DARJEELING TO TONGLO. 19 
on these great projecting spurs, which are really innumerable, that a good 
many patches of cultivation are met with at 3,—5,000 feet, the level 
most affected by the Lepchas and Limbos. Though living in such 
close proximity, using the same food, and exposed to exactly similar 
discomforts in climate, &c., these two races retain their widely different 
manners and customs. They are said to have mixed a little; but still 
I find no diffieulty in recognizing either tribe. I have described the 
Lepcha as eminently Tartar in features: the Limbo partakes of these 
peculiarities less decidedly in cut of nose, mouth, and above all, eyes ; 
but he is more markedly trans-Himalayan than even the Lepcha, 
from the absence of any beard or moustache, which the latter not 
unfrequently possesses after a meagre fashion. The Limbo is much 
less pleasing in features and address, more slender and sinewy, does not 
adopt the queue, lacks the pretty (when clean) cotton cloth, does not 
carry the Ban (or carving-knife in an open sheath), but the curious 
* Cookery,” or incurved heavy dagger of the Ghorkha (see a picture in 
Kirkpatrick’s * Nepal,—I have several of these weapons, which are 
capital for cutting a road through the forest). I believe the origin of the 
Limbos to be certainly Mongolian, i. e., from beyond the snow, and their ` 
chief residence is Eastern Nepal, where they long were harassed by 
the Ghorkhas and waged bloody wars. Only within these two days, 
news has come from Nepal of the Rajah having levied a conscription 
of 4,000 Limbos, and cantoned them at Cattmandu, where 1,000 died 
in a few short weeks of cholera. The tribes are now dreadfully alarmed, 
and at this moment flocking to Darjeeling for protection. Dr. Camp- 
bell, the British Resident, tells me that many of them have entered 
our military service, which the Lepcha abhors. The Limbo houses, 
which I have seen, are mere hovels, very like and as rude as those of 
the Irish peasants, with a plaited or grass thatch, curving over the top. 
The structure is quite unlike the large house with low but pitched 
roof of the Bhothea and Lepcha, its broad stage or platform, and 
dairy and piggery underneath. Their language is less harsh (and 
zezzish, or tsezzish, to coin an expression) than the Lepcha, and is not, 
I believe, written, like the latter. Another distinction between the 
Lepeha and the Limbo is, that the first burn and then bury the 
ashes ; while the latter inter their dead. I had a Limbo in my service 
for a month or two, but though not precisely an “objectionable,” he 
was far from an “interesting character,” or such as a traveller seeks to 
D 2 
