Monsieur Jacquemont does not speak in very flattering terms of the mountain-maidens of this district, but I cannot agree with him. They are women of very graceful and prepossessing appearance, with regular features, and I must do the men the justice to say that they are not less handsome than the women.
There were, amongst my coolies, two young men as beautifully formed,and as graceful in their movements, as any that I have ever seen. It is natural that the lower limbs of the inhabitants of these steep mountains should be very much developed, but it is an error to think that this development gives an herculean appearance; on the contrary, the exercise of journeying over these rugged ways, serves to give a delicate outline and pliant grace to the form.
– The Baron Erich von Schonberg wrote in his Travels in India and Kashmir (1853), London: Hurst & Blackett
