CHRISTMAS-TIME IN FOUR CONTINENTS 189 



around. With the exception of one reconnaissance into the 

 mountains to the north, there was no soldiering to be done 

 except garrison duty. No Bhooteas came near us to our great 

 regret, nor did they disturb the Government coolies living 

 in the village of Ambiokh, at the foot of our hill. These 

 coolies were natives of Sikhim and wore the picturesque garb 

 of Thibet, pigtail and all ; very dirty, for they never wash 

 from the day their eyes first behold the light to that on which 

 their spirit enters the Bhuddist Nirwana ; they will sell 

 anything living or dead for rum and are most skilful workers 

 in bamboo. 



This lovely plant flourishes exceedingly among the hills and 

 supplies almost all their wants, as it did most of ours. Out of 

 it, and out of nothing else, is the whole house made and 

 all the furniture, if that word can be applied to a bunk, rickety 

 chair and table ; cooking utensils, water vessels, pipes, needles, 

 thread, ladders, bows and arrows, and the scabbard for the ever- 

 present long knife. Visit at their houses, which are always 

 raised very high above ground on piles, and the chatelaine, 

 who, by the way, belongs to several brothers in common, will 

 offer you boiling hot tea, largely mixed with native butter, 

 in a bamboo pot. When young these ladies are very pretty ; 

 they are bought according to their market value from their 

 parent by the future husbands, generally brothers, although 

 two or three friends sometimes club together to make up 

 the necessary sum. 



The only white people living outside the fort walls were 

 the political officer and his wife, who had lately taken up 

 their quarters on the spur of an immediately adjoining plateau, 

 where they lived in a bamboo bungalow, at first not altogether 

 free from scares. Here the only European lady in all Bhootan 

 presided at the Christmas dinner, to which the few officers 

 of the garrison had been kindly bidden. Considering the 

 place and time of year, and the fact that we were then cut 

 off by flooded plains and raging torrents from civilisation below, 

 the dinner was a great success, and spoke volumes for the 

 inventive genius of our hostess. Everything, indeed, from 

 soup to dessert, with the exception of a brace of jungle fowl, 

 was extracted from tins, but it was novel and not mouldy. 

 The last wish expressed by every member of that party was 



