sing songs, tell stories, and make jokes till it is time to visit their sweethearts, after which they return there for the rest of the night. Travellers not having any friends in the village use the zawlbuk as a rest-house, but eating and drinking are seldom, if ever, carried on there. The zawlbuk is an institution common to many tribes, but among the clans I am dealing with it is confined to the Lushei and the clans most nearly allied to them. Its appearance among the Chiru and Vaiphei emphasises the close connection between these clans and the Lusheis. The houses all abut on the street, but small gardens are often found at the back, in which sugar cane, beans, cucumbers, &c., are grown. The houses of the chief's advisers and wealthy men are generally grouped near his, but should the chief have more than one wife, or should he have some less fortunate relations dependent on him, their houses will be found scattered through the village, each forming a centre of a quarter or a veng, from the inhabitants of which the chief allows them to collect the dues, which are his by right. The steepness of the hillside is no obstacle to house building, and frequently the roof of one house will be lower than the floor of the one immediately above it. The Lushais have been nomadic ever since their ancestors started on their western trek some 200 years ago. The method of cultivation which they follow is very wasteful, and a large village soon uses up all the land within reach, and then a move becomes imperative. Their custom of burying their dead within the village tends to make a site unhealthy, especially as the water supply is usually so situated as to receive the drainage of the village, and when the rate of mortality rises unduly high, a move is at once made. In old times these moves were often of considerable length--sometimes as much as two or three days' journey--and sometimes a halt for a whole season would be made at some temporary site, the people living in huts alongside their cultivation. The selection of a new site is a matter of much thought, and before a final decision is arrived at, a deputation of elders is sent to sleep at the proposed site, taking with them a cock. If the bird crows lustily an hour before daybreak, as all good cocks should, the site is approved of. Sites of villages which have been burnt by enemies are eschewed as unlucky, and a chief when re-occupying a site of some other chief's village generally tries to establish himself slightly to one side or other, in hopes that the new site will bear his name for many years.