tion, save
the fire in the centre of the room slowly burning out. Signs of
sleepiness became evident as morning came, and soon they all retired in
couples, and went to sleep in their clothes on a soft layer of straw and
grass. There they slept peacefully in a row, and I retraced my steps to
my diggings amidst a deafening barking of pariah dogs. At these
gatherings every Shoka girl regularly meets with young men, and while she
entertains the idea of selecting among them a suitable partner for life,
she also does a considerable quantity of work with her spinning-wheel.
Eventually, when a couple consider marriage advisable, the young man,
dressed in his best clothes, proceeds to the house of his intended
father-in-law, carrying with him a pot of _choekti_ (wine), dried fruit,
_ghur_ (sweet paste), _miseri_ (sugar-candy), and grilled grain. If the
bridegroom is considered a suitable match, the parents of the girl
receive the young man with due consideration, and partake heartily of the
food and drink proffered by him. The marriage is there and then arranged,
the bridegroom further disbursing to the father a sum of not less than
five rupees and not more than one hundred. This is the etiquette of good
Shoka society, and of all people who can afford it, the payment being
called "milk-money," or money equivalent to the sum spent by the girl's
relations in bringing her up. The marriage ceremony is simple enough. A
cake called _Delang_ is baked, of which the friends of the two families
partake. If either the bridegroom or bride refuses to eat a share of the
cake, the marriage is broken off; if they both eat some of the cake, and
later any dissension arises between them, all those who assisted at the
function are called as witnesses that the marriage took place. Often even
this primitive ceremony of eating cake is dispensed with, and Shoka
marriages begin and continue as happy and faithful unions, without any
special form of service or rite to solemnise the tie.

[Illustration: SHOKA WOMAN WEAVING]

They not only visit adultery on the guilty man himself by beating him,
but the men proceed _en masse_ to the house of his parents and denude it
of all furniture, stores of grain, and merchandise. They confiscate the
sheep, goats, yaks, and all their valuable saddles and loads, and present
the whole proceeds to the man whose wife has been seduced--a recompense
for the shame suffered. Frequently the unfortunate and innocent relations
of