wn manner, a courtesy they particularly
appreciated, and although I must have seemed awkward to them at first, I
soon acquired a sort of dexterity in manipulating hot food--meat and
vegetables, for instance--with my hand. The trick is not very difficult,
but it requires practice. You gather up your five fingers downwards in
the dish, seizing a mouthful, and with a rapid circular twist of the hand
you collect as much sauce as you can round the morsel you have caught.
With a still more rapid movement, and before anything has time to drip
between your fingers, you half drop and half throw it into your mouth.

[Illustration: SHOKA CHILD BEING SMEARED WITH BUTTER]

I soon found that I could, during these cordial repasts, enlivened as
they were by moderate libations of _choekti_ and _syrap_ (wine and spirit
distilled from wheat), acquire considerable knowledge of anthropological
and ethnological interest, and gather also much valuable information
about Tibet and its people. They became, in fact, in the few days I spent
among them, confiding to such a degree, and looked upon me so much as one
of themselves, that I soon obtained the run of the whole place. They came
to confide their grievances and troubles; they related to me their
legends and folk-lore. They sang to me their weird songs and taught me
their dances. They brought me to their marriages and strange funerals;
they took me to their sick men, women, and children, or conveyed them to
me for cure. Thus, to my delight, and with such unique chances, my
observations of a pathological, physiological, and anatomical character
became more interesting to me day by day, and I have attempted to
describe in a later chapter some of the things I was able to note.

[Illustration: THE MASTER OF A HIGH SCHOOL ALTITUDE 10,940 FEET]

After lingering in Garbyang for several days, I paid off my two
chaprassis, Matan Sing and Narenghiri, and they returned to Almora.

On June 6 I started on a journey towards the frontier, with a view to
reconnoitre.

Crossing into Nepal territory below Chongur village, and following
upwards the right bank of the Kali River in a direction of 320 deg. (bearings
magnetic) I reached Kanwa, a Shoka village on a high cliff-like plateau
under which meet the three rivers Kali, Taki, and Kuti. The Kali turns
suddenly to 37 deg. (bearings magnetic), while the Kuti River keeps a general
direction of 325 deg. (bearings magnetic).

Having crossed again into Kumaon