98 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



weight or more as they rolled down the snow slope, and 

 continued their course on the bare ground right past the 

 tents, threatening destruction to the frail structures. 

 Luckily the snowballing ceased at nightfall owing to the 

 frost, so that we could sleep without fear of finding our- 

 selves buried under an avalanche. 



Next day we returned towards Garbyang, where all 

 was ready for crossing to Hundes. We turned, however, 

 up another valley to the village of Tinkar in Nepal, to 

 await the arrival of our party. There was another vil- 

 lage not far off, where, we were told, all the inhabitants 

 had lately died of small-pox and there was not a soul left 

 alive. Tinkar had escaped with no deaths and only a few 

 mild cases. This seemed a miraculous story, but was 

 accounted for when we were told by the Bhotias that the 

 vaccination officer sent by our Government had vaccinated 

 all the Tinkar folk, but the old women of the other village 

 had steadily refused to admit the officer or allow him to 

 operate. The goddess Kali could not be propitiated by 

 such a stupid process as inoculating with the blood of a 

 calf. Now, however, the intelligent Bhotias of Tinkar 

 had the laugh over the worshippers of malignant spirits, 

 and every village around was sending requests to the 

 vaccination officer to come over into Nepal and ad- 

 minister the life-saving virus. It was terrible to see the 

 horrible marks that this fell disease had left from time to 

 time on the poor people in some of the hill valleys, faces 

 so disfigured by pits and scars as to seem scarcely human, 

 not to speak of blindness and loss of noses. The stories 

 told of the horrors of small-pox were quite harrowing, 

 and there was but one opinion among all, whether 

 Kumaonis, Bhotias, or Hunias, that the vaccination 

 officer was the saviour of the hves of thousands ; and 

 the blessing of the poor was ever being given to 



