WILD WOMEN 255 



by way of ladders, to ascend masses of rock on one side 

 and to descend from them on the other. These specimens 

 of a Himalayan road occur within a space of two hundred 

 yards. Those of us who wore boots or shoes had to take 

 them off and climb barefooted. Just below this break-neck 

 path is Eakcham itself, a black and grimy village of half a 

 dozen wooden houses, planted in several feet of foul mud. 

 Most of the miserable huts are built against the rock ; 

 these are filthy in the extreme, and the inhabitants are 

 filthier still. The women are extraordinarily timid. 

 Whenever I met them on the road, or even passed them 

 at a distance working in a field, they invariably took to 

 liifrht, and hid behind rocks and trees till I was out of 

 sight — for all the world like wild animals, from which, I 

 am sure, they were not many degrees removed. It was 

 very cold and cloudy in the evening. The elevation of 

 Eakcham is 10,44.5 feet. 



There was slight rain in the night and snow on the 

 mountain-tops. The morning was pleasant, but foggy, 

 much warmer than the previous evening. After 2 p.m. 

 the cold rapidly increases, as from that hour the wind 

 generally begins to blow down from the snows, and lowers 

 the temperature considerably. A trader from Eam-Serai, 

 in Garhwal, who came over with rice twelve days ago by 

 the Eupin Pass, said the passage w^as not difficult. Eam- 

 Serai is eight marches from Eakcham. My informant 

 professed ignorance of the names of the stages in Tibetan 

 territory ! Even in this remote corner, the exclusiveness 

 of China is felt and respected. This man, no doubt, had 

 been warned by the Tibetans to give no help or informa- 

 tion regarding the country beyond the pass ; all I could 

 get out of him was that the country is bare and stony, 

 and that sheep are not grazed there. 



I left Eakcham at 9 p.m. and reached Chitkiil at 1 p.m., 



