by Parbutteas, the
native name for Nepaulese settled in British territory. Over the
frontier line, the villages are called Pahareeas, signifying
mountaineers or hillmen, from Pahar, a mountain. We beat up to a
Parbuttea village, with its conical roofed huts; men and women were
engaged in plaiting long coils of rice straw into cable looking ropes.
A few split bamboos are fastened into the ground, in a circle, and
these ropes are then coiled round, in and out, between the stakes;
this makes a huge circular vat-shaped repository, open at both ends;
it is then lifted up and put on a platform coated with mud, and
protected from rats and vermin by the pillars being placed on smooth,
inverted earthen pots. The coils of straw are now plastered outside
and in with a mixture of mud, chaff, and cowdung, and allowed to dry;
when dried the hut is filled with grain, and securely roofed and
thatched. This forms the invariable village granary, and looks at a
distance not unlike a stack or rick of corn, round a farm at home. By
the abundance of these granaries in a village, one can tell at a
glance whether the season has been a good one, and whether the frugal
inhabitants of the clustering little hamlet are in pretty comfortable
circumstances. If they are under the sway of a grasping and
unscrupulous landlord, they not unfrequently bury their grain in
clay-lined chambers in the earth, and have always enough for current
wants, stored up in the sun-baked clay repositories mentioned in a
former chapter.

Beyond the village we entered some thick Patair jungle. Its greenness
was refreshing after the burnt up and withered grass jungle. We were
now in a hollow bordering the stream, and somewhat protected from the
scorching wind, and the stinging clouds of fine sand and red dust. The
brook looked so cool and refreshing, and the water so clear and
pellucid, that I was about to dismount to take a drink and lave my
heated head and face, when a low whistle to my right made me look in
that direction, and I saw the Captain waving his hand excitedly, and
pointing ahead. He was higher up the bank than I was, and in very
dense Patair; a ridge ran between his front of the line and mine, so
that I could only see his howdah, and the bulk of the elephant's body
was concealed from me by the grass on this ridge.

I closed up diagonally across the ridge; S. still waving to me to
hurry up; as I topped it, I spied a large tiger slouching along in the
hollow i