lines of houses to serve as a street. One misses the pretty gardens
of the Wár villages, for Bhois and Lynngams attempt nothing of the
sort, probably because, unlike the Khasi, a Bhoi or Lynngam village
never remains more than two or three years in one spot; generally the
villages of these people are in the vicinity of the forest clearings,
sometimes actually in the midst of them, more especially when the
latter are situated in places where jungle is dense, and there is fear
of attacks from wild animals. In the Lynngam village is to be seen a
high bamboo platform some 20 to 30 ft. from the ground, built in the
midst of the village, where the elders sit and gossip in the evening.

All the villages, Khasi, Wár, Lynngam and Bhoi, swarm with pigs,
which run about the villages unchecked. The pigs feed on all kinds
of filth, and in addition are fed upon the wort and spent wash of the
brewings of country spirit, of rice beer, the latter being carefully
collected and poured into wooden troughs. The pigs are of the usual
black description seen in India. They thrive greatly in the Khasi
villages, and frequently attain extreme obesity.

In the Khasi villages of the high plateaux are often nowadays potato
gardens, the latter being carefully protected from the inroads of pigs,
calves, and goats by dry dikes surmounted by hedges.

I noticed an interesting custom at a Bhoi village in Nongpoh of
barricading the path leading to the village from the forest with
bamboo palisading and bamboo _chevaux de frise_ to keep out the demon
of cholera. In the middle of the barricade there was a wooden door
over which was nailed the skull of a monkey which had been sacrificed
to this demon, which is, as amongst the Syntengs, called _khlam_.