50 THE MARKHOR 



But these dangerous beauties are certainly not to 

 be found amongst the fields and mountains. Muscle 

 and bones are here of more importance. And the 

 women hide their neglected bodies in rough 

 garments of homespun linen, the same material 

 serving to make a sort of cap for the head. How 

 artistic these white garments might be if they were 

 not coal-black black with the filth of ages ! Even 

 so they often present a charming picture, these 

 women, when they stand before the dark entrance 

 to their huts with their raiment falling in artistic 

 folds around them fair silhouettes of Madonna-like 

 grace. But I must not paint them too white, for 

 the nearer one gets, the blacker they become ! And 

 then they suddenly veil their emaciated faces and 

 disappear into the smoke-blackened interior of their 

 loveless world. 



Poor Cashmere women ! Their life is but one 

 long physical and animal existence, knocked about 

 by fate, and only there to serve their husbands and 

 masters poor shy doves that dare not even coo ! 

 Like flowers, kept ever in the dark, they lose their 

 colour and cannot grow, become pale and wither 

 away without happiness ! A rugged, harsh existence 

 full of bitterness, which is even discernible in their 

 mountain honey. They never laugh, these mountain 

 flowers, but neither do they know what tears are. 



