1840.] Journal of a trip through Kunawur, fyc. 563 



composing strata of clay-slates and shales in which they abound. 

 These hills are of the secondary formation, and their outline more 

 gradual and rounded, wants that air of majesty and grandeur which 

 the primary class possesses. Here are no trees, no forests to take 

 off the sombre aspect of the view, — but a bare and barren waste 

 of crumbling soils meet the eye at every turn. Broad and sterile 

 tracts of alluvial deposits are also traversed in the bed of the valleys, 

 now high above the river's course, and which seem from their ap- 

 pearance to invite the hand of industry to cultivate the soil, yet days 

 may be passed without a village being met with to gladden the cold 

 and dreary solitude. 



If even a village be found, no welcome is seen in the eyes of the 

 half scared inhabitants, who, fearful lest their stores should be taken 

 from them without payment, either deny- that they possess any thing 

 at all, or abandon their huts at the approach of the intruder. When 

 assured that no force will be used towards them, they become, on 

 the other hand, such harpies, that it is impossible to procure the 

 commonest article without paying a most exhorbitant price for it. 

 A great inconvenience arises from the want of a copper currency. 

 Throughout the districts of Hungrung and Spiti, as far as I tra- 

 velled, nothing could induce the people to receive pice ; they have 

 no use for them among themselves, as every thing is on a system 

 of barter, — wool for grain, woollen stuffs for salt, tobacco, &c, — but 

 no money generally speaking passes from hand to* hand among 

 them. The only time therefore when they find the use of money 

 is at the annual fair held at Rampore in the month of November, 

 at which season they purchase the various articles and supplies 

 which are to last them till the same time in the ensuing year, — 

 or which are to be taken up into the higher and remoter hills. In 

 exchange for these things, which consist of goor, tobacco, iron, grain, 

 &c. they give to the dealers, biangee* wool, pushm, sooklant, bir- 

 more, chowrees, blankets, borax, &c. 



Even here therefore they pursue a system of barter with the people 

 of the lower hills and plains, and their money is only useful when 

 they wish to purchase some trifling articles, such as beads, looking 

 glasses, &c, from those to whom their merchandise would be useless. 



* A term applied to Thibet sheep wool. 



4 c 



