国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

need, the personal servants may also be able to act as chapràssis (bearers of such belts).
If the tindal is an active, smart man, and well acquainted with his duty, kùlis 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 Turkistán 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 him-
self 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 con-
sider 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 Yárkand and Leh, on a route which leads over passes ex-
ceeding 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 Himálaya 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 Himálaya, in Chámba, and Jámu, and also in the western parts of Central
Asia.

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