506 Notes of a trip from Simla to the Sjpiti Valley. [No. 5, 



ornaments, but rarely so large or fine as the men. They also wear 

 white shell bangles imported I believe from China, though India 

 could supply them I should imagine far cheaper, and also head lap- 

 pets of cloth, extending some way down the back and ornamented 

 with large turquoises, glass, &c. Both men and women too invari- 

 ably carry a small willow-wood cup, some five inches in diameter, a 

 flint and steel at their side, and a leathern tobacco pouch filled with 

 the dry tobacco leaf. The Spiti pipe is of iron, about a foot and a 

 half long, with a small shallow bowl an inch across, and a square 

 fluted stem, half an inch broad and tapering off to a round mouth- 

 piece, but very strong. 



Dr. J, G. Gerrard accords but scant justice to these unsophisti- 

 cated mountaineers, when describing their personal appearance and 

 characteristics in the Asiatic Researches. Having passed a severe 

 condemnation on the women for their want of personal charms, to 

 their shortcomings in which respect they have the impudence to add 

 want of virtue also, he proceeds to say, " The men, without any 

 superior pretensions, have their peculiarities less out of place, but 

 they are black, greasy and imbecile, without any noble qualities what- 

 ever," " such is their general character, and it will apply to the 



whole nation of Tibetan Tartars." No impartial traveller will admit 

 the truth of this estimate, though in features they may be unpre- 

 possessing, if judged by a European standard, in manners coarse and 

 unrefined, and their notions of morality very different from our own. 

 Gerrard is, however, inconsistent with himself ; for only on the pre- 

 vious page he accords them a certain amount of praise which he 

 afterwards seems to overlook, but which is founded in a far more candid 

 and philosophical spirit than his subsequent condemnation. " Stran- 

 gers, especially Europeans, arriving amongst them and passing rapidly 

 on their way, see nothing in the country or inhabitants to raise a 

 favorable impression on their mind. They observe them in black 

 bare-headed groups, timid, squalid and in rags, and every third person 

 a priest, but, however unintelligible their conduct when debating iri 



stains the stone consequently as far as the oil has penetrated. The white bands 

 are of course mere crystalline layers which have not absorbed any oil and 

 remain in consequence unaffected by the acid. This art is, however, unknown at 

 the present day, to the best of my belief, in India, and these beads are declared 

 by all the writers I have ever questioned, to be brought from the North- West 

 or Cabul. 



