CARAVAN DRIVERS 137 
fortable. In front was a yard and stabling for a few 
horses, and a pole was erected in it from which strings 
of paper prayers hung fluttering in the wind. Round 
the walls also bits of stick were inserted here and there 
and similarly ornamented: The roof of the kitchen was 
flat, and on it there was a small dome-shaped erection 
of clay, in which every day, at about five o’clock in the 
afternoon, the branches of a sort of coniferous plant 
were burnt with religious ceremony. 
Caravans used to stop here, and on their arrival the 
beasts of burden were unloaded in the yard and then 
driven along a passage running through the house to 
an enclosure at the back, where they were left for the 
night. The animals used were horses, or a cross-breed 
between the yak and a cow, a much smaller animal 
than the wild yak. The drivers are all Tibetan, and are 
a rough muscular set of men wearing their hair hanging 
over their faces, their skins being tanned a dark brown 
colour. They wear a loose brown woollen coat reaching 
to the knees, and fastened round the waist with a belt, 
through which the upper part is pulled up till it falls 
over and hides the girdle, forming a substitute for 
pockets. Raw hide boots reaching to just below the 
knee are worn, and acuriously shaped cowl for the head 
with a flap hanging down behind, in the middle of which 
is a circular red patch, completes their costume. They 
