He suggests that the Sherpas turned their surplus manpower towards exploiting the growing mountaineering and tourism business. Some of the other Bhotia peoples, who were less accessible and less well known as guides, were unable to survive as well and there has been a drop in living standards and population. Although in the short-term the situation is not desperate and the author constantly stresses the resourcefulness and adaptability of these peoples, there are long-term dangers.

 

As Professor Haimendorf notes, if the current population growth in central Nepal continues there will be no grains to export. Furthermore, improved communications from India will make Tibetan salt totally superfluous. The last vestiges of the trade will fade away. Meanwhile, the one major asset of Nepal, her forests, are shrinking very rapidly in these high regions, as elsewhere. Fuel shortage and erosion lie ahead. On the whole, however, the tone of the book is optimistic and there is little sentimental attachment to the old order.

The presentation is well suited to the theme and to the publishing of useful ethnographic data. The case studies of trading and agriculture, as well as the statistics on economics and demography, are most helpful. The maps and photographs are excellent and, combined with certain descriptive passages, really do convey a vivid feeling of what the region is like. The only criticism here is that a curious system of randomly indenting many paragraphs is irritating.

Negatively, as the author admits, brief acquaintance with some of the areas makes it impossible for him to discuss social structure, religion, cosmology and a number of other dimensions represented in the Sherpas. Nor is there any real attempt to draw wide conclusions or to place the study within any wider theoretical framework. There are interesting speculations on the reasons why these peoples are such avid traders.