134 DOKJILING. Chap. V. 



future father-in-law, the parties being often united before 

 the woman leaves her parents' roof, in cases where the 

 payment is not forthcoming, and the bridegroom prefers 

 giving his and his wife's labour to the father for a stated 

 period in lieu. On the time of service expiring, or the 

 money being paid up, the marriage is publicly celebrated 

 by feasting and riot. The females are generally chaste, 

 and the marriage-tie is strictly kept, its violation being 

 heavily punished by divorce, beating, slavery, &c. In cases 

 of intermarriage with foreigners, the children belong to the 

 father's country. All the labours of the house, the field, 

 and march, devolve on the women and children, or slaves 

 if they have them. 



Small-pox is dreaded, and infected persons often cruelly 

 shunned : a suspicion of this or of cholera frequently 

 emptying a village or town in a night. Vaccination has been 

 introduced by Dr. Pearson, and it is much practised by 

 Dr. Campbell; it being eagerly sought. Cholera is scarcely 

 known at Dorjiling, and when it has been imported thither 

 has never spread. Disease is very rare amongst the 

 Lepchas ; and ophthalmia, elephantiasis, and leprosy, the 

 scourges of hot climates, are rarely known. Goitre prevails,* 

 though not so conspicuously as amongst Bhoteeas, 



* May not the use of the head instead of the shoulder-strap in carrying loads 

 be a predisposing cause of goitre, by inducing congestion of the laryngeal vessels ? 

 The Lepcha is certainly far more free from this disease than any of the tribes of 

 E. Nepal I have mixed with, and he is both more idle and less addicted to the 

 head-strap as a porter. I have seen it to be almost universal in some villages of 

 Bhoteeas, where the head -strap alone is used in carrying in both summer and winter 

 crops ; as also amongst the salt-traders, or rather those families who carry the 

 salt from the passes to the Nepalese villages, and who very frequently have no 

 shoulder-straps, but invariably head-bands. I am far from attributing all goitre, 

 even in the mountains, to this practice, but I think it is proved, that the disease 

 is most prevalent in the mountainous regions of both the old and new world, and 

 that in these the practice of supporting enormous loads by the cervical muscles 

 is frequent. It is also found in the Himalayan sheep and goats which accompany 

 the salt-traders, and whose loads are supported in ascending, by a band passing 

 under the throat. 



