508 Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spiti Valley. [No. 5, 



of resorting on such occasions to the filthy slaver of ahuse which 

 seems to flow spontaneously from the lips of a Hindustani, never 

 seems to occur to them. In Hindustan, the child not long after he 

 can stand will have acquired command of the foulest language, which 

 it is impossible he can understand, and which he vents unchecked in 

 presence of his father or even his female relatives ; and this callous 

 indifference is not confined in all cases to natives, as I have heard the 

 servants of English gentlemen lavish the foulest and most abomin- 

 able abuse on villagers on the slightest grounds within hearing of 

 their masters and without reproof, though it is difficult to understand 

 how any one possessed of refined or gentlemanly feeling can recon- 

 cile himself to, or tolerate in his servants, conduct at once so odious, 

 despicable and unjust. 



5th, Danka 12740 ft. (camp 12416 ft.)— From Main descend into 

 the bed of the Spiti river, which is crossed a little above the village 

 by a fine suspension bridge of considerable length. Throughout Spiti, 

 these bridges are constructed of ropes made of birch or willow twigs. 

 The supports are two stout cables each composed of some twelve or 

 fifteen small ropes, stretched over rude piers on either bank at about 

 five feet apart and firmly secured by being buried deeply beneath the 

 stones forming the piers. Between the main cables, and about two 

 feet below them, a third of smaller dimensions is stretched and sup- 

 ported by light ropes passed over the side cables ; and when the 

 bridge is in good order, a passenger treading on the central cable 

 and supporting himself by the ones on either side, can cross a river 

 with perfect ease and safety, far more so than over the best cane 

 bridge of the Eastern Himalayas and Khasia hills, as the cane and 

 bamboo of which they are constructed is far more slippery than the 

 ropes which are used in their place throughout Spiti ; when, however, 

 out of repair and the small side ropes supporting the central cable in 

 many places deficient, the job of crossing is trying to the nerves, 

 and actually dangerous. 



Along the course of the Spiti river are seen old river terraces or 

 deposits of shingle and sand coarse and feebly stratified, and reach- 

 ing to a height of some four hundred feet above the present river 

 level. Behind these regular deposits, and both from beneath, and 

 also encroaching over them, rise almost mountainous accumulations 

 of debris precipitated by frost from the abruptly scarped limestone 



