valleys there is still the romance and poetry of life-
each tree has its god, each bush its spirit; precautions
are taken to exclude malevolent ghosts from the house
THE LEA FY MONTH OF JU N E
by turning a basket upside down and sticking twigs
m it and leaving it on the outer wall; and, if a man
dies away from borne, a clue of worsted is laid on the
ground from the spot of death to the house to lead the
spirit home. Women, too, have the greatest liberty;
they can, amongst the eastern Bhotias, pick and choose
their own husbands, and matrimony is compulsory for
none. Such liberty contrasts strangely with the rigorous
and insistent law of Hinduism, which requires a man to
have a son to perform his funeral ceremonies, and so
save his soul from hell, and compels matrimony for a
p rl before puberty on pain of everlasting disgrace to
herself and her family: nay, so far do the orthodox
strain at a gnat and swallow a camel,” that they
formally celebrate the rites of wedlock of their dumb,
blind, idiot, and otherwise incapable children by putting
forward as the other party to the ceremony a pitcher
o water, or a pipal-tree ! Fiant noces, ruat ccelum!
(cf. Mayne’s Hindu Law, pp. 10 and 105.) On the other
hand, amongst the eastern Bhotias in all their villages,
there are many men and women who are unmarried,
and a rich man, though ever so desirous of wedlock’
has often been known to go wifeless, because of an
offending eye, or a nose which was not acceptable.
The Bhotia maid has to be wooed and won, and if her
heart is not in the arrangement, no marriage takes
place. Such is the race of Bhotias who have for
centuries fought with the inclemency of the weather,
conquered all difficulties of the road, and mastered the
loftiest and most perilous passes. They have had a
monopoly of trade, and richly have they deserved it
for their great, fortitude. Soon must that monopoly
pass from them, as good roads take the place of
execrable tracks, and the sheep and the goat as beasts
of burden are supplanted by the mule and the pony,
and civilisation with its bustle and competition enters
as a discordant factor into the even tenor of their way.