THE NEPAULESE GUARDS 269 



the Sikkim trade, the Vakeel has more interest than his 

 master in excluding strangers), were short, stout, thick-set 

 Bhoteas, clad in purple worsted dressing growns, fastened 

 round the middle by a belt, bare headed and footed, very 

 dirty and ill-favoured withal. 



Next conspicuous to these are my Nepaul guards, just 

 arrived to accompany me to the Nepaul frontier and conduct 

 me from thence ; the Havildar (Corporal, I believe) is a 

 small, fine-boned man, with little hands and small limbs 

 and ankles, well-knit and active, of the Kawass tribe, who 

 boast descent from the Rajpoots and are generally in Nepaul 

 the slaves of the Rajah's body, sometimes soldiers and, more 

 rarely, rise to the rank of gentlemen. He looks business- 

 like and trusty, is very handsome, swarthy, with small 

 moustache, broad forehead, bright open eye, good nose, 

 handsome mouth, and small prominent chin. A pretty little 

 turban sits nattily on his head, of black, woven with silver 

 thread, and the number of his corps worked in silver in 

 front, right over a red mark on his forehead which bespeaks 

 his caste amongst the Hindus. His coat is a loose rover-like 

 jacket of purple with silk braid in front, over a white under 

 garment of cotton, open down the right breast and exposing 

 his chest and long neck. A checked cummerbund is folded 

 many times round his middle and over his nether garments, 

 which are short, loose, and broad. What with his jaunty 

 dress, careless air, and roving eye, he would pass for a sea 

 free-booter (out of Cooper's novels for instance, but less 

 mannered and theatrical and more real than the tricked 

 out coxcombs of that author, who are the prototypes of 

 Mr. T. P. Cooke, 1 rather than real fire-eaters). 



The Goorkha Sepoys are immense fellows, stout and 

 brawny, of curious cast of feature, heavy jowled and rather 

 small eyed ; they wear small linen skull caps over long care- 

 fully combed and jet black hair which hangs in heavy folds 

 down the side of the head ; they wear too scarlet loose 

 jackets, very bright and gaudy, with a kookry stuck in the 

 cummerbund and heavy iron sword at their side. 



i Thomas Potter Cooke (1786-1864) served in the navy till the peace of 

 1802, and then took to the stage, being, as Christopher North put it, ' the best 

 sailor out of all sight and hearing that ever trod the stage.' His greatest 

 success was in the part of William in Douglas Jerrold's ' Black-Eyed Susan.' 

 Another famous part of his was in * Frankenstein.' 



