Captain Blaxe's Memoir on Sirmar. 57 



the characteristic of mountaineers) counteracted this feeling, and excited 

 those discontents which were found to prevail, on the invasion of the coun- 

 try by the British. Submission to the equitable rule of this power was 

 deemed preferable to the despotism of masters, whom they feared, without 

 respecting. Yet their manners to European travellers have been found 

 deceitful, and inhospitable ; the natural result of their poverty, and of the 

 oppression and rapacity, to which they have been subject; coupled with a 

 desire to impress their new lords with the most unfavourable ideas of the 

 wealth of the country. 



The Sirmoris are filthy in their persons and habits. Great inattention to 

 cleanliness is exhibited in the interior of their houses ; and nothing can be 

 conceived more disgusting, than the skirts of their villages, at the close of 

 the winter, when the snow begins to melt. Their habitations, however, 

 are neatly and substantially built, of stone. Those S.W. of the Girt, have 

 flat roofs ; but in the interior, they consist of two and three stories, with 

 pent roofs, projecting considerably over the wall, constructed of deal 

 planks, and slated, where this material is procurable. Their villages are 

 small, containing from three to fourteen houses. Situated on the summit 

 of the ranges, or ornamenting their craggy slopes, they give a singular, but 

 highly pleasing, effect to the mountain landscape. 



Besides Ndhen, Kahi and Keardah are the only towns of which they can 

 boast ; unless Rajpur, a place in Kongra, with two or three shops, can be 

 accounted one. Kalsi, like NdJien, has lost much of its former prosperity ; 

 yet it still remains the entrepdt of the diminished commerce of the plain, 

 with the countries to the northward. 



Notwithstanding the dislike, in which the Gorkhas were held by both 

 nations, ten years of restraint have not subdued the mutual animosity of 

 the borderers of Sirmor and Gerlmal. The one, in speaking of the other, 

 rarely uses the appellation of his nation, but substitutes the more expressive 

 and rancorous term " bairl," signifying foe. This sentiment is very strong 

 with the former, as he has suffered from the superior enterprise of his poorer, 

 and more hardy neighbour; who makes war by sudden irruptions, and car- 

 ries off the flocks of the nearest villages, their best moveable wealth. These 

 incursions are seldom revenged. 



The superstition of this people is extreme. Every peak is the residence 

 of some sprite, whose wrath it is deemed dangerous to provoke. 

 Vol. I. I 



