them, with the exception of one man on whom I thought I might study the passion of jealousy in its most primitive form. I watched the man closely, and soon saw him draw apart from the others and become sulky. The others were by now comparatively calm. They seemed predisposed towards sadness, and I could with difficulty extract from any of them more than a very faint sort of a smile. They turned and twisted the coins in their hands, and compared them among one another, jabbering and apparently content. The jealous man kept his head turned away from them determinedly, pretending not to see what was going on, and, resting his chin on his hand, he began to sing a weird, melancholy, guttural song, assuming an air of contempt, especially when the others chaffed him. Having allowed him to suffer enough, I gave him two coins instead of one, and with them the satisfaction of the last grin.
I then tried to photograph them, but my camera was looked upon with suspicion, and as plate after plate was exposed in portraying single individuals or groups, they shuddered at each "click" of the spring.
"The gods will be angry with you for doing that," said a Raot, pointing at the camera, "unless you give us a large white coin."
I took advantage of this, and promised them as best I could through my guide "two large coins" if they would take me to their huts, some few hundred yards below the lofty eyrie in the cliff, but I must for the sum be allowed not only to see but to touch and have explained to me anything I liked.
They consented, and we began our descent of the precipitous track leading to their habitations, a track fit really only for monkeys. Several women and children, who had come up attracted by the sight of strangers, joined with the men in giving us a helping hand, and in fact, I believe there cannot have been a single paw in the company that did not at one time or other during the descent clutch some portion of my clothing in the friendliest spirit. Holding on to one another, we proceeded in a body, not always at a pleasant pace, down the dangerous cliff. Two or three times one of the natives or myself tripped and almost dragged the remainder of the party over the precipice, while the piercing yells and screams of the women seemed to echo back for miles around. I was not sorry when we at last reached the small huts by the river which made up their village.
Two Men sitting down with Children
The habitations 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 the upper one seemed quite out of proportion to the size of the skull. Their ears were large, outstanding, and unmodelled, but capable of catching sounds at great distances.
The men had better heads than the women, underdeveloped yet comparatively well balanced. They had higher and broader foreheads, similar though shorter noses, chins not quite so receding, the whole lower jaw extraordinarily narrow, but the upper lip, as with the women, huge and out of all proportion.
Undoubtedly the Raots are not a pure race, and even among the few I came across variations so considerable occurred as to puzzle one in tracing their origin. They invariably possess luxuriant coal-black hair, which never attains more than a moderate length. It is not coarse in texture, but is usually so dirty that it appears coarser than it really is. They have very little hair on their bodies except in the arm-pits, and their moustaches and beards hardly deserve the name.
The men generally part the crop on their head in the middle, so that it flows on either side of the skull, just covering the ears, and I found the same strange custom that I observed years ago among the Ainu of Yezo of shaving a lozenge-shaped portion of the scalp in the centre of the forehead directly above the nose. The women, using their fingers as a comb, draw their hair to the back of the head and tie it in a knot.
The bodies of the better specimens I saw were slight and agile, with no superfluous fat or flesh. Supple to a degree, yet solid and muscular, with well-proportioned limbs and a skin of a rich tinge between bronze and terra-cotta colour, these savages, dirty and unclothed as they were, certainly appealed to the artistic side of my temperament, particularly on account of their very majestic deportment. I noticed their regular breathing, which they usually did through the nose, keeping their mouths tightly closed, and also one very curious peculiarity about their feet, viz., the length of the second toe, protruding considerably beyond the others, and giving them no doubt the power of using their toes almost as we should our fingers. The palms of their hands were almost without lines, the finger-nails flat, and their thumbs stumpy with the last phalange curiously short.
If the Raots to-day have adopted some