dry in the West, I must say it struck me that the having many husbands sometimes appeared to be only having many masters and increased toil and trouble. I also am by no means sure that the Tibetans are so chivalrous as to uphold polyandry because they regard "the single possession of one woman as a blessing too great for one individual to aspire to." Nor shall I commit myself to the ingenious opinion that "marriage amongst them seems to be considered rather as an odium-a heavy burden the weight and obloquy of which a whole family are disposed to lessen by sharing it among them."

CHAPTER XXV.

SPITI.

OPEN CAVES-LARI AND PO-ROPE-BRIDGES-EXTRAORDINARY RAVINES DANKAR-INSOLENCE-SECLUSION OF SPITI-UGLY WOMEN

DRESS-PRODUCTS-GAY NUNS-HISTORY.

FROM the desolate Chinese district of To-tzo I passed into the not less elevated British Himálayan province of Spiti. The path to Lari, the first village in Spiti, where we camped under a solitary apricot-tree, said to be the only tree of the kind in the whole province, was very fatiguing, because large portions of it could not be ridden over; and there were some ticklish faces of smooth, sloping rock to be crossed, which a yak could hardly have got over, but which were managed, when riderless, in a wonderful manner by the shoeless ghúnt, or mountain pony, which I had got at Chango. The scenery was wild and desolate rather than striking

-no house, no tree, and hardly even a bush being visible. There was a great deal of limestone-rock on this journey; and at some places it was of such a character that it might be called marble. We passed several open caverns; and in one of these, about a third of the way from the To-tzo river, I stopped for breakfast. It was a magnificent open arch, about fifty feet

high in front, and as many in breadth, in the face of a precipice, and afforded cool shade until after midday, when the declining sun began to beat into it. But the Karitha river, which occurs immediately after, ought to be passed in the morning, because there is only a two-poled bridge over it, on which even a ghúnt cannot cross; and the stream was so swollen at mid-day by the melting snow that my pony was nearly lost.

The next morning I was delayed at Lari by the information that messengers had arrived at the other side of the river with a letter for me and some money, but were unable to cross the river, a jhúla which formerly existed there having given way. This seemed exceedingly improbable, but I went down to inquire. There was a double rope across the stream, and I told the messengers to fasten the letter to it, and so send that across, but to keep the money, and found that both were for the Gwalior captain whom I met near Nako, so I ordered the bearers to proceed to Pú in search of him. Where there is no bridge exactly, there is often a double rope of this kind across the deep-sunk rivers of the Himálaya, to enable the villagers on opposite sides of the gorge communicate with each other; and the rope is sometimes strong enough to allow of a man being slung to it, and so worked across. If only the rope be sound, which cannot always be depended on, this method of progression is preferable to the jhúla; because, though it may try the nerves, it does not at the same time call for painful exertion which disturbs the heart's action. I learn from Captain Burton that similar rope-bridges exist in Iceland, and that he usually found the ropes been spliced more than once.

to

had

Po, or Poi, my next camping-place, was a very pleasant village, with little streams running between willowtrees, and with peaks and walls of snow rising over the precipices, and immense steep slopes of shingle immediately around. Another day took me to Dankar, under immense dark precipices, which lined both banks of the river, of slate and shale. It would be well for a practical geologist to examine that part of the Spiti valley, and also the portion between Po and Lari; for it is possible they may contain coal. For the most part the way to Dankar was tolerably level and good; but the height of the water of the Lee at this season compelled us to make a difficult detour through probably the most extraordinary series of gorges there is in the world. We moved along a dry water-course, between perpendicular tertiary or alluvial strata rising to hundreds and even to thousands of feet above. The floor of these clefts was fifteen or twenty feet broad, and though they must have enlarged considerably at the top, they appeared to do so very little to the eye. It was not rock but soft deposits which rose on both sides of us; and though there had been every irregularity in the lateral effects of the water, which had cut out the passages in many directions, there had been very little in its perpendicular action, for, in that respect, the water had cut almost straight down. High up, at the edges of these extraordinary ravines, the strata had been worn away so as to form towers, spires, turrets, and all sorts of fantastic shapes, which could be seen by looking up the cross passages and at the turnings. Often high above, and apparently ready to fall at any moment, a huge rock was supported on a long tower or spire of earth and gravel, which (being a little harder than the strata

around, or having possibly been compressed by the weight of the rock) had remained standing, while the earth round it had crumbled or been washed away. These threatening phenomena were either on the edge of the clefts or rose up from their sides, and were very similar to the rocks which are to be seen on glaciers supported on pillars of ice. The way was most tortuous, and led into a cul-de-sac, the end of which we had to ascend with difficulty.

As the route I speak of involves a considerable detour and some climbing, no traveller will be taken through it if the path along the side of the Lee be not covered with water; and I cannot conscientiously recommend every one to go into the labyrinth. True, it is used by the mountaineers when the other path is not passable; but they are very rarely obliged to have recourse to it, because they can time their journey so as to make the passage of the river when the snows above are frozen up, and consequently the water is low. True, also, no rocks fell during our passage, but the floor was paved with them; there were hundreds of rocks which a mere touch would have sent down, and I saw evidence enough to prove that whole sides of the ravines sometimes give way; so that, unless the traveller had a charmed life, his curiosity would expose him to a very fair chance of being suddenly knocked on the head by a stone a ton weight, or buried under hundreds of feet of tertiary

strata.

It is similar strata which afford so extraordinary a position and appearance to Dankar, the capital of Spiti, which is a British Himalayan province, under an assistant commissioner who resides in the warmer and more fruitful Kúlú valley. This town is perched about a