160 Sport and Life in the Further Himalaya 



fort. After living in Muslim lands where females 

 are secluded, there was something rather homely 

 and pleasing in finding oneself among people 

 whose women are treated as something more 

 than slaves or toys. The nature of a nomadic 

 life makes the purdah system an impossibility, 

 with the result that among no other people in 

 the East is the standard of morality so high as 

 among the pastoral tribes of Asia. 



More delightful than anything was the know- 

 ledge that I was at length on the Bam-i-dunya, 

 the mysterious " roof of the world," a land which 

 has probably seen fewer changes, both in its 

 aspect and inhabitants, than any other since the 

 birth of the human race. Here were the milk- 

 fed people and the Scythian latticed huts men- 

 tioned by Greek writers long before the Christian 

 era, and the identical landscape described by 

 Chinese pilgrims of the fifth and sixth centuries. 

 My surroundings were at that moment in all 

 probability exactly the same as those in which 

 the illustrious Marco Polo found himself when 

 he passed through this and other strange lands 

 on his journey to the court of the great Kaan 

 Kublai. Lastly, I was in the country of the 

 giant wild sheep, discovered by the same traveller, 

 and deemed fabulous, like many others of the 

 bold Venetian's tales, till modern exploration 



