1853.] Notes upon a Tour in the Sikkim Himalayah Mountains. 555 



Soon after leaving the cow-herd's hut we came upon two upright 

 posts, the height of a man, stuck upon either side of the footpath 

 and connected at the top with a horizontal post, from which depend- 

 ed two bundles of sticks, a foot in length, each bundle containing 

 fifteen sticks ; near these bundles were two wooden cudgels, also 

 hanging by strips of rattan — a few feet removed from this group 

 were two other poles erected on either side of the road, but uncon- 

 nected with any horizontal bar. The meaning of these posts and 

 sticks is as follows : — Any one coming from the direction of the two 

 disconnected poles may pass on free and unmolested ; but any one 

 daring to pass from the other side, which points to the infected vil- 

 lage, and in this case pointing to the dysentery -infected Hee ; 

 would be assuredly beaten with the two pendant cudgels under 

 which he or she passes, and moreover would be fined thirty rupees, 

 the number of pieces of wood tied up in the two bundles. Thus 

 whenever small -pox, dysentery or any other complaint breaks out in 

 a village, a strict sanitory cordon is drawn around the infected vil- 

 lage, and no one is allowed to move out. 



At 1-30 p. m. halted on the banks of the Mik, a tributary of 

 much beauty to the kullait river, an affluent of the Great Eungeet. 

 Over the Mik is a small bridge of rough trees with a bamboo ban- 

 nister, the stream is twenty or thirty feet broad, and dashes by a 

 series of leaps over a group of gneiss rocks. The noise was deafen- 

 ing, but the scene beautiful. 



Just before reaching the Mik, I broke down and secured a large 

 handsome fruit of a cucurbitaceous plant that was twining up a 

 tree, the leaves were palmated, fruit about one foot across, and had 

 the appearance of a musk-melon that had been pressed from both 

 ends until considerably flattened. The Lepchas called it Tcuthoor 

 pliort ; they immediately, but with some difficulty, dashed the fruit 

 to pieces on the rocks, extracted from the inside five or six large 

 red seeds, two inches in length, which, when broken open, I found to 

 contain a milk-white kernel tasting like a new walnut. The Lepchas 

 put the stones into the fire and, when roasted, offered them to us ; 

 they were delicious. 



The case of the stones is as hard as a walnut shell, veined with 

 deep sutures like a peach stone, which it resembles in colour. 



