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You are four hundred miles north of Calcutta, up among the outlying heights of the Himalayas. Even here you are about 7,000 feet above the sea and the clean, clear, bracing air makes this region a favourite health-resort for Europeans. A large tract of land about here was bought in order to provide a reasonably accessible place of refuge from the deadly heat and malaria of lowland summers. A narrow-gauge railway comes coiling and zigzagging up the mountains to bring passengers and freight, and a great many excellent roads like this one, have been built over and around the hills in the vicinity, especially to points commanding the best views.

And this is the way the road-beds are made so solid and smooth! Do not fancy that these maids and matrons feel themselves ill-used when they are pulling this heavy road-roller and the men are lounging at ease beside the way. They are frankly glad to have the chance, for they are about five times as strong in back and limbs as youn would suppose, and, generation after generation, they have been accustomed to the heaviest of labour. Girls of this class (many of them are Nepalese) only eighteen or twenty years old, act as porters and shoulder heavy boxes of luggage, carrying them a mile or more up and down these steep roads without any apparent weariness. 

That watering can is used to sprinkle the small stones and make them pack into a more compact bed.

See how young some of the damsels are here e. g. the nearer one in the farther row. A few seem old enough to be spared such sever demands, ut they are probably less old than they look. Notice that they make a brave display of silver jewelry even at this task.

That feathery tree-growth at the left is bamboo. (For interesting notes on Darjeeling, see G. W. Steevens' "In India," Seidmore's "Winter India," Waddell's "Among the Himalayas," etc.)

From Notes of Travel, No. 9, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.

20-woman team on a Darjeeling highway, India.

Atellage de vingt femmes sur une route de Darjeeling, Inde.

Zwanziaer Zug von Frauen aus einer Hochstrasse von Darjeeling, Indien. 

Manada de veinte (20) mujeres en un camino de Darjeeling, India.

Ett spann at 20 kvinnor, Darjeeling, Indien.

Іҍпъ 20 женщинъ ва Дарьелингской дорогҍ, Индiя.