Chaprung, inlat. 31° 27' N., and long. 79° 33' E., is described as a large populous place. When any man of property dies, they bruise the body to pieces, bones and all, and form it into balls, which they give to a large species of kite, which devour them. These birds are sacred, kept by the Lamas, and fed by them, or by people appointed for that purpose, who alone approach them; others dare not go near them, perhaps from superstitious motives, for they are held in great fear. This ceremony is very productive to the priesthood, an expenditure of very large sums being made on the decease of any great man, and the Lamas receiving presents of very fine and expensive caps. Poorer people are sometimes buried, and at others thrown into the river.—Fraser's Him alaya Mountains, p. 338.
The number of the houses of Ladakh is estimated at 30,000, with 210,000 inhabitants, or 433 persons in the square mile. In Ladakh the nuns and monks bear a large proportion to the population. It was subject to Lhassa until A.D. •1834, when it was seized by Zorawar Singh, general of the raja of Jamu. The Ladakh race call themselves Bot-pa, speak Tibetan, and pro fess the religion of Buddha under a hierarchy of monks called Lamas. The term Tibet is unknown to the people, as also to the Indians, who call them Bhotia, and their country Bhutan. Ladakh be
longs partly to the Jamu raja, and partly to the British, and is Bhot along the banks of the Chandra and Bhaga, but Hindu after their junction. To the north of the Ladakh country the people of Yarkand and Khoten speak Turki. To the west, beyond Balti, the people of Astor, Gilgit, and Hunza-Nager speak different dialects of Dardu, while the Kashmiri have their own peculiar language. To the south, the people of Chumba, Kulu, and Bussahir speak a dialect of Hindi, and to ;he east and south-east the people of Rudok, Chang-Thang, and Ngari speak Tibetan only. In the Ladakh frontiers of the Western Himalaya, the Bhots salute by raising the back of both hands to a height even with the forehead, and then repeatedly describing a circle in the air with them by dropping the fingers downwards, and turning the palm inwards. This is similar to the Muhammadan practice of Billaen-lena, where a woman is supposed to take upon herself all the evils which would befal the person whom she addresses. Polyandry prevails in Ladakh. The brothers of one family have a single wife in common, and the children take name and obey, as head of the family, the eldest husband.
Beas.—Polyandry prevails in the Bess valley, but the general immorality is ascribed to the large numbers of Yarkandi traders.