a startled "Wough! Wough!" like a big
dog and dashed away through the undergrowth. Another time they disturbed
a red bear feeding on the carcase of a strange beast that seemed a
mixture of goat, donkey and deer--Tashi called it a _serao_. And at a
lower elevation they blundered on two black bears--not flesh-eaters
these, yet more dangerous--grubbing for roots, and on another occasion
saw one climbing a tree in search of wild bees' nests.

In a dense jungle early one morning a beautiful black panther with a
skin like watered silk glided stealthily by them, showing its white
fangs and red mouth in an angry snarl as it went. And deep down in a
valley they espied a rhinoceros feeding a thousand feet below them. But
they came across no elephants; and Frank noted the fact despairingly as
rendering even less probable a meeting with Badshah and his herd.

Bird-life abounded, from the snow partridges that flew in the hills
eighteen thousand feet high to pigeons of every kind: birds of all
sizes, from great eagles to the little quails that hid in the
cornfields; lammergeiers that were fed on human bodies, the dead of
families of high degree, exposed on a flat rock of slate with head and
shoulders tied to a wooden axle that stretched the corpse like a rack.
In Bhutan ordinary folk are cremated.

On their journey the fugitives met with wayfarers of every rank and
class. On a steep mountain track they stood aside to let a high official
go by. He was sitting pickaback in a cloth on a powerfully-built
servant, the ends of the cloth knotted on the man's forehead. Behind
trudged an escort of bare-legged swordsmen with leather shields and
shining steel helmets. Coolies, male and female, followed, carrying the
great man's baggage in baskets placed in the crutch of forked sticks
tied on their backs. Sometimes they passed a rival lama glaring with
jealous eye at them. Often they met groups of raiyats, sturdy peasants,
thick-limbed, bare-footed, bare-headed, the women clear-eyed,
deep-bosomed, but uglier than the males. These did reverence to the holy
men and put their modest offerings of copper coins or food into Muriel's
begging-bowl.

Another time it was a family group at food, eating by the wayside. The
group consisted of a stout, ruddy-faced woman with close-cropped hair,
hung with many necklaces of coral and turquoise, and waited on by her
three meek and submissive husbands, all brothers--for this is a land of
polyandry. She invite