"I should say that you were by the way you shake hands."
"Yes, sir," he proceeded. "I have prepared for you some milk, some _chapatis_ (native bread), and some nuts. Please accept them."
"Thank you," I said. "You do not seem to be a bad Christian. What is your name?"
"Master G. B. Walter, sir. I teach in the school."
A crowd of Shokas had collected. Their first shyness having worn off, they proved to be polite and kind. The _naïve_ nature and graceful manner of the Shoka girls struck me particularly on this my first introduction to them. Much less shy than the men, they came forward, and joked and laughed as if they had known me all their lives. I wished to sketch two or three of the more attractive.
"Where is my book, Chanden Sing?" I inquired of my bearer.
"_Hazur hum mallum neh!_" ("I do not know, sir!") was his melancholy answer as he searched his empty pockets.
"Ah! you villain! Is that the care you take of my notes and sketches? What have you done with them?"
"Oh Sahib, I drank some water at the Dholi River. I had the book then in my hand. I must have left it on a stone when I stooped to drink water from the stream," the wretched man explained.
It is hardly necessary to say that Chanden Sing was promptly despatched to the spot he had named, with strict orders not to appear before me again without the book. I spent two or three pleasant hours in having the primitive Shoka weaving-looms, the processes of spinning and cloth manufacture, explained to me. As can be seen from the illustration on p. 42, the weaving looms of the Shokas are in every way similar to those used by the Tibetans proper, and are quite simple in construction. The warp is kept at great tension, and the cloth-beam on which the woven tissue is rolled rests on the woman's lap during the process of weaving. There are no treadles in the Shoka loom, by which the two sets of warp threads are alternately raised or depressed between each time that the transverse thread is passed, and all work is done by hand. The transverse thread is beaten firmly home by means of a heavy prismatic piece of wood. The material used in weaving is yak or sheep's wool, either in its natural colour or dyed in the primary colours of red and blue and yellow, and one secondary only, green. Blue and red are used in the greater and equal proportion; then green. Yellow is very parsimoniously used. The thread is well twisted and is subjected to no preparation before spinning, leaving thus a certain greasiness in the closely-woven material that renders it waterproof. In weaving colour fabrics several shuttles are used.