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SH OR KHYANG.

　The Khyengs or Khyangs inhabit the country on both sides of the Arakan Yomas. According to Major Fryer their geographical limits are comprised within the 18th and 21st degrees of North latitude. In the Chittagong Hill Tracts Captain Lewin found them chiefly on the spurs of the great hill range which separates that district from Arakan. There are now about 100 Khyangs in the Boh Mong Chief's circle. The terri- tory inhabited by the Khyangs in the north is rugged and inaccessible. In the south they dwell on the fertile banks of streams, and can procure the necessaries of life without difficulty; moreover, though still retaining their individuality, they are gradually adopting the more civilized manners and the mode of agriculture of the Arakanese. Mr. Houghton remarks:-

　'The Southern or tame Chins, as they are sometimes called to distinguish them from the Northern or wild Chins, inhabit both sides of the Arakan-Yomas and are found in the Akyab, Kyaukpyu, and Sandoway districts on the west, and the Minbu. Thayetmyo, Prome, and Henzada districts on the east. They are very closely related to the wild Chins, Mros, Kamis, etc., for though the languages of these are mutually unintelli- gible, a comparison of their vocabularies shows the difference to be merely one of dialect, and philologically of no great importance. The tame Chins are in fact merely a tribe which formerly inhabited the present Lushai or wild Chin country, and which has been forced south by a vis a tergo at probably no very distant epoch. This movement to the southward is still going on, though slowly, for tribes and clans must be very hard- pushed indeed before they definitely abandon their ancestral hills and valleys. There is a tendency amongst the southernmost Chins to merge into the Burman race, and this is also the case amongst those who have gone farthest from the Yoma to the eastward. One reason however which prevents the Chins from assimilating rapidly with the Burmans is their practice of keeping pigs, which are used both as an article of diet and for offering to the nts and the "Khun". These pigs are destructive of any kind of garden in or near the village, and hence to avoid disputes Chin houses must always be by themselves and not intermixed with Burman ones.'

　The people call themselves A-sh (Houghton), Hiou or Shou (Fryer), Shy or Shoa (Hodgson). They are called Chins by the Burmans, and Khyang or Khyeng is the Arakanese pronunciation of this same word. According to a tradition they have come down from the sources of the river Chindwin. Others claim to be of the same lineage as the Burmese and Arakanese, descendants of Burmese refugees, or remnants of an army lost on its way westwards. The number of Chins in Burma at the census of 1891 was 95,499.

　While the most northerly Shs have not been much influenced by the civilisation of the surrounding tribes, the more southerly gradually assimilate themselves to the customs and manners of their neighbours.

　 A translation of the Parable of the Prodigal Son and a list of words has been received from the Chittagong Hills Tracts. It is however almost impossible to form a fair idea of the dialect from these texts. I have therefore also used the grammars by Messrs. Fryer and Houghton, mentioned under authorities below, for the compilation of the grammatical sketch. The language described in both is practically identical. With regard to the dialect spoken in the Chittagong Hill Tracts our oldest information about it is the vocabulary furnished by Captain Lewin. This is, however, with two or three alterations, reprint#d from the vocabulary prepared by Captain Phayre in Arakan, and published by Hodgson. Another vocabulary published by Captain Phayre in 1841 differs only slightly. Captain Phayre remarks that there is some difference between the

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