of Shipki, our coolies had plucked and taken away with them some unripe apples; and at the Shipki Rizhing, where there are no houses, only an empty unroofed hut or two for herdsmen, a solitary Tartar made his appearance, and observing the apples, declared that they were his, and, abusing the coolies for taking them, straightway fell upon the man in possession of them, tore that individual's hair, and knocked him about in the most savage manner. Though there were over twenty of the Kunáwar men looking on, and several of them were implicated in the theft, if such it might be called, yet none of them ventured to interfere; and their companion might have received serious injury, had not Chota Khan, who was always ready for a fray of the kind, gone in and separated the two. Now this was between two and three thousand feet above the village, and I doubt if there were any other Tartars about the spot, except one other man who had come to see us off the premises. Ferocity is much admired in Chinese Tibet; and in order to create it, the people are fond of eating what they ironically call "still meat," or meat with maggots in it. We heard also, that, to the same end, they give a very curious pap to their infants. Meat, cut into thin slices, is dried in the sun and ground into powder; it is then mixed with fresh blood and put into a cotton cloth, and so given to the enfant terrible to suck. Mixtures such as this, combined with half-raw flesh, sun-dried flesh, and, where there is cultivation, with girdle~cakes of wheat, buckwheat, and barley, must make a pretty strong diet even for the seniors, and one well-fitted to produce endurance and courage. It is to be hoped the milk (of mares and other animals) which the nomad Tartars so largely imbibe, may I have some effect in mollifying the ferocity of their spirits. It is very extraordinary that the Chinese, who are a Tartar people and must have descended at one time from the "Land of grass," should so entirely eschew the use of milk in every shape. For long there was a difficulty in getting even a sufficiency of that liquid for the use of the foreigners in at the open ports in China; and I have heard of a ship-captain at Whampoa, on blowing up his comprador for not having brought him any milk, receiving the indignant answer — "That pig hab killo, that dog hab weillo (run away), that woman hab catchee cheillo — how then can catchee milk?” A Lama at Kaelang, on being spoken to on this subject, admitted that he had observed that even at Lassa the pure Chinese did not take any milk; and he said the reason they gave for not doing so was, that milk makes people stupid. I fancy there is some truth in that assertion; but possibly the Chinese may have got the idea from the fact that the Tartars, who are necessarily milk-drinkers and eaters of dried milk and butter-milk, are a very stupid people. Sir Alexander Burnes mentions a similar opinion as existing in Sind in regard to the effects of fish. There, a fish diet is believed to destroy the mind; and in palliation of ignorance or stupidity in any one, it is often pleaded that "he is but a fish-eater." Yet this diet, more than any other, if our modern savants can be trusted, supplies the brain with phosphorus and thought, so it is calculated to make people the reverse of stupid.
The next day we started before daylight, and camped again at Namgea Fields. The view over Tartary, from the summit of the pass, was somewhat obscured by the rising sun, which cast on it a confusing roseate light; but the great outlines of the rolling hills and windy steppes were visible. I should be glad to try Chinese Tibet again, and in a more serious way; but meanwhile I had all the Western Himáliya before me, from Lío Porgyú to the twenty-Six-thousand-feet peak of Nunga Parbat, besides the Afghan border, and I had satisfied my immediate purpose by seeing some of the primitive Turanians, and looking on their wild, high, mountain home.
From The Spectator.
DEAD DUTCH CITIES.[1]
The belief which one hears constantly expressed in French society that Prince Bismarck means to "accaparer" Holland before long, so that the German Empire may possess the two things wanting to complete its supremacy and secure its future, — a fine seaboard and rich colonies, — and that the stream of German emigration may be no longer for the sole profit of the United States and our Colonial Empire, has led to an uprising of curiosity in France concerning the rich and quiet country which has had a pretty good spell of prosperous obscurity.
- ↑ Voyage Pittoresque aux Villes Mortes de Zuiderzée. Par M. Henry Haunt. Pans: E. Pion et Cie.
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