428 WOMEN AS COOLIES 



I must come close to excepting the Thibetan or Xepaulese 

 woman. The children of six or seven begin carrying packs, 

 small at first but gradually increased ; by the time a girl 

 is twelve or thirteen, she is a full-fledged cooly. She 

 works all day for the merest pittance ; carries stone for 

 building or wood for burning, bamboo for huts or straw 

 for thatch, traveller's packs or railway luggage ; and if 

 after years of toil she can save enough to buy a silver 

 prayer-box to hang on a string of cornelian and turkis 

 beads around her neck, and to fee the priest to write and 

 bless a prayer to put in it, she is happy. Nor is this a 

 great ambition. Cornelian and turkis are found in every 

 hill-side, and silver is all too cheap. I have been told that 

 these little giants — they are rarely more than five feet 

 high — can carry a hundred and fifty pounds and upwards. 

 I have seen a string of them carrying from eighty to one 

 hundred and twenty pounds each. The band over the 

 head ends by making a distinct depression in the skull. 

 But no matter, the Mongols in this Himalaya region are 

 a sturdy and an intelligent race. 



Among them are many different tribes — Lepchas, Nep- 

 aulese, Bhooteas, and others ; and farther north the Goor- 

 khas, who make the best soldiers the British have found 

 in their Indian possessions, not excepting even the Sikhs. 

 All these Himalaya races appear to partake of the free- 

 dom-loving hardihood and manly courage of mountaineers 

 in every part of the world. They are centuries ahead of 

 their Mongolian cousins, the Chinese — or is it behind 

 them ? The Goorkhas are said to be capital fighters, to 

 possess, indeed, the genuine gaudium certaminis, a thing 

 the Chinaman most notably lacks. 



Many of the customs of these Himalaya Mongols are 

 peculiar, but they are readily understood. I have often 

 heard of the Thibetan prayer-wheel, and had imagined it 



