ad to cross extensive slopes covered with snow. On one
of these we had our first disaster. A coolie fell who carried in his hand
a large pot containing butter. He fortunately did not slide far down, but
we had the bitter disappointment of seeing our precious pot roll into the
water and disappear for ever. We camped at an elevation of 13,050 feet.
Late in the evening, as my men were collecting wood to keep up a huge
fire round which we sat, my two coolies, who had remained at Kuti with
instructions to follow, arrived with their respective loads. They were
two strange characters. The one with a coral necklace was mournful and
sulky, the other lively and talkative. They professed to be by caste
Rajiputs.

"You see," exclaimed the cheerful coolie, "I am small, but I fear
nothing. When we cross into Tibet I shall go ahead with a pointed stick
and clear all the Tibetans away. I am not afraid of them. I am ready to
fight the whole world."

Knowing the value of this sort of talk on the part of natives, I shut him
up and sent him away to fetch wood. The sulky fellow interested me more.
He seldom uttered a word, and when he did he never spoke pleasantly; he
was apparently immersed in deep thought, from which it seemed a great
effort to draw his mind away. He looked painfully ill. Motionless and
speechless, he would stare at a fixed point as if in a trance. His
features were peculiarly refined and regular, but his skin had that
ghastly shiny whitish tinge so peculiar to lepers. I waited for an
opportunity to examine his hands, on which he sat to keep them warm. It
is there, in the contracted or dropping off fingers, that one finds the
first certain symptoms of that most terrible of all diseases, leprosy. I
asked the man to come and sit nearer the blazing fire. He came and
stretched out his open palms towards the flickering flame. Alas! my
suspicions were but too correct. His fingers, distorted and contracted,
with the skin sore at the joints, were sad and certain proof. I examined
his feet and found the same symptoms there also.

"What is your name?" I inquired of him.

[Illustration: THE KUTI CASTLE]

"Mansing," he said drily, becoming immediately again absorbed in one of
his reveries.

The crackling fire was dying down, when a stalwart Tibetan suddenly
appeared bent low under the heavy weight of a huge tree-trunk which he
was carrying on his back. He approached and threw the wood on the fire.

Here was another character!