The Nuns, However, Seem To Be By No Means
Kept In Confinement; They Work In The Fields, And One Of Them Enlisted
With Us As A Coolie, And Brought Her Load Into Camp Before Any Of Her
Male Coadjutors.
Among other curious information my friend told me,
that the Thibetians by no means consider that each man is
Entitled
to the luxury of a wife all to himself; but that a family of four
or five brothers frequently have but one between them, and that the
system is productive of no ill-feeling whatever among the different
members.[24] He also pointed out a fact which I had not before noticed,
viz., that the Thibetians invariably pass to the right hand of these
piles of stones and other monuments, but for what reason he was
unable to inform me.[25] Having finished his stock of information,
which I received thank-fully in default of better, he told me, with
delightful coolness, that it was the proper thing for me to give him
a bottle of brandy for the Kardar, and that it would be necessary to
send also a corkscrew with the bottle, to enable him to get at it! The
impudence of the request was almost worth the bottle, but brandy
was too scarce and precious a commodity to justify us in pleasing
the Kardar, so that all I could do was politely to decline sending
the corkscrew or the bottle either. In the afternoon we explored
the Bazaar, where we found abundance of dogs, dirt, and idlers,
but little else. What little there was in the way of merchandise
the proprietors seemed utterly indifferent about disposing of, and
after visiting a few shops we went away in disgust. The people were
a mixture of Cashmeeries, Chinese, Tartars, Bengalees, and Indians of
all sorts and sects, and more idle, good-for-nothing looking scoundrels
I never laid eyes on. One most amusing group of Mahomedan exquisites
reminded one forcibly of PUNCH'S Noah's ark costumes and Bond Street
specimens of fashion. They were dressed in exaggerated turbans and
long white Chogas, or loose coats, which reached down to their heels;
and, as arm in arm, with gentle swagger, they sauntered through the
bazaar, they had, in addition to their heavy swellishness, an air of
Eastern listlessness to which the most exquisite of their European
prototypes could never hope to attain. On reaching our camp we found
another traveller had added his little canvas to the scene; it was
one of the Government Survey, whom the natives invariably designate
by the comprehensive title of "the Compass Wallahs." Wallah is,
in Hindostanee, as nearly as possible an equivalent to "fellow,"
and in explaining the character of this particular order of Wallah,
the accent is always strong on the second syllable of the compass. The
Compass Wallah in question we found quite a wild man of the mountains;
his face, from changes of heat and cold and long exposure, was burnt
and blistered into all sorts of colours, and, to make his appearance
more generally striking, he wore as head-dress, a flyaway, puggery,
or turban of blue cotton, of the most voluminous dimensions and
wonderful construction imaginable.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 71 of 158
Words from 36569 to 37103
of 82277
