116 MAJOE W. HODSON. 



How you would stare at my long beard, moustaclie, 

 and whiskers. . . . The Indus is brawling along 500 

 feet below us, as if in a hurry to get ' out of that ' ; 

 and above, one's neck aches with trj^ing to see to 

 the top of the vast craggy mountains which confine 

 the stream in its rocky channel. So wild, so heaven- 

 forsaken a scene I never beheld ; livino; nature there 

 is none. In a week's journey I have seen three 

 marmots, two wagtails, and three jackdaws, and we 

 have averaged twenty miles a-day." 



After some more marches of the same average 

 length, the party arrived at Leh or Ladakh, which 

 Hodson describes as " a small town of not more 

 than 400 houses, on a projecting promontory of rock 

 stretching out into the valley formed by one of 

 the small feeders of the Indus. For the people, they 

 are Bhots, and wear tails, and have fiat features 

 like the Chinese, and black garments. The women, 

 unlike other Asiatics whom I have seen, go about 

 the streets openly, as in civilised countries ; but 

 they are an ugly race, and withal dirty to an 

 absolutely unparalleled extent. They wear no head- 

 dress, but plait their masses of black hair into 

 sundry tails half-way down their backs. Covering 

 the division of the hair from the forehead, back, 

 and down the shoulders, is a narrow leathern strap, 

 universally adorned with rough turquoises and bits 

 of gold or silver." One old Eani on whom Lawrence 

 and Hodson called had her head adorned with a 

 broader strap, on which were sewn 156 large tur- 

 quoises reckoned to be worth several hundred 

 pounds. 



" The climate is delightful ; it never rains ; the 

 sky is blue to a fault, and snow only falls sparingly 



