Page:Views in India, chiefly among the Himalaya Mountains.djvu/116

64 mountaineers, whom they employ on their line of march, with practical lessons of greater value than the wages which they pay; but it may be doubted whether they take a sufficiently strong interest in the welfare of these poor people. It requires a very philanthropic spirit to induce men, in search of their own gratification, to pause upon the road for the purpose of imparting useful knowledge, to distribute tools, and teach the method of their employment—labours which might not be immediately rewarded by success, or properly appreciated by those who are to benefit from them, but which nevertheless should be persevered in as a duty which the intelligent man owes to his less fortunate brother. Something, however, must be learned even in our harum-scarum progress through the country—our incessant demands for supplies of all kinds, which, though at first reluctantly brought into the camps of those extraordinary bipeds, who must be possessed with some restless demon to wander thus far, are found to be more advantageously disposed of than if stored up for family use. At present an acquaintance with native opinion would not be very flattering to the European visitor, who, though he himself, in consequence of the kindness he has shewn, may have obtained a high character with the mountaineers, consider him to be at least crazy, and, for want of any other motive sufficient to account for his travels, suppose that his own country must be the most desolate place in the world. The notions entertained respecting England are exceedingly diverting, notions which can only be removed by ocular demonstration of their fallacy, that is, by a visit to the country, where, much to their astonishment, Asiatics find wealth and comfort beyond all their previous experience.

 CROSSING THE RIVER TONSE BY A JHOOLA, OR ROPE BRIDGE.

Having crossed the rivers of these districts, as we thought, in every sort of way; that is, by fording, wading, swimming, on the trunk of a tree, by means of a sangha, and the more commodious edifice at Bhurkote, we were destined to be initiated into a new method of getting over the stream. The natives, who would form excellent materiel for rope-dancers, perform the operation with great apparent ease, by holding on with hands and feet, and making a sort of loop of their bodies; but, for people who are unaccustomed to such exercise, there is a wooden slide attached to the rope stretched across the water, which is at this place too broad to be spanned by any bridge of native construction, being about seventy or eighty yards in width. The left bank is considerably more elevated than the one opposite, and from this side, a three-stranded rope, about as thick as a man's wrist, was attached to a log of wood, secured among the rocks. The rope being then stretched across the river, was passed through the prongs of a fork, or wooden prop, planted firmly in the ground, and the rope, now divided into three strands, was secured to the trunk of a tree kept in its place by a heavy weight. Upon this rope, which is well twisted and greased, is placed a semicircular slide of hollowed wood, with two handles, to which a loop is attached; the passenger seats himself in this novel conveyance, taking hold of the handles, and is launched from the higher to the lower bank with considerable celerity; a thin cord at the same time remaining attached to the slide, from either side of the river, for the purpose of recovering it, or of pulling the traveller from the lower to the higher bank, in which event the passage is more slowly made.

Other jhoolas in the mountains vary a little in their construction: half a dozen stout worsted ropes are stretched across the river, and fastened to a projecting buttress on 