say, that one has recourse to other expedients for traversing these lofty mountains.
At 5 or 6 leagues beyond Gorakhpur you enter the territories of the Raja of Nepal,1
which extend to the frontiers of the Kingdom of Bhutan. This Prince is
a vassal of the Great Mogul, and sends him an elephant every year as
tribute.2 He resides in the town of Nepal, of which he bears
the name, and there is very little trade or money in his country, as it
consists of forests and mountains.
The caravan having arrived at the foot of the high mountains, known to-day by the name of Nagarkot,3
which cannot be crossed in less than nine or ten days, as they are very
high and narrow, with great precipices,—many people come from different
places, the majority being women and girls, who strike a bargain with
the people of the caravan, to carry the men, goods, and provisions to
the other side of the mountains. This is the method by which they
carry them. The women have a strap on the shoulders to which a large
cushion hanging on the back is attached ; upon it the man seats himself.4
It takes three women, who change in turns, to carry a man ; and as for
the baggage and provisions, they are loaded on goats which carry up to
150 livres weight each. Those who desire to take horses into these
mountains are often obliged, in the narrow and difficult passes, to
haul them up with ropes ; and it is, as I have said, on account of this
difficulty that but little use is made of horses in this
1 See p. 202 n. It is Nupal in the original.
s
The finest elephant Ball ever saw he met on its way down the Grand
Trunk Road to Calcutta from Nepal. It was a gift from Sir Jang Bahadur
to Lord Mayo. If the Mughals claimed suzerainty over Nepal, it was of a
very shadowy kind. The capital of Nepal is Kathmandfl. The finest
elephant Sir S. W. Baker ever saw belonged to the Raja, of Nandgaon in
the Central Provinces. A perfect elephant should be 9 feet 6 inches
high at the shoulder: Baker gives the other points. (Wild Beasts and their Ways, 44.)
* See p. 200, n. This takes us to the Panjab hills, a long way from the Gorakhpur route.
4
In some parts of the Himalayas women still offer themselves for
carrying travellers on their backs. But in Kangra. the practice seems
to have ceased, though the women are so strong that one of them is said
to have carried a grand piano up the bill.
