We climbed 1,000 feet higher, then began to descend, and presently got down to Darjeeling, which is 6,000 feet above the level of the Plains.
We had passed many a mountain village on the way up, and seen some new kinds of natives, among them many samples of the fighting Ghurkas.

They are not large men, but they are strong and resolute.

There are no better soldiers among Britain's native troops.

And we had passed shoals of their women climbing the forty miles of steep road from the valley to their mountain homes, with tall baskets on their backs hitched to their foreheads by a band, and containing a freightage weighing--I will not say how many hundreds of pounds, for the sum is unbelievable.

These were young women, and they strode smartly along under these astonishing burdens with the air of people out for a holiday.