LADAK. 141 



game ; that they had killed one ibex, and only left the 

 place the evening we arrived. On first hearing this, I 

 scouted the idea; it was so very improbable. But 

 Subhan and the others repeated the story with such as- 

 severations, and so many plausible corroborations, that 

 I partly believed them. On arriving at Sooroo these 

 knaves assumed a high tone, and frightened the poor old 

 kardar who did not come near me for some time ; but 

 having appeased the shikarries by a * douceur/ as I sup- 

 pose, they told him I would receive him, and forgive him 

 on apologising. Now I believe the whole story to have 

 been false from beginning to end, and actually plotted 

 and devised to extort something from the kardar. Verily, 

 in these parts, all men are liars. 



We continued our route, and plodded on, the sun now 

 hot, finally arriving at our camping place, the village 

 of Shazgool, a Buddhist place, with the lama's house 

 curiously built into the face of a perpendicular rock 

 looking down on the village, a shabby tumble-down place, 

 and some tombs or shrines tawdrily painted with clumsy 

 devices of hideous demons on them. These are paltry 

 looking constructions, of mud principally. 



This was a small village of some nine or ten houses in a 

 dilapidated condition ; but they are all apparently in 

 like bad case, the inhabitants miserably poor, judging 

 from their appearance and surrounding indications. But 

 they seem to be stout, healthy, and cheerful. The women, 

 I fancy, do most of the work, as with all barbarians. 

 A large wicker basket seems to be a fixture on their 

 backs, and with this appendage they are seen busy in the 

 fields, weeding, putting every shred of herbage so gathered 

 into the said basket which by evening is filled, when they 

 return, and the produce of their industry serves for 

 fodder for cow, sheep, or goat, every blade of vegetation 



