of severe rainfall in the country immediately at the foot
of the lofty snow ridges. Bridges had been swept away,
fields inundated, rivers had formed lakes owing to
heavy landslips, hamlets had been buried and there were
reports of loss of life of men and cattle. And yet so
effectual had the barrier of the Himalayas been, that
literally hardly a drop of this excessive rainfall had
reached the adj acent lands of Tibet, only a few miles
distant as the crow flies.
In Tibet we had been singularly free from flies, except
at the Mansarowar Lake, where they were a perfect
plague, and also from all kinds of insect life, but we
encountered all the pests usual to Indian hill life in the
rains as we descended. The most terrible of all these
pests is the leech, which is found actually in myriads in
certain localities in the higher hills during the rains.
So bad were they even on the roads at certain places
of our march that one could see them in hundreds,
like thin wire threads, > on the path and the grass, wriggling
with anxiety to find a victim. Men walking
with bare feet were continually stopping, and would pick
off three or four at a time, and this would occur every few
minutes. The feet of the coolies were covered with
blood, and a careful watch had to be kept on the
horses’ feet, otherwise some tiny thread-like leech
would take hold and, before discovery, would have grown
to an enormous size bloated with the poor beast’s blood.
As we returned to the beautiful woods of India and
saw pretty hamlets nestling in fertile valleys, and looked
again upon a country full of houses and a visible
population of men, women and children tending their
fields or herding their flocks, we could not but compare
this homely sight with what we had just left
behind on the other side of the great barrier of the
Himalayas, where desolation is written boldly over a
treeless landscape, where, with few exceptions, cultivation
is unknown, and a nomad population living
THE BAZAAR AT BAGESHAR
The first we came to on our homeward journey, where our men revelled
in all the luxuries of life, much appreciated after their long trip
in tents is so scattered over the barren wilderness that
the traveller can travel for days and see no human
being, while the absence of houses makes desolation
more desolate; and we felt that, however pleasant
our trip, the return home was good.