Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald 1911 Book 07

Author(s): Mohanlal Dalichand Desai
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Conference

Page 69

26]
જૈન કેન્ફરન્સ હેરલ્ડ.
[ HIZL
Katgarh is a big town and has a splendid Bazar, Mission Compound, Church, few beautiful gardens and hotels. Few European Missionaries live there.
The view at Bangalow and Tahsil building Katgarh is magnificient. On one side looks the green lofty mountains and Khumarsain and on other side Sutlaj 4.000 feet below at a distance of 5 miles And on the third side you will see silow covered mighty Hemalyas peaks. It is upon the slope of Wartoo mountain.
The natives of this hill country are fair in complexion. Though generally short in stature the women are very beantiful, handsome and valuptuous.
They have cheeks like apples, large dark blue eyes like antilopes and nose like parrot. Their colour is reddish wliite. Their faces are bright and transparent and their charins are beyond any parallel. In short all of their features are so fault less in their style of beauty that nothing could be compared therewith.
The women of higher castes wear gulden natlı or nose ring while the lower castes are allowed only to wear silver nath.
The least harsh word to a woman often induces her to commit suicide at once and many resort to it from fanıily quarrels, oldage, poverty and disease
An extraordinary custom is prevelent amongst these mountaineers specially in low castes the origin of which it would be very difficult to trace. It is usual for a woman to have three, four and even Ave husbands at a time.
The dress of both saxes is nearly the same. It always consists of a drah coloured shirt and frock of woolen cloth called swklat and trousers of the same material some of them dress in large woolen wrappers which they put on in such fashion as makes the lower part to form a petticoat. The women instead of