1 LAI. 17
2 much employed as carriers between Chumba Kulu and Ladak,
3 and in this avocation generally transport goods on the backs of
4 ponies, of which they possess a good hardy race, i thirteen
5 hands high. The dress of both men and womek consists of
6 woollens, as well in summer as in winter. The cloth, which is
7 thick, warm, soft, and smooth, is made in the country. The
8 men wear coats, trowsers, blankets, woollen caps, and grass
9 sandals. They have also coats of sheepskin, with the wool shorn
10 short, and worn next the skin. A woman in easy circumstances
11 is generally loaded with coarse trinkets of silver, mother of pearl,
12 amber, turquoises, coral, glass beads, and small bells, the
13 tinkling of which may be heard at aconsiderable distance.4 The ‘ Moorer. §. 201.
14 men, too, wear a profusion of earrings, armlets, and necklaces,
15 Both sexes carry round their necks little leather bags containing
16 amulets, given by their lamas or priests, for they gre generally
17 votaries of lamaism. The women carry leather pouches contain-
18 ing needle-cases, and other implements of female industry. The
19 men bear about with them knives, steels, pieces of quartz, and
20 tinder for striking light. Their hamlets contain in general from
21 ten to twenty houses built of stone, two or three stories high, and
22 with flat roofs well stored with faggots of willow or fir. The
23 lowest story is a place of shelter for cattle, and access is obtained
24 to the upper parts of the house by climbing up a notched stem
25 of pine. These houses are built row above row on the steep
26 sides of the mountains, each lower row serving as a step to the
27 next above it.
28 The indigenous vegetation is scanty, as might be expected
29 from the great general elevation. Moorcroft 5 observes——“ there *!. 204.
30 was little herbage, except stinking hyssop, abrotanum, artemisia,
31 pimpernel, chenopodium, and sorrel. The dog-rose was abundant
32 with a rich crop of scarlet hips.” Gooseberries, currants, and
33 apples are produced, of small size, and sour, austere taste. There
34 are juniper bushes, dwarf tamarisks, firs, and willows. The travel-
35 ler just quoted saw occasionally ® the red-billed and red-footed ° i. 20.
36 crow, and a bird which he calls “‘ the large Tartar raven.” The
37 inhabitants of Lahoul are subject to the ruler of Kulu, who is
38 regarded as owner of the lands, and who receives from the culti-
39 vators a rent paid in grain.
40 LAIGPOOR, in Sinde, a town near the left or eastern bank Xie Gane
41 VOL, I, c 58.