8 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



well-built men, very dark in colour, closely allied to the Ben- 

 galee whom they greatly resemble ; their only garment is a 

 cotton cloth round the loins; their hair is everywhere shaved 

 except on the very top of the head, where the few remaining 

 locks are tied in a knot. Some of these men had but yesterday 

 arrived, each bringing two large black earthenware jars, filled 

 with dhey curdled buffalo milk suspended from the end of a 

 long bamboo balanced across the shoulders. 



Then there are some Nepaulese Ghoorkas those broad- 

 shouldered, sturdy little hill men, sallow complexioned, with 

 their flat faces and noses and small eyes, always ready to do 

 hard work, especially when there is also sport to be had ; 

 splendid trackers, untiring as they are brave and fearless, 

 every one of them armed with the national weapon, carried 

 in its leathern scabbard in the waistcloth, the heavy, curved, 

 broad-bladed kookrie. 



The Mongolian type of countenance is, however, still more 

 apparent in some of their neighbours, men from Sikkim, a 

 Himalayan province bordering on Thibet. There stands our 

 head-man in that dark blue thick woollen sort of loose coat, 

 reaching from the shoulder to the knees, and fastened round the 

 waist by a cord. Not only has he the oblique eyes and high cheek- 

 bones of the Chinaman, but a long pigtail descends from the 

 back of his head, carefully plaited and embellished with a red 

 tassel at the end. His head is covered by a porkpie hat with a 

 black velvet rim, a yellow headpiece, in the centre of which is a 

 bright crimson knot. His naked legs, and the one shoulder and 

 arm withdrawn from the sleeve, display his massive form ; a 

 long sword-like knife, protected by a bamboo sheath, hangs 

 from the belt ; in his hand he carries a large crimson umbrella, 

 and he is further adorned by a necklet of beads and charms. A 

 picturesque garb, which all the richer men affect such as this 

 one who is put in authority over a gang of his poorer brethren, 

 whose powerful frames thoroughly fit them for the hard work 

 asked of porters in a mountainous country like their own. The 

 garb of these coolies consists of the thickest layer of dirt, care- 

 fully nursed since birth, for they never wash a layer which is 

 guarded from external injury by a coarse woollen coat with wide 

 sleeves, one side overlapping the other in front over the waist, 

 where it is retained by a rope. The coat opens over the neck 



