Omaha daily bee., 1889-05-05

dozen are shoveling this into the baskets OF
the girls who carry IL from one place TO the
other. These basket rests upon the pack
and shoulders of the girl, and they are held
there by a 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 shoveling has q baby year
old tied tight TO her back, and II bob up aud
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
a cottage piano a distance OF twelve miles up
the mountain upon her back This is hard
to believe, but after seeing the mighty shout
ders, the well.knit frames, and the great
calves and ankles Of the strongest OF them,
can believe 1t.
The men are fully as strong as the women.
They are not 80 tall as the American Indian
and they are very fiercelooking. Each
wears a great scymeter-like knife in his belt
and they are just like the Tbbetans whom ]
saw Mt Peking. They are notorious as WIFE
beaters and the woman of the Himalayas has,
US a rule, very hard time. Many of the
men wear earrings and the women, both be-
fore and after marriage carry their fortunes
upon their persons. They wear strings of sill
yer coins of the size OF so and 10 cents silver
pieces in rows about their necks so that often
the whole front of a woman's bust Is covered
with them and
THE POOREST WORKING GIRL
has her earrings of gold and her anklets of
silver. 1t looks strange to see woman
whose whole waist is covered with rupees
and who has enough jewelry upon her to
keep her for at least three years breaking
stone upon roads and have, during the past
week, seen at least thousand bare feet and
half bare calves around which were silver
and gold bands which would not form un-
handsome bracelets for our American girls.
Many of them are fond of stone jewelry and
u great many torquoises are brought from
Thibet and sold here. One of these girls
carried my trunk for scent consideration
upon her back from the station to the hotel
and / see them podding up the mountains
with great baskets of wood upon their backs,
two of which would form good load for
mule.
They work all day for what would be the
price of drink in America, and their noun
tain huts would be considered hard lines for
the establishment of an American pig. Little
low huts thatched with straw and not bigger
than store boxes. They do most of their
cooking out of DOORS sleep upon the floor, eat
with their fingers, and worship Buddha in
half-clvilized way. Some of them use the
prayer wheel and this seems to be the only
invention they have. The prayer wheel con-
sists of n metal box about as big around as
one which holds boot backing and about
twice as deep. Through it a wire is stuck
and this Is fastened into handle foot
long. Inside the box there is a roll of pray
ers written in Thibatan characters and the
worshipper rattles Oft prayers at the rate Of
a hundred a minute by giving the handle
twist and setting the box to rolling. Each
roll records prayer. Every prayer does
away with one or more sins and puts
brick in the pavement which leads toward
heaven.
wish l could give you this ride
UP THROUGH THE CLOUDS
from Calcutta to Darjeeiing. The trip to the
foot of the Himalayas, takes half day and
the whole Of night and the remainder of
the journey is like a carriage drive fifty
miles up the mountain. You are pulled by
steam and dainty little engine not more
than ten feet long hauls open cars, no higher
above the road than street car, over a two.
foot narrow gauge in and out among the
trees in corkscrew curves up the mountains.
You rise at the rate of sixteen feet a minute
and go more than thousand feet upward
every hour. The train winds in and out
like IA snake, and the cars are so small that
they look like the links of chain. Now the
engine and the tail of the train seem to
touch There are dozen horseshoe curves
every mile and you make figure eights in
climbing the hills three times during the
journey. AS YOU rise you see the little road
in terraces on the hills below, and you now
shoot under hill and come out in a loop
aud cross your own track by bridge over
head. The Y system of going up one hill to
rise to a higher is used, and there are num-
ber of double Y's which elevate yod from
covered with green, down which you can
look for q thousand feet, and float out on the
side of the Valleys which fade away into the
broad plans of Bengal.s THIS rail along
wagon road which led up to Darjeeling, and
the speed made upon it is so slow that you
can see as well as though you were riding in
u carriage. There are many villages on tho
way and the train stops and gives you time
to pick flowers and ferns
In rising you pass through the torrid, the
temperate and land at last in the frigid zone.
AT the bottom is the Jungle into which you
dash out of rice fields and which, with its
thick bamboo, its banyan trees, and its in.
terwoven masses of foliage, forms the
home of the tiger. AS you go through you
can almost see the bright eyes of this noble
Bengal beast shining out of the darkness.
and the old residents Of India who are with
you will tell you stories of the tiger hunts
they have had, and of accidents that have
happened to lone travellers. They will tell
you that the tiger is only found where
lives the deer and the wild hog; that if he
once has a taste of human blood he is salts
fed with no other. A single one of these
tigers is
KNOWN TO HAVE KILLED
los people in three years, and another killed
eighty persons per annum. One of the agents
of the Indian forest department tells me that
about two thousand tigers are killed in India
every year, and in 1882, S95 men were killed
by tigers The English government gives
reward for tiger killing, and during that year
1000 was paid for the killing Of 700 tigers.
In Q few weeks there will be an immense
tiger hunt in India The viceroy will proba-
bly, attend it. The party will go out upon
elephants, and will spend some weeks in the
Jungle.
AS you go up the Himalays this jungle
gives way to huge forest trees, but the
branches have long roots and creepers shoot
ing from them down to the ground, and the
trees are often from one to two hundred feet
high. These trees are clothed with a luxuriant
growth of MOSES and ferns and you see
many varieties of orchids fastened to trunks
and hanging TO their branches. AS you go
up you note the tree fern, tail, round trunk
from ten to twenty feet high with fern
leaves iutting out from its top like those of a
palm The underbrush becomes more sparse
and as you rise the color of the moss on the
trees changes from green to silver. This
hangs from the branches in clusters, clings
to their limbs like coat and makes them
look at a distance like forest of green
busted with silver. As YOU near Darjeeling
you find many of the hard woods of our
American mountains; the rose begins to
bloom and there ape tea plantations by the
hundreds of acres.
THE TEA OF THE nIMALAYAs
is the best in the world and would advise
American housekeepers to try Indian tea.
There is a tea in Thibet which has the flavor
of milk to such degree that when used it
has all the properties Of good tea mixed
with the most delicious of Jersey cream.
This Himalaya tea has the flavor of flowers.
nttna md a1n ,I IL 10 tInr 4.