BARH.
The scene before you represents the encampment of the Commander-in-chief at Barh, at the foot of the hills, distant about thirty miles from Simla. Here the baggage elephants, and camels, deposit their loads, a part of which are carried up the mountains by the hill men; the remainder, with the carriages, palanquins, and tents, are either sent back to the plains, or placed in godowns belonging to a Simla firm at Barh. The ladies of the party are sitting in jampāns, ready to ascend “The Hills,” as these mountains are called, from being at the foot of the Himalaya. The jampān is a sort of arm-chair, with a top and curtains to it, to afford shelter from the sun or rain; long poles are affixed to it, and it is carried by four Paharīs, singular-looking little black, hill fellows, harnessed between the poles after their fashion. A group of them are sitting near the jampāns. They are little fellows, with flat ugly faces, like the Tartar race, dressed in black woollen coarse trowsers, a blanket of the same over their shoulders, and a rope round their waists; a black greasy round leather cap on their heads, sometimes decorated all round the face with bunches of freshly gathered hill flowers. They are very honest, and very idle; moreover, most exceedingly dirty. The women are good-looking and strong. Polyandry is a common institution. Gentlemen ascend the hills either in a jampān or on a gūnth, a hill-poncy, a most sure-footed, sagacious animal, who will carry you safely round the most dangerous places, where you have a wall of rock on the one side, and a precipice on the other. A jumna-par goat, with its long silky ears, is lying on the ground near a shawl goat from Cashmere. Some men of a corps of irregular horse are in attendance on the Commander-in-Chief, and the tom-tom wālā, with his drum, is seated on his blanket, on which the people throw cowries, and sometimes paisā, small copper coins: a tom-tom wālā is a constant attendant on every camp.
