The weekly messenger. [volume] (St. Martinsville [i.e. St. Martinville] La.) 1886-1948, 1889-08-31
THE HIMALAYAS.
A Trip to the Highest Mountains
in the World.
The Strong and HaTd.Working
Wives Of the Mountainous.

Hlnialdyds.
From where l write the mountains
form a semicirclc about me and there
are twelve mighty peaks of snow, each
of which is more than twenty thousand
feet high. As for mountains of two
miles and more in height l can see doz-
ems of them. am in the very midst of
the Himalayas and at what the world
SAYS is the best point to view them.
Man here is fully as interesting as ma
ture, and we have servants and guides
who are more like the people of Thlbet
than India. There is no seclusion of
women here, and great strapping girls,
dressed in the gaudiest of colors so
about with fiat plates of gold
hanging to their cars, each of which
is as big as a trade dollar. They
have gold on their ankles and bracelets
of silver running all the way from their
wrists to their elbows. Their complex
ions, originally as yellow as those of the
Chinaman. are bronzed by the crisp
mountain air, until now they have the
rich copper of the American Indian.
Both men aad women look not unlike
our Indians. They have the same high
cheek bones, the same semi fiat noses
and long, straight black hair. If you
will take the prettiest squaw you have
ever seen YOU may have fair type of
the average belle of the mountains. She
wears two pounds of jewe,ry to the
ounce of the squaw, however, and her
eyes are brighter and she IS far more in
telligent. She works just as hard, and
the woman of the IIimalayas does much
Of the work Of the mountains.
l see women digging in the fields,
working on the roals and carrying i'm
mense baskets, each of which holds from
two to three bushels, full of dirt and
produce, on their back. Just above the
hotel the road is being repaired, and a
side of the mountain is being cut away.
The dirt is carried about a quarter of a
mile and used in filling up a hole in the
hillside. 1t is all done by women. Two
women are digging down the dirt with
pick-axes and half dozea are shovel
ling this into the baskets of the girls
who carry it from one place to the other.
These baskets rest upon the
back and shoulders of the
girl, and they are held there by wide
strap which comes from the basket around
and over the girls forehead. They
stand with the baskets on their backs
while they are loaded, and one of the
women who is doing the shovelling has
baby year old tied tight to he, back,
and it bobs up and down as she throws
the dirt from the ground into the basket.
These girls carry easily 100 pounds, and
was told that one had carried cottage
piano distance of twelve miles up the
mountain upon her back. This is hard
to believe, but after seeing the mighty
shoulders and the well-knit frames Of
the strongcs. of them can believe it.
The men are fully as strong as the
women. They are not so tall as the
American Indian, and they arc very
fercc-look;ng. Each wears a great
scimitar-!ike knife in his belt, and they
are just like the Thibctans whom l saw
at Picking. They are notorious as wife
bea,c;s, aad the woman of the Hima-
layas has, as n rule, very hard time.
Many OF the men wear earrings, and the
women, both be:or, and after marriage,
carry thcic fortunes upon their persons.
They wear strings of silver coins of the
size o: fifty and ten cent silver pieces in
rows about ;hcir nccks, so that often the
whole front Of a woman's dress is COW
cred with them, and III, poorest work
ng-g;rl has her earrings of god and
her anklcts of silver.
1t seems strange TO see woman whose
whole wais: is covered with rupees, and
who has enough jcwe!ry upon her tc
Keep her fo- at least three years, break
Ing stone upon roads, and have, during
Inc past week, seen at least ;
thousand bare feet. around which were
I