28 
[No, l, 
K. B. Shaw —Stray Arians in Tibet. 
takeably of a different race. They wore long straight woollen smocks, 
square Hat caps poised on their heads with one of the corners projecting 
over the forehead, the hair done up into numberless slender plaits hanging 
loose and straight, and sheep skins suspended like cloaks over the shoulders, 
the only part of their dress resembling that of Tibetan women, excepting 
the mocassin-like boots. The men were clothed just like Tibetans* with 
caps, like black nosebags, falling over one ear. 
These people were inhabitants of the Hanu side-valley, whose villages 
lie some distance up it, but who had come down to the gorge of the main 
river (Indus) to receive me. They have lost their own tribal dialect and 
speak Tibetan; but otherwise in dress and customs they resemble the rest 
of their people. 
My next day’s march led through similar scenery, the path now rising 
up the side of the cliff suj:>ported on frail-looking scaffoldings of tree-trunks 
resting on projecting rocks or on wooden trestles, now plunging precipi¬ 
tously down to the river-side where a stone could be thrown to strike the 
opposite cliff across the Indus. We saw a village or two on the other side 
at the mouths of lateral valleys, inhabited not by Brokpas but by Musal- 
man Tibetans from beyond the mountain-range on the west. At length 
we came to a succession of isolated villages on our own (north-east) side of 
the river, mostly placed on high alluvial plateaux near the mouths of side 
ravines (whence they obtain their water for irrigation), and divided by 
vertical cliffs into terraces rising in successive steps. Here the warmth in 
summer is great, the rays of the sun being thrown off from the granite 
sides of the confined valley, so that where water is available the vegetation 
is luxuriant. Vines trail from the overhanging cliffs and from the splendid 
walnut trees, and two crops ripen each year on the same ground during the 
summer season, nothing being grown in winter. The apricots, mulberries, 
and apples of the district are celebrated. Between the villages there is 
nothing but the most arid wastes of granite without a green thing to cheer 
the eye. In this part the villages that occur in the other side of the river 
are inhabited by Brokpas as well as those on this. 
Dali is the principal village in this part. Situated on a long sloping 
alluvial terrace about a hundred yards wide and at the highest part perhaps 
a couple of hundred feet above the river, it is separated from a still higher 
terrace by a wall of cliff which culminates in a point immediately 
above the village. On this point a cairn surmounted by thin staves with 
fluttering rags attached, marks the supposed abode of a local demon or 
deity. The howling waste behind, invisible from the village on account 
of its higher level, but rising into still higher mountain masses which tower 
above, affords a fitting scene for all the supernatural doings of the 
* Women are everywhere the most conservative of national customs. 
