numerous than boys, as I was told by Dr. Shawe, an English physician, who has lived for years in Leh as a missionary. He knew of no cause, such as female infanticide, which could account for the anomaly.
Geographically, the institution of polyandry is most interesting as a unique response to straitened physical conditions. In Ladakh the means of supporting life are scanty, and there is no opportunity to increase the amount of cultivated land, or the number of flocks. In most such lands the population increases until the pinch of want is felt, whereupon emigration ensues. In Ladakh the growth of population has been limited by the two peculiar institutions of polyandry and monasticism. Hence in a region where we should expect frequent movement of part of the inhabitants, there is the opposite condition of great fixity. Objectionable as both polyandry and monasticism are to modern western ideas, some method of limiting population seems to be a necessity in a land where opportunities are so restricted, and migration to unoccupied lands is so difficult. In Baltistan, just west of Ladakh, where physical conditions are similar, these institutions were overthrown some centuries ago by the introduction of Mohammedanism. Hence the people are constantly becoming too numerous, and the poorer ones are compelled to migrate to the most unproductive, and therefore heretofore unoccupied, corners of the regions round about them.
The dress and houses of the Ladakhis, their manner of life, and their more obvious habits have been often described. The connection of all these things with physical
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