BHOTIA WHISKY. 347 



the men and jooboos returning from Niti with the supplies. 

 A leathern flask of native spirits they had brought with 

 them was produced and freely imbibed from by my Bhotia 

 followers, who had not had a big drink for a month. The 

 liquor was weak mawkish-tasted stuff like bad whisky. It 

 was potent enough, however, to make Puddoo very drunk, 

 so I left him to the tender mercies of his companions. 

 When he turned up towards evening at the tents, he had 

 got sufficiently sober to look sheepish and ashamed of him- 

 self. And here I may offer a bit of advice: never touch 

 spirits on a cold high pass, where their effects are as rapid 

 as they are disagreeable, and your head often aches badly 

 enough there without them. 



The road between the pass and Niti had been repaired 

 by the Bhotias. Even in the narrow defile above Goting, 

 where the snow-bed had now disappeared and the track lay 

 over the steep stony scarps rising from the river, the jooboos 

 had not much difficulty in getting along, although in some 

 places, on landslips, it was like walking over loose broken 

 bricks. And below Goting, where the steep snow-slopes 

 had been so troublesome, you might almost have cantered a 

 pony. About Niti, too, what a change had come over the 

 scene ! The village was busy with life, and the neighbour- 

 ing heights, which only about a month before had been 

 cold, bare, and desolate, were now cheerful with the yod- 

 ling of herdsmen tending their flocks on the green slopes, 

 and tuneful with the cuckoo's notes in the leafy birch- 

 brakes. 



As Puddoo and Co. had been celebrating their return 

 home by a drunken debauch overnight, I had considerable 

 difficulty in getting the jooboos collected and loaded to 

 start at a late hour next morning. At Malari women took 

 the place of the jooboos as baggage-carriers, the village 

 being almost destitute of men, most of whom had gone off 

 with their droves of laden sheep and goats to Hundes to 



