and turnips in their short season. His drink is a
sort of soup made from brick tea, of which a handful of
leaves is churned up with salt, butter, and soda, then
boiled and transferred to the tea-pot, whence it is
poured scalding hot into each cup, which the good
woman of the house keeps incessantly replenishing, and
urging you to drain. Sometimes, hut more rarely, the
Tibetans make a drink by pouring boiling water over
malt, as the Lepchas do over millet. A pipe of yellow
mild Chinese tobacco generally follows the meal; more
often, however, their tobacco is brought from the plains
of India, when it is of a very inferior description.
The pipe, carried in the girdle, is of brass or iron,
often with an agate, amber, or bamboo mouth-piece.
Many herds of fine yaks were grazing about Wallan-
choon: there were a few ponies, sheep, goats, fowls, and
pigs, but very little cultivation except turnips, radishes,
and potatos. The yak is a very tame, domestic
animal, often handsome, and a true bison in appearance
; it is invaluable to these mountaineers from its
strength and hardiness, accomplishing, at a slow pace,
twenty miles a day, bearing either two bags of salt or
rice, or four to six planks of pine-wood s lu n g along
both flanks. Their ears are generally pierced, and
ornamented with a tuft of scarlet worsted; they have
large and beautiful eyes, spreading horns, long silky
hair, and grand bushy ta ils : black is their prevailing
colour, but red, dun, parti-coloured, and white are
common. In winter, the flocks graze below 8000 feet,
on account of the great quantity of snow above that
height; in summer they find pasturage as high as
17,000 feet, c o n s i s t in g of grass and small tufted sedges,
on which they browse with avidity.
The zobo, or cross between the yak and hill cow
(much resembling the English cow), is but rarely seen
in these mountains, though common in the North West
Himalaya. The yak is used as a beast of burden; and
much of the wealth of the people consists in its rich
milk and curd, which are eaten either fresh or dried, or
powdered into a kind of meal. The hair is spun into
ropes, and woven into a covering for their tents, which is
quite pervious to wind and rain;* from the same material
are made the gauze shades for the eyes used in crossing
the snowy passes. The bushy tail forms the well-
known “ chowry ” or fly-flapper of the plains of In d ia ;
the bones and dung serve for fuel. The female drops
one calf in April; and the young yaks are very full of
gambols, tearing up and down the steep grassy and
rocky slopes: their flesh is much richer and more
juicy than common veal; that of the old yak is sliced
and dried in the sun, forming jerked meat, which
is eaten raw, the scanty proportion of fat preventing it
becoming very rancid, so that I found it palatable
food: it is called schat-tcheu (dried meat). I never
observed the yak to be annoyed by any insects; indeed
at the elevation it inhabits, there are no large diptera,
bots, or gadflies to infest it. I t loves steep places,
delighting to scramble among rocks, and to sun its
black hide perched on the glacial boulders which
strew the Wallanchoon flat, and on which these beasts
* The latter, however, is of little consequence in the dry climate of
Tibet.