There was a village two miles from camp, but it contained no supplies, and was deserted except for a few old women. In those days, to the casual traveller through Tibet, old women would have appeared to form the bulk of the population. A useful thing, an old woman! You can use her as a cat's-paw. Though afraid to go yourself into the vicinity of the invading foe, you can yet send your old woman to watch over your interests in the village, to feed and milk the cows that you have left hidden there, to perform such small agricultural functions generally as may save the farm from utter ruin, and to return periodically with the latest news of the foe. That seemed to be the idea which dominated the Tibetans in this matter, and perhaps it was a sound one. I can certainly imagine no more effective 'chowkidar' upon a village than an ancient, toothless, slatternly Tibetan woman, who greets you with tongue out and thumbs upturned (the conventional symbols of submission), and weeps long and loud from the moment you approach her until you leave her. I believe Aristotle has defined tragedy as 'a purging of the emotions with sympathy and a kind of horror.' According to this definition the sight of these old women was essentially tragic. You went to a village hoping to find in it a stock of good things, and you found only this old woman and nothing else. You were sorry for the old girl, of course; but when you saw the filth encasing her and the lice enveloping her, you were filled indeed with 'a kind of horror,' and rode away promptly with your emotions thoroughly purged after the correct Aristotelian method. The Tibetan of course knew that this would happen, and this was why he sent his old woman to guard his property.