a few of the material ameliorations which art has given to human life. Add, perhaps, a regularly and sufficiently paid body of public officials (always a late invention of society), and we have reached the limit of healthful assimilation possible in a body of such special organisation as the Tibetan state. The constraint under which that state has developed is chiefly to be found in the scant area of arable land, the lack of a distributed rain-supply, and the extreme elevation of the whole country. As to the effect of this last very special condition we are unable to give definition. Certain physiological results may, indeed, be determined, but just how these are translated into physical traits we do not know. We may assume, safely enough, that no such considerable difference of physical environment can be without its due mental effect in man. It is not easy to argue even from the known influence upon those who suddenly enter these conditions back to the influence working itself out in the lives of those who have never known sea-level conditions—neither they nor their fathers for many generations before them. The most frequent mental manifestation in the newcomer is an abnormal nervousness, often enough culminating in insomnia.
At Leh (eleven thousand eight hundred feet) we were told that a certain British officer had found it exceedingly difficult to sleep in the town proper, and frequently descended to the Indus bank, finding in this change of about one thousand feet enough relief to insure normal repose. Akin to this unpleasant demonstration of nervous excitement, is a certain elation, not infrequently felt, if great physical
IIIF Color HighRes
