need, the personal servants may also be able to act as chaprassis (bearers of such belts). If the tindal is an active, smart man, and well acquainted with his duty, kûlis may be changed every stage, an arrangement which has the advantage of enabling the traveller to halt at his pleasure, and to pursue his journey with greater speed. No positive rules, however, can be given here ; we found it best to accommodate ourselves to the custom prevailing in the country.
In Tibet little difficulty is experienced in larger places in hiring horses or yaks along a route : this plan is decidedly, preferable to that of buying the animals, which is far more expensive ; but the bovine animals are in so far objectionable as they are easily subject to illness, if it be impossible to provide them with food regularly. Mules (animals rarely found), to which the natives ascribe wonderful endurance in fatigue, cannot be hired, but must be purchased. The prices are high (200 to 300 rupis) and, in our opinion, very disproportionate to the working power of the animals.
If a traveller should succeed in penetrating as far as Turkistan and Central Asia, he must act entirely according to circumstances. In most cases he will be obliged—as we always were—to purchase all the animals he requires for the transport of his baggage. In such difficult expeditions we should strongly advise him to provide himself most liberally ; for the chances of losing some of his animals by the great fatigue they have to undergo, or of being robbed of them, are so great, that he may consider himself extremely fortunate if he should be able to move on for several weeks with his luggage without being obliged to leave considerable portions of it behind.
Camels (the two-humped, Bactrian species) we frequently saw employed by the caravans 'trading between Yarkand and Leh, on a route which leads over passes exceeding 18,000 ft. We bought some of the animals, and found that they endured the fatigue admirably well, but we had to get their feet protected, on bad roads, by a kind of leather bag. These powerful animals also proved exceedingly useful in crossing some of the larger rivers. When, hereafter, the roads in the central parts of the Himalaya and in Tibet are improved, it is not unlikely that the Bactrian camel may come into much more general use.
The one-humped camel, the dromedary, is frequently used in some of the outer parts of the Himalaya, in Chamba, and Jamu, and also in the western parts of Central Asia.
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