THE INFLUENCE OF THE HIMALAYAS 61
Himalayas. On arriving toward sunset at Sukti, the last village on the southwest side of the mountains, I told the " lumbadar," or headman, that I wanted seven coolies to be ready to start at two in the morning, so that we might reach the pass before the snow began to grow soft in the hot May sun, and so get over in a single day. Although at nine o'clock, when I went to bed, nothing appeared to have been done, at about eleven a crowd of men filed into the room, headed by the lumbadar. The pass was very bad, they said in Ladakhi, which Ibrahim, my Mohammedan servant from Leh, interpreted for me into Turki. To go over to-morrow was impossible. All the men in the village were willing to go, but they were not ready. Would I not take two days to go over ? — putting their hands together, and bending low in supplication. Their shoes were bad, and must be mended, and they must get new strips of cloth in which to wrap their legs. Here they all showed their ragged garments and foot-gear. Would I not delay the start till daybreak to-morrow ? — bending again in supplication. They did not want pay. Five men would go for the wages of one. The result was that we took two days for the pass. If the breathless climb and labored descent through the snow made the coolies as weary as it did me, their supplication is not to be wondered at. When they turned back, Ibrahim, by a mistake, afterward rectified, paid them only twelve cents apiece instead of twenty-two. They accepted it without complaint, and said, " Ju ! ju ! " the usual Ladakhi greeting, as if most grateful.
On returning across the pass, May 13, my six young Ladakhi coolies were even more cheerful, and acted as col-
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