504 Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spili Valley . [No. 5, 
day was intense, and inside a tent the thermometer rose to over 100°. 
The temperature of the air may be taken at however about 85° at 
midday, sinking to 45° at sunrise, which gives a daily range of from 40 
to 50 degrees. The whole scene is striking and peculiar and totally 
unlike anything met with in Cis-Himalayan countries; the bare 
and precipitous hills of a peculiar and uniform yellow colour, their 
sharply defined and jagged outline, the total absence of trees, save a 
few poplars planted about the village, amidst rich crops of wheat and 
barley, the square flat-topped houses, with their tiny windows, and 
stores of furze for winter fuel accumulated on the roofs, the yaks and 
shawl goats grazing among the rocks, and lastly the inhabitants them¬ 
selves, genuine Tartars in physiognomy, and with their nationality 
stamped on every particular of their figure, dress or speech, combine 
to form a complete contrast with the country and people on the op¬ 
posite side of the pass. 
Pitched tents in a rather confined spot a little above the village, 
and was soon surrounded by an enquiring group of the inhabitants. 
Unfortunately I had no interpreter or servant who understood the 
language sufficiently to carry on a conversation, a want which I 
severely felt, as it precluding my getting information which I was 
often anxious to obtain. 
Both men and women dress in loose coats and trousers of a coarse 
woollen cloth and puttoes or boots of untanned leather. These 
boots are very warm and substantial articles, composed of a sole of 
leather which is turned up all round the foot and stitched to a thick 
woollen stocking or legging which is tied above the knee. Though 
rather clumsy in appearance, these boots afford perfect protection 
against cold and from injury from rough ground or ice ; and after a 
march a cooly may often be seen with a needle and thread, putting 
a few stitches into a weak place in his boots, which often exhibit 
signs of having had half a dozen soles added from time to time one 
over the other. The men wear either conical caps, or ones much the 
shape of a comfortable travelling cap, and their hair in a pigtail, except 
the Lamas or priests who are closely cropped. The women wear 
their hair braided behind in numerous small plaits, often twenty or 
upwards in number, sometimes tied loosely together at their ends, 
and sometimes kept equidistant by having their ends passed through 
a horizontal ribbon half way down the back, the plaits then recalling 
