412 VILLAGE OF MALARI. 



there is always more or less attended with risk. Indeed a 

 great many of the native mountaineers themselves lose their 

 lives in the pursuit of tahr. 



The village of Malari, consisting of about eighty houses, is 

 situated, almost overhanging the river, in an open kind of 

 basin, where the tolerably level ground is, in the summer 

 months, taken every advantage of by the inhabitants for the 

 cultivation of buckwheat (here called " phaper ") and barley. 

 The Bhotias having just reoccupied the place, it presented a 

 much more cheerful aspect than it did on a former visit I had 

 made to it earlier in the spring, when it was all silent and 

 deserted, with the wooden roofs here and there torn up, where 

 the bears had during the winter effected a burglarious 

 entrance after the stores of grain. I found the burrell at 

 that time low down on the slopes in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood, and shot a ram there. The track upward to Niti had, 

 in many places where it almost overhangs the river, been 

 carried clean away by avalanches, or was blocked by huge 

 pine-trees, rocks and debris lying over it, that had been swept 

 down by them. In short, all above this was at that season 

 solitude and desolation. Now the road had been cleared and 

 repaired by the Bhotias, with parties of whom, male and 

 female, moving up with their goods and herds by easy stages 

 to the higher villages, we found it thronged. The men wore 

 long, light, drab-coloured woollen tunics, and continuations of 

 the same material. The women were more gaily attired in 

 coloured skirts and bodices, with a brown blanket tastefully 

 and ingeniously wrapped about their upper persons so as to 

 leave the arms free. A white cotton cloth was thrown over 

 the head, drawn tight above the brows, fastened back behind 

 the ears, and allowed to hang loosely down the back. Most of 

 them sported jewellery in the shape of ear-rings, nose-rings, 

 and necklaces. The men were stout and sturdy, and some of 

 the young girls, with their olive complexions and ruddy cheeks, 

 were pleasing and bright-looking, if not actually pretty. 



