On the Kwangchu plateau, at an elevation of 15,000 feet, I met with a
form of life which has a great interest of its own, sheep caravans,
numbering among them 7,000 sheep, each animal with its wool on, and
equipped with a neat packsaddle and two leather or hair-cloth bags,
and loaded with from twenty-five to thirty-two pounds of salt or
borax. These, and many more which we passed, were carrying their
loads to Patseo, a mountain valley in Lahul, where they are met by
traders from Northern British India. The sheep are shorn, and the
wool and loads are exchanged for wheat and a few other commodities,
with which they return to Tibet, the whole journey taking from nine
months to a year. As the sheep live by grazing the scanty herbage on
the march, they never accomplish more than ten miles a day, and as
they often become footsore, halts of several days are frequently
required. Sheep, dead or dying, with the birds of prey picking out
their eyes, were often met with. Ordinarily these caravans are led
by a man, followed by a large goat much bedecked and wearing a large
bell. Each driver has charge of one hundred sheep. These men, of
small stature but very thickset, with their wide smooth faces, loose
clothing of sheepskin with the wool outside, with their long coarse
hair flying in the wind, and their uncouth shouts in a barbarous
tongue, are much like savages.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132