KHA.MTI TO INDIA 



steps farther, and again we were stopped. Through the same 

 medium as before, some notables intimated that we must make 

 a present to the village. This procedure did not commend itself to 

 us as at all a desirable precedent to establish. On the other hand, 

 to use force when we did not know our way, had a river to cross, 

 and with the ever- recurring difficulty of food, to say nothing ot the 

 presence in our column of local porters on whom we could not rely, 

 seemed an unwise alternative. Their tone now became more 

 menacing ; it was a custom, they said, that other Europeans, none 

 of whom had come from the East, had observed, and unless we 

 conformed to it we could not pass. In this dilemma we offered 

 them five rupees. They indignantly refused, and laid our modest 

 ransom at a hundred rupees. This was too much ; we made a 

 signal to our men to fall in, and began to get out our guns, with 

 obvious other intent than as gifts. Upon this they held a further 

 conference with some pretended chief in the village, and ended by 

 accepting" ten rupees. Such was our first contact with the folk ol 

 Moam — a set of rapacious blackmailers, to whom nothing but 

 prudential considerations for the success of our journey allowed us 

 to yield. 



The females in the crowd here were so far feminine, and 

 unlike those of the Kioutses, as to recall to us that heaven created 

 woman for a companion to man. They were tall, wearing a dark 

 blue skirt, a light open jacket of the same colour, and a white 

 girdle. Their hair was in a knot, and drawn into a glossy black 

 coil, on the left side of which several fastened coquettish glass 

 spangles that glittered in the sun. Most had rings in their ears, 

 sometimes of amber. I saw a child here, playing with a wooden 

 top, just as at home. 



We passed through the village, Tsaukan, and at once found 



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