132 DORJILING. Chap. V. 



partners, who wear only one.* When in full dress, the 

 woman's costume is extremely ornamental and picturesque ; 

 besides the shirt and petticoat she wears a small sleeveless 

 woollen cloak, of gay pattern, usually covered with crosses, 

 and fastened in front by a girdle of silver chains. Her 

 neck is loaded with silver chains, amber necklaces, &c, and 

 her head adorned with a coronet of scarlet cloth, studded 

 with seed-pearls, jewels, glass beads, &c. The common 

 dress is a long robe of indi, a cloth of coarse silk, spun 

 from the cocoon of a large caterpillar that is found wild at 

 the foot of the hills, and is also cultivated ; it feeds on 

 many different leaves, Sal (S/wrea), castor-oil, &c. 



In diet, they are gross feeders ; f rice, however, forming 

 their chief sustenance ; it is grown without irrigation, and 

 produces a large, flat, coarse grain, which becomes gelati- 

 nous, and often pink, when cooked. Pork is a staple 

 dish : and they also eat elephant, and all kinds of animal 

 food. When travelling, they live on whatever they can 

 find, whether animal or vegetable. Fern-tops, roots of 

 Scitaminece, and their flower-buds, various leaves (it is 

 difficult to say what not), and fungi, are chopped up, fried 

 with a little oil, and eaten. Their cooking is coarse and 

 dirty. Salt is costly, but prized ; pawn (Betel pepper) is 

 never eaten. Tobacco they are too poor to buy, and too 

 indolent to grow and cure. Spices, oil, &c. are relished. 



They drink out of little wooden cups, turned from knots 

 of maple, or other woods ; these are very curious on several 

 accounts ; they are very pretty, often polished, and mounted 

 with silver. Some are supposed to be antidotes against 



* Ermann (Travels in Siberia, ii. p. 204) mentions the Buraet women as 

 wearing two tails, and fillets with jewels, and the men as having one queue only. 



t Dr. Campbell's definition of the Lepcha's Flora clbaria, is, that he eats, or 

 must have eaten, everything soft enough to chew ; for, as he knows whatever is 

 poisonous, he must have tried all ; his knowledge being wholly empirical. 



