a genius. Anyhow he was intemperate enough to have been one.

* * * * *

One day I had gone for a walk along the deserted road from the village. I
was about a mile and a half from the inhabited part, when three men, who
had been fast approaching, stood with blunt swords in front of me. They
waved their blades clumsily and shouted at the top of their voices in an
excited manner: "_Rupiya! Rupiya!_" ("Rupees! Rupees!") Without thinking
of the money that I had sent for and expected to receive, I took their
attitude as a threatening demand for the cash I might have on me. They
were really grotesque in their gesticulations, and I brusquely pushed by
them and continued my constitutional. When they saw me depart, they
scurried away hastily towards Garbyang, and I gave the occurrence no
further thought. On my return to the village, however, some hours later,
a crowd of Shokas came up to me announcing that my money had arrived, and
that the scared messengers, not daring to come near me a second time, had
gone to Dr. Wilson's house. There I found a _peon_ and two _chaprassis_,
the three men I had met on the road. They had brought a sum of eighteen
hundred rupees in silver, nearly all in two-anna and four-anna pieces
(sixteen annas to a rupee), which I had sent for from my banker, Anti Ram
Sah, at Almora, and which it had taken three men to carry, owing to its
weight.

After an easy explanation with these three very peaceful highwaymen, the
silver was conveyed to my room, and the greater part of the night had to
be spent in counting the diminutive coins and packing them up in rolls of
ten rupees each.

* * * * *

Just below Garbyang in the Kali River were, among a mass of others, two
large rocks in the centre of the stream. These two rocks were constantly
watched by the Shokas. The Kali, though named after a small spring below
its real source, is, like most of its tributaries, mainly fed by melting
snows. The greater quantity of water descends from the Jolinkan, the
Lumpiya, the Mangshan, the Lippu, and the Tinker passes. The first four
are in Kumaon, the last in Nepal. It stands to reason that the warmer the
weather the greater is the quantity of snow melting on the passes, and
therefore the higher the level of the river. When the two rocks are
altogether under water all the passes are known to be open.[11]

During the time I was in Garbyang I never had the luck