A HUNT FOR HOATZINS 111 



then; a sort of quintessence of out-of-dateness 

 which no inhabitant suspected, and which was in- 

 capable of legislative change. First, there were 

 hoatzins, hinting of seons of years ago; then, the 

 library, which preserved so perfectly the atmos- 

 phere of our great grandparents. And now, 

 as I left the compound of Colony House in 

 the early morning, I watched with fascination a 

 coolie woman bearing a great bundle of loosely 

 bound fagots on her head. As she walked, they 

 kept dropping out, and instead of leaning down 

 or squatting and so endangering the equili- 

 brium of all the rest, she simply shifted her 

 weight to one foot, and felt about with the other. 

 When it encountered the fallen stick, the big 

 toe uncannily separated and curled about it, 

 and she instantly bent her knee, passed up the 

 stick to her hand and thence to the bundle again. 

 It surpassed anything I had ever seen among 

 savages — the handlike mobility of that coolie 

 woman's toes. And I thought that, if she was 

 a woman of Simla or of the Western Ghats, 

 then my belief in the Siwalik origin of mankind 

 was irrevocable! 



It seemed as if I could not escape from the 

 spell of the past. I walked down to a dilapi- 



