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.

[Illustration: A YOUNG MAN]

If the Raots to-day have adopted some articles of clothing and ornament,
besides altering their diet to a certain extent, it is due entirely to
the Rajiwar of Askote,