hundred years, when they describe themselves as having
been long-haired, half-clad savages. At about that
period they were visited by Tibetans, who introduced
Boodh worship, the plaiting of their hair into pig-tails,
and many of their own customs. Their physiognomy
is however so Tibetan in its character, that it cannot
he supposed that this was their earliest intercourse with
the trans-nivean races: whether they may have wandered
from beyond the snows before the spread of Boodhism,
or whether they are a cross between the Tamulian
of India and the Tibetan, has not been decided.
Their language, though radically identical with Tibetan,
differs from it in many important particulars. They,
or at least some of their tribes, call themselves Bong,
and Arratt, and their country Dijong : they once
possessed a great part of E ast Nepal, as far west as the
Tambur river, and at a still earlier period they penetrated
as far west as the Arun.
An attentive examination of the Lepcha in one
respect entirely contradicts our preconceived notions of
a mountaineer, as he is timid, peaceful, and no brawler;
qualities which are all the more remarkable from contrasting
so strongly with those of his neighbours to the
east and west: of whom the Ghorkas are brave and
warlike to a proverb, and the Bhotanese quarrelsome,
cowardly, and cruel. A group of Lepchas is exceedingly
picturesque. They are of short stature—four feet eight
inches to five feet—rather broad in the chest, and with
muscular arms, but small hands and slender wrists.
The face is broad, flat, and of eminently Tartar
character, flat-nosed and oblique-eyed, with no beard,
and little moustache ; the complexion is sallow, or
often a clear olive; the hair is collected into an immense
tail, plaited flat or round. The lower limbs are powerfully
developed, befitting genuine mountaineers: the
LEPCHA GIRL AND BHOODIST LAMA.
feet are small. Though never really handsome, and
very womanish in the cast of countenance, they have
invariably a mild, frank, and even engaging expression,.