ntrary to what usually obtains in old countries,
the males in this region considerably outnumber the females; yet, while
that disproportion exists throughout the provinces, polyandry is
confined to the Tibetans. Their wretched lands, verging on the line of
perpetual snow, devoid of fuel, and in many places unable to ripen
grain, keep them poor; and they assign as a justification for the
practice the necessity of repressing population and retaining property
undivided. One mistress of the house and three or four masters, who are
almost always brothers, is their unique remedy for the hardships of
their lot, so lowly and yet (topographically) so elevated. Among their
Mohammedan and Hindu compatriots the "twin barbarism" of a plurality of
wives appears to be confined in practice to a few of the powerful and
wealthy. Until within the last few years its repulsive features were
wont to be brought into more hideous relief by the cruel custom of
suttee, or widow-burning. It is only within half a generation past that
British interference has succeeded in putting a stop to these horrible
immolations. When, in 1843, Suchet Singh, uncle of the present
maharajah, Ranbir Singh, died, his _home_ harem of a hundred and fifty
wives were burned with his body at Ramnagar, and the same execution was
inflicted on his branch establishment of twenty-five at Jummoo. Seven
years after the beginning of British sway the thirty-two widows of a
cousin of the maharajah were burned. This scene was witnessed by Mr.
Drew, an English engineer of eminence who was for ten years employed in
surveying and exploring the new state, and from whose narrative many of
the facts given in this article are drawn. Upon another occasion he saw
the forcible sacrifice of a single widow. The poor woman, shrieking
fearfully, sprang from the funeral pile as the flames surrounded her,
but was instantly seized and thrown back into it by the "scandalized"
priests.

[Illustration: KASHMIRIAN BRAHMANS.]

The guide-book and the locomotive have marked this romantic land for
their own, but their progress is far from complete. The advance of the
latter, indeed, has probably reached its limit, some twenty leagues
outside the extreme south-western corner. The former is still fain to
depend largely on Bernier, the Frenchman who visited Kashmir two
centuries ago in the train of the Mogul emperor Aurengzebe. Bernier kept
his eyes open, and left not only a good account of the manners and