ABSTRACT
Not long afterwards the river crossed my path again. Coming towards me, on the other side, was a huge peasant accompanied by a tiny wife. The man was easily 6 feet 3 inches in height, while his wife must have been under 5 feet. The contrast was startling. In the central parts of Tibet the inhabitants generally are rather short, an inch or two under the average height in England, so I judged this fellow or his ancestors must have come from Kham, the great eastern province of Tibet, where most of the inhabitants are extremely tall, and many of them attain to even gigantic size. This giant peasant was obviously in a hurry, for he came along at a great pace, but with his immense stride he seemed to have no difficulty in covering the ground. Not so his poor wife, who, with her short steps, had literally to run in order to keep up with her spouse. He seemed little worried by her exertions, and occasionally gave her a push to make her go faster, so I was surprised at the gallantry he showed when he came to the river. The ice was here too thin to bear any weight and broke through at every footstep. Not in the least perturbed by this, and seeing his wife hesitate, he picked her up with one hand in a most casual fashion and, tucking her under his arm as if she were a sack of flour, carried her over and deposited her on dry ground not far off from where I was standing.
