374 MEMOIR OF A SURVEY OF 



paper, gore-shaped, and long enough to cross over the forehead ; one sort of 

 ear-ring had a remarkable appearance : it is a brass- wire ring, three or four 

 inches in diameter, put through the top of the ear, and having suspended 

 to it a triangular plate of silver, which remains in the direction of the 

 shoulders. 



Polygamy is allowed — the limit is only the inability or disinclination 

 of the Chief to exchange more hill cattle for new wives. My host, 

 Ghalim, had then ten, two or three in the house ; and the remain- 

 der, to avoid domestic quarrels, have separate houses assigned them at 

 some little distance, or live with their relations. As has already appeared, 

 they suffer no sort of restraint, but young and old mix with the men in 

 the performance of every kind of labor, except hunting. 



Ghal^m's riches were evident in the embellishments of one wall of the 

 interior of his dwelling; there, on bamboos, extending the whole length, 

 were rows of the blackened skulls of Mithuns, Thibet cows, and those of 

 the plains, some hogs, and a few bears, deers, and monkeys. The estima- 

 tion of wealth is to be guided by the number of the skulls of the Mithuns 

 and cattle of the Lamas, which are of the greatest value. I was, in the 

 course of my journey, in the house of one man who is accused of the 

 shabby trick of retaining on his walls the skulls of his father's time, 

 thereby imposing on all but those of the neighbourhood. I understood 

 that they were generally piled within a little palisade, which marks the 

 spot where the Chief lies buried. Of their religion, I only learned that 

 they sacrifice fowls or pigs to their sylvan deities, whenever illness or 

 misfortune of any kind visits them, and on these occasions a sprig of a 

 plant is placed at the door to inform strangers that the house is under a 

 ban for the time, that it must not be enterred. Ghah5m's house is about 

 one hundred and thirty feet long and eleven wide, raised on posts suffi- 

 ciently high to give plenty of room below to the hogs. 



