508 Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spiti Valley. [No. 5, 
of resorting on such occasions to the filthy shiver of abuse which 
seems to flow spontaneously from the lips of a Hindustani, never 
seems to occur to them. In Hindustan, the child not long after he 
can stand will have acquired command of the foulest language, which 
it is impossible he can understand, and which he vents unchecked in 
presence of his father or even his female relatives ; and this callous 
indifference is not confined in all cases to natives, as I have heard the 
servants of English gentlemen lavish the foulest and most abomin¬ 
able abuse on villagers on the slightest grounds within hearing of 
their masters and without reproof, though it is difficult to understand 
how any one possessed of refined or gentlemanly feeling can recon¬ 
cile himself to, or tolerate in his servants, conduct at once so odious, 
despicable and unjust. 
5th, Danka 12740 ft. (camp 12416 ft.)—From Main descend into 
the bed of the Spiti river, which is crossed a little above the village 
by a fine suspension bridge of considerable length. Throughout Spiti, 
these bridges are constructed of ropes made of birch or willow twigs. 
The supports are two stout cables each composed of some twelve or 
fifteen small ropes, stretched over rude piers on either bank at about 
five feet apart and firmly secured by being buried deeply beneath the 
stones forming the piers. Between the main cables, and about two 
feet below them, a third of smaller dimensions is stretched and sup¬ 
ported by light ropes passed over the side cables ; and when the 
bridge is in good order, a passenger treading on the central cable 
and supporting himself by the ones on either side, can cross a river 
with perfect ease and safety, far more so than over the best cane 
bridge of the Eastern Himalayas and Khasia hills, as the cane and 
bamboo of which they' are constructed is far more slippery than the 
ropes which are used in their place throughout Spiti; when, however, 
out of repair and the small side ropes supporting the central cable in 
many places deficient, the job of crossing is trying to the nerves, 
and actually dangerous. 
Along the course of the Spiti river are seen old river terraces or 
deposits of shingle and sand coarse and feebly stratified, and reach¬ 
ing to a height of some four hundred feet above the present river 
level. Behind these regular deposits, and both from beneath, and 
also encroaching over them, rise almost mountainous accumulations 
of debris precipitated by frost from the abruptly scarped limestone 
