An Account of a Three Months' Tour from Simla Through Bussahir, Kunowar and Spiti, to Lahoul (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ...they can comprehend, but they seem to feel no need of a Saviour or a Mediator, though the missionary's moral teaching seems to have a decidedly good effect upon them. The dress of the women in Poo is peculiar, when fresh and clean, (which I grieve to say it rarely is); it may be called picturesque. On the head they wear a regular porkpie hat, in which is usually put a bunch of the largest and brightest flowers they can procure; quantity is preferred to quality. Their ornaments (consisting of large earrings and often several necklaces) are of silver, profusely hung with coral beads and pieces of amber and rough turquoise. The women wear a long woollen coat reaching almost to the ankles, and confined at the waist by a sash either of woollen material or of calico, over their shoulders is usually a small square of woollen stuff, which just meets over the chest, and is there confined either by an iron pin HOW THEY CARRY THEIR BABIES. 45 or a brass brooch of a peculiar form. This shawl is about the same size as the sheep skin worn in the same manner by the women in Ladakh, both summer and winter. In neither district do they think it necessary to protect the chest. This square cloth worn in Kun6war and Spiti by all classes, has a peculiar use, the poorer women carry their babies inside it as soon as they are old enough for this to be possible. The child is put in the middle of this little shawl, the mother swings it round over her back, and secures the cloth in front; the little one does not look at all uncomfortable; it is often in an upright position resting its feet on the folds of the band round its mother's waist; she can, by this method of carrying her child, use her arms freely, and do the field-work, which, for the most part, falls upon the...