204 EAST NEPAL. Chap. IX. 



kettles, stools, churn, and bamboo vessels, keeping up a 

 constant rattle, and perhaps, buried amongst all, a rosy- 

 cheeked and lipped baby, sucking a lump of cheese-curd. 

 The main body follow in due order, and you are soon 

 entangled amidst sheep and goats, each with its two little 

 bags of salt : beside these, stalks the huge, grave, bull- 

 headed mastiff, loaded like the rest, his glorious bushy tail 

 thrown over his back in a majestic sweep, and a thick collar 

 of scarlet wool round his neck and shoulders, setting off 

 his long silky coat to the best advantage ; he is decidedly 

 the noblest-looking of the party, especially if a fine and 

 pure black one, for they are often very ragged, dun-coloured, 

 sorry beasts. He seems rather out of place, neither guard- 

 ing nor keeping the party together, but he knows that 

 neither yaks, sheep, nor goats, require his attention ; all 

 are perfectly tame, so he takes his share of work as salt- 

 carrier by day, and watches by night as well. The children 

 bring up the rear, laughing and chatting together; they, too, 

 have their loads, even to the youngest that can walk alone. 



The last village of the Limboos, Taptiatok, is large, and 

 occupies a remarkable amphitheatre, apparently a lake-bed, 

 in the course of the Tambur. After proceeding some way 

 through a narrow gorge, along which the river foamed and 

 roared, the sudden opening out of this broad, oval 

 expanse, more than a mile long, was very striking : the 

 mountains rose bare and steep, the west flank terminating 

 in shivered masses of rock, while that on the right was 

 more undulating, dry, and grassy : the surface was a flat 

 gravel-bed, through which meandered the rippling stream, 

 fringed with alder. It was a beautiful spot, the clear, 

 cool, murmuring river, with its rapids and shallows, forcibly 

 reminding me of trout-streams in the highlands of Scotland. 



Beyond Taptiatok we again crossed the river, and 



