216 Notes on Moorcrofts Travels in Ladakh, £No. 147. 



I did not learn the origin of these customs, but they may be the 

 result of an effort of Buddhism, to spare life in whatever shape it 

 appears. 



Scarcity of Grain— The Potatoe.— The crops (in Kunawar) for the 

 most part are poor, and a great want of grain pervades the whole 

 country. In times of scarcity, horse chestnuts, after being steeped 

 for two or three days to take away their bitterness, are dried and 

 ground into flour, and apricots and walnuts also form part of the food 

 of the people. — Gerard, p. 64-5. 



I have seen wheat flour as cheap as sixty pounds for a rupee, but the 

 average price in Kunawar is from thirty to forty, and in October and 

 November, it is scarcely to be procured for any money. — Gerard, 

 p. 65. 



Kunawar has a few villages which produce more grain than their 

 inhabitants require, but considered as a whole, the district imports a 

 portion of its food. The people never willingly part with their grain, 

 and during my residence in Upper Kunawar and the adjacent Bhotee 

 districts, I got it compulsorily at the rate of 8 J and 10 seers, (17 and 

 20 lbs.) the rupee, and what I required for the few people with me, 

 was sometimes brought from a distance of 60 miles. 



Scarcities are occasioned by a want of rain in April, but sometimes 

 by a destructive insect which eats the stalk. I heard also that about 

 25 years ago, (1817-18,) a flight of locusts appeared. The kernels of 

 apricot stones, treated the same way as Gerard says of horse chest- 

 nuts, are likewise used to economize grain, and the people dig up roots, 

 and make use of the wild pea named charek, which I have met with 

 in II an gran g. 



Gerard laments (p. 65,) that the potatoe was not so extensive by culti- 

 vated as it ought to be, considering that his brother had at different 

 times distributed upwards of 2,000 lbs. weight of that vegetable 

 among the people. It is now scarcely if at all cultivated, and the 

 reason may be simple ; as a first crop, it is not so productive as gram, 

 and as a second it cannot perhaps be matured. 



Tea. — The next article of importance in the trade of Ladakh, is tea 

 brought in square masses or lumps, packed (in Lassa) in the raw 

 skins of yaks, the hair inwards. Each block called dom by the Kash- 

 miris, and Ponkah by the Lassans, weighs about 4 Delhi seers, less 



