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 invited the fugitives to share their meal, and bade her dutiful spouses serve the supposed lamas. They proffered cooked rice coloured with saffron and other food in the excellent Bhutanese baskets woven with very finely split cane. These are made in two circular parts with rounded top and bottom pieces fitting so well that water can actually be carried in them. From sealed wicker-covered bamboos the hosts filled _choongas_ (bamboo mugs) with _murwa_, the beer of the country, and _chang_, the native spirit. Frank and Muriel refused the liquor; but Tashi drank their share as well as his, to give the pious peasants an opportunity of acquiring merit. And wife and husbands thought themselves amply rewarded by a muttered blessing. A very different figure was that of a man lame of the right leg and limping painfully down a steep hill in front of the fugitives. Muriel, full of pity, whispered to her lover after they had passed him: "Oh, the poor wretch! Did you see, dear, he had lost the right hand as well?" But she shuddered when she learned that the cripple was a murderer punished by the severing of the tendons of the leg and the loss of the hand that struck the fatal blow.