chap, xv TRAVELLING IN THE HIMALAYA 207
country.
They are fed only in the morning and evening. In the morning a pound of
flour, half a pound of black sugar and half a pound of butter, arc
mixed together with water for the horse. In the evening it must be
contented with a few horn peas,1 crushed and steeped in
water for half an hour ; this is all their food during the space of
twenty-four hours. The women who carry the men receive only 2 rupees
each, for the ten days of the journey, and as much is paid for every
quintal2 that the goats or sheep carry, and for every led horse.
After passing these mountains, for carriage to Bhutan, oxen, camels, and horses, and even pallankeens 3
are procurable for those who wish to travel more at their ease. The
country is good, and produces corn, rice, vegetables, and wine in
abundance. All the people, both men and women, are clad during the
summer in coarse cotton or hempen cloth, and during the winter in a
thick cloth like felt. The headdress for both sexes is a cap made very
like those English caps which they call bouquin-kans,4 and
it has pigs' teeth around it for ornament, with round and square
pieces of tortoise-shell of the size of one of our 15-sol coins ; the
richest add to them beads of coral or yellow amber, of which the women
also make necklaces. The men, like the women, wear bracelets only on
the left arms, and from the wrist to the elbow. Those worn by the women
are very narrow, but those of the men are two fingers wide. They wear a
silken cord on the neck, to which a bead of coral 5 or yellow amber is suspended, or a pig's tooth, which hangs down to the waist; and on their
1 'd'un peu de poids cornus,' i. e. gram, cicer arietinum. 3 Quintal, Arabic qintar, 100 lb.
* Probably a modified form of pallankeen, or dooly, suitable for hill travelling.
*
We have not found a full explanation of the term. Bouquin means an old
book-cover. The caps of felt worn in these regions are somewhat
similar to what used to be called ' pork pie ' hats a few years ago in
England. C. A. Sherring (Western Tibet and the British Borderland, 1906) does not mention the use of pigs' teeth as ornaments, but they are worn in Assam (p. 223 below).
• 5
Tibetan women wear silver disks on the sides and back of their heads, '
and all were loaded with coral and sham or real turquoise' (W. Gill, The River of Golden Sand, 201).
