LXIX 



And yet, when you get up into Xepaul, or on the bor- 

 ders of Thibet, in the foot-hills of the Himalayas, you find 

 a sturdy, round, able pony of eleven or twelve hands, 

 stocky, and weighing a good deal for his inches, which 

 will carry you at a good walk, a rapid amble, or a strong, 

 steady trot. He much resembles the Burmese pony, but 

 is supposed to be the same animal as the Hindoo plains 

 pony. Whatever his origin, the mountain air seems to 

 have given him strength and roundness, as it has to the 

 Mongolian men and women who inhabit these hills. As 

 a general rule, you may notice that the long-bodied, short- 

 legged mammal is produced by the hills, the long-legged 

 and smaller- bodied mammal by the plains. It requires, so 

 to speak, a good deal of boiler capacity to drive even a 

 small engine up the sharp slopes of the hilly country. 

 The plains dweller does not need to get up so much steam 

 to propel him. The pony ridden by the young King of 

 Nepaul shows the type. One might call the little fellow, 

 as a generic name, the Himalaya pony. 



The woman, by-the-way, is the cooly of the Himalaya 

 region. She shoulders, or rather backs, a heavy trunk, 

 which she holds by a rope passed under it and over the 

 top of her head, and will carry from a hundred to a hun- 

 dred and twenty pounds, her own weight almost, for a 

 considerable distance. I have heretofore said that the 

 Lord never made an animal except the ass w^hich could 

 stagger along for a day's work under its own weight ; but 



