e mule is the hardiest and most enduring. He does not
complain when he is overloaded, but will go on all day, and when he
drops there is no doubt that he has had enough. Nine times out of ten
when he gives up he dies. No beast is more indifferent to extremes of
heat and cold. On the road from Kamparab to Phari one day, three mules
fell over a cliff into a snowdrift, and were almost totally submerged.
Their drivers could not pull them out, and, to solve the dilemma, went
on and reported them dead. The next day an officer found them and
extricated them alive. They had been exposed to 46 deg. of frost. They still
survive.

Nothing can beat the Sircar mule when he is in good condition, unless it
is the Balti and Ladaki coolie. Several hundred of these hardy
mountaineers were imported from the North-West frontier to work on the
most dangerous and difficult sections of the road. They can bear cold
and fatigue and exposure better than any transport animal on the line,
and they are surer-footed. Mules were first employed over the Jelap, but
were afterwards abandoned for coolies. The Baltis are excellent workers
at high altitudes, and sing cheerily as they toil up the mountains with
their loads. I have seen them throw down their packs when they reached
the summit of a pass, make a rush for the shelter of a rock, and cheer
lustily like school-boys. But the coolies were not all equally
satisfactory. Those indented from the Nepal durbar were practically an
impressed gang. Twelve rupees a month with rations and warm clothing did
not seem to reconcile them to hard work, and after a month or two they
became discontented and refractory. Their officers, however, were men of
tact and decision, and they were able to prevent what might have been a
serious mutiny. The discontented ones were gradually replaced by Baltis,
Ladakis, and Garwhalis, and the coolies became the most reliable
transport corps on the line.

Thus, the whole menagerie, to use the expression current at the time,
was got into working order, and a system was gradually developed by
which the right animal, man, or conveyance was working in the right
place, and supplies were sent through at a pace that was very creditable
considering the country traversed.

From the railway base at Siliguri to Gantok, a distance of sixty miles,
the ascent in the road is scarcely perceptible. With the exception of a
few contractors' ponies, the entire carrying along this section of the
line