IBEX-SHOOTING IN BALTISTAN 137 



roughest homespun puttoo, a coarse material re- 

 sembling sackcloth in texture. Their houses in the 

 smaller villages are often mere caves in the ground, 

 with a hole leading straight down for entrance, or 

 else low huts of stone seldom higher than a man's 

 height, with flat mud roofs, windowless, and with 

 but a single opening in the roof for the smoke of 

 their fires to pass through. The men seem to be of 

 two distinct types: one class have Mongolian fea- 

 tures and are of Tibetan origin; the other have 

 Tartar blood and are allied to the Dards. Some of 

 them, especially the older men, have a very wild 

 appearance. The women seldom show themselves 

 and always hide behind rocks or run up the hillsides 

 when they see white men approaching. The men, 

 however, with all their rough exterior, are always 

 courteous, and seldom pass without the customary 

 raising of the hand and "Salaam, Sahib," to which 

 the white man answers, " Salaam," that is, " Peace." 

 At the end of our second stage from Dras, on turn- 

 ing suddenly into a narrow and wild ravine of the 

 Dras River, we came upon a little cleared space on 

 the very edge of a precipice, where a Balti polo game 

 was in full swing ; and for the interest of beholding 

 one of the greatest of games played on its native 

 heath, and by the very people who centuries ago in- 

 vented it, we stopped to watch. Some eight or ten 



