172 DR. HOOKER'S MISSION TO INDIA. 
chopped up, fried with a little oil, and eaten. They drink out of pretty 
wooden cups, or quaighs, turned out of maple-knots, or other woods. 
Their intoxicating drink, which seems more to excite than to debauch the 
the mind, is partially fermented Murwa grain (.Jleusine Coracana). Spirits 
are rather too strong to be relished raw, and when I give a glass of wine 
to one of a party, he sips it, and hands it round to all the rest. A 
bamboo flute, with four or six burnt holes, is the only musical instrument 
l have seen in use among them. When travelling, and the fatigues 
of the day are over, the Lepchas sit for some hours chatting, telling 
stories, singing in a monotonous tone, or blowing this flute, In the 
latter I discover no air, the performance is merely a modulated twho- 
twho, singularly harmonious in expression, both plaintive and pleasing in 
these wild forests ; all like to listen to it, and his must be a dull ear 
who cannot draw from it the indication of a contented mind, whether 
he may relish its soft musical notes or not. 
Though always equipped for the chase, I fancy the Lepcha is no great 
sportsman: there is little to be pursued in this region, and he is not 
driven to follow what there is, by dire necessity, nor is there game 
enough to encourage a taste for sporting. 
Such are some of the prominent features of this people, who inhabit 
the Sub-Himalayas between the Nepalese and Bhotan frontier, at 
elevations of 3,000-6,000 feet. In their relations with us, they are 
conspicuous for their honesty, their power as carriers, and mountaineers, 
and their skill as woodsmen, for they build a waterproof house with thatch 
of banana leaves in the lower, or bamboo in the elevated regions, and 
equip it with table and bedstead for three persons, in an hour, using 
no implement but the heavy knife. Kindness and good humour soon 
attach them to your person and service. A gloomy-tempered or morose 
master they avoid, an unkind one they flee. If he be a good hills-man 
like themselves, they will follow him with alacrity, sleep on the cold 
bleak mountain, exposed to the pitiless rain, without a murmur, lay 
down the heavy burden to carry the master over a stream, or give him 
a helping hand up a rock or precipice,— do anything, in short, but 
encounter a foe, for I believe the Lepcha to be a veritable coward.* It 
is well, perhaps, he is so; for if a race, numerically so weak, were to 
-embroil itself, even by resenting the injuries of the warlike Ghorka, or 
_ dark Bhotanese, the folly would soon lead to destruction. 
* And yet, during the Ghorka war, they displayed many instances of courage,— 
when so hard-pressed, however, that there was little choice of evils. 
