Besides the countries which we call Thibet and Bootan, the Bhotiyas occupy, every where between the Kali and the Tista, the Alpine region adjacent to the snowy peaks of Emodus, on both sides of that chief of mountains, where none of the highland tribes above mentioned can endure the cold of winter any more than the Bhotiyas can suffer the moderate summer heats of Kathmandu. This induces me to think, that the present highland tribes, although of the same race with the people of Thibet, had originally occupied the plains, and, on the invasion of the present Hindus, had retired to the mountains, so far as they considered the temperature of the air tolerable, just as a colony of Hindus had retired to the same quarter, to avoid Mohammedan intolerance. In a region so extended, as that occupied by the Bhotiya nation, it is probable, that there exists a great variety of custom and dialect, for I heard of many different kinds, even among those who inhabit the southern face of Emodus; but the accounts given by people of different tribes and languages, differed so much, that I can say nothing satisfactory on the subject, especially as the season, when I resided on the frontier, was totally insufferable to a Bhotiya, so that I had no opportunity of conversing with them; the Lama from whom I received an account of the Lapchas being by birth a Murmi. I have already said that the Murmis are by many considered as a kind of Bhotiyas, but this the Lama denied, and the languages seem to have little affinity. I heard, besides, of Khat, Sirmi, and Kutung or Kutiya Bhotiyas, but cannot venture to speak of the nature of these distinctions, farther than to state, that the Khat Bhotiyas are mentioned by Colonel Kirkpatrick {59} as having long governed Nepal before the Newars, and as at this time occupying the lower parts of Bhotan, (Kachar,) on which subject I have already given my opinion. The resemblance to be traced between the Newar and Murmi languages, induces me to suppose that these two tribes are originally the same, and the historical hints given by Colonel Kirkpatrick induce me to draw the conclusion, that the Newars are Khat Bhotiyas, who have adopted some new customs in consequence of a greater connection with the Hindus. I never, indeed, heard the Murmis and Khat Bhotiyas mentioned as the same; but the former I have often heard named Siyena Bhotiyas, which is very likely to be another appellation for the Khat Bhotiyas, one name implying wild or forest Bhotiyas, and the other implying Bhotiyas who eat carrion like jackalls.