The Chittagong Hill Tribes Results of a Journey in the Year 1882

Abstract

THE visit paid by Dr. Riebeck to the frontier tribes between Chittagong and Independent Burmah in the spring of the year 1882 formed a mere episode in the great expedition to the Far East, from which he has recently returned, laden with ethnological treasures of all sorts. But this episode, carried out at the suggestion of Dr. Bastian, “prince of ethnologists” proved from a variety of causes so unexpectedly fruitful in results, that he has been well advised to publish a separate account of it, pending the appearance of a comprehensive work on his general travels in Somaliland, India, China, Japan, and other Eastern regions. In its arrangement, profusion of coloured and other illustrations, and especially in the treatment of the subject matter, this first instalment almost reaches the standard of ideal perfection—of such perfection as can be achieved only by patient and intelligent observation, and by the cooperation of specialists in their several faculties combined with a generous use of unlimited means. Certainly the principle of division of labour in literary and scientific work has never been more happily illustrated than in the present instance. Wisely limiting his own functions to those of a laborious collector and narrator of his personal experiences, Dr. Riebeck has placed all his rich materials at the disposal of the foremost naturalists in Germany, by whom the data thus supplied have been made a convenient text for so many separate monographs of great value on the various scientific aspects of the subject.

The Chittagong Hill Tribes. Results of a Journey in the Year 1882.

By Dr. Emil Riebeck. Translated by Prof. A. H. Keane. (Asher, 1885.)