Shoka hospitality—How I obtained much information—On a reconnoitring trip—A terrible slide.
THEY are indeed Nature's gentlemen, these worthy Shokas, and as such they
did all in their power to make my stay among them pleasant. It was a
contest between them as to who should entertain me first, and who should
be the next. Invitations to breakfast and dinner literally poured in; and
those convenient "sick headaches," "colds," and "previous engagements," so opportune in more conventional parts, were of no avail here. No card—no friendly note bade one to come and be merry. They generally arrived en masse to fetch me. Pulling and pushing played a not unimportant part in their urging, and to decline was thus out of the question. Indeed I must confess there was but little inclination to decline on my part. When you arrived, your host spread out fine mats and rugs, of Tibetan and ancient Chinese manufacture, and often of great value. In front of a raised seat were displayed in shiny brass bowls the various viands and delicacies which constituted the meal. There was rice always; there was curried mutton, milk and curd with sugar; then chapatis made in Hindustani fashion and Shale, a kind of sweet pancake made of flour, ghi (butter), sugar or honey, also Parsad, a thick paste of honey, burnt sugar, butter and flour, all well cooked together—a dainty morsel even for a jaded palate.
I was invariably made to sit on the raised seat, which I did
cross-legged, while the crowd squatted respectfully on the floor round
the room, forming a semicircle with me in the center. I generally ate
with my fingers in their own manner, a courtesy they particularly
appreciated, and although I must have seemed awkward to them at first, I
soon acquired a sort of dexterity in manipulating hot food—meat and
vegetables, for instance—with my hand. The trick is not very difficult, but it requires practice. You gather up your five fingers downwards in the dish, seizing a mouthful, and with a rapid circular twist of the hand you collect as much sauce as you can round the morsel you have caught. With a still more rapid movement, and before anything has time to drip between your fingers, you half drop and half throw it into your mouth.
I soon found that I could, during these cordial repasts, enlivened as
they were by moderate libations of chökti and syrap (wine and spirit
distilled from wheat), acquire considerable knowledge of anthropological
and ethnological interest, and gather also much valuable information
about Tibet and its people. They became, in fact, in the few days I spent
among them, confiding to such a degree, and looked upon me so much as one
of themselves, that I soon obtained the run of the whole place. They came
to confide their grievances and troubles; they related to me their
legends and folk-lore. They sang to me their weird songs and taught me
their dances. They brought me to their marriages and strange funerals; they took me to their sick men, women, and children, or conveyed them to me for cure. Thus, to my delight, and with such unique chances, my observations of a pathological, physiological, and anatomical character became more interesting to me day by day, and I have attempted to describe in a later chapter some of the things I was able to note.
After lingering in Garbyang for several days, I paid off my two
chaprassis, Matan Sing and Narenghiri, and they returned to Almora.
On June 6 I started on a journey towards the frontier, with a view to
reconnoitre.
Crossing into Nepal territory below Chongur village, and following
upwards the right bank of the Kali River in a direction of 320° (bearings
magnetic) I reached Kanwa, a Shoka village on a high cliff-like plateau
under which meet the three rivers Kali, Taki, and Kuti. The Kali turns
suddenly to 37° (bearings magnetic), while the Kuti River keeps a general
direction of 325° (bearings magnetic).