Crossword-Solution: BALTIS 6 letters, 2 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 8

These Dras villages are inhabited by hardy Dards and Baltis, short, jolly-looking, darker, and far less handsome than the Kashmiris; but, unlike them, they showed so much friendliness, as well as interest and curiosity, that I remained with them for two days, visiting their villages and seeing the 'sights' they had to show me, chiefly a great Sikh fort, a yak bull, the zho, a hybrid, the interiors of their houses, a magnificent view from a hilltop, and a Dard dance to the music of Dard reed pipes.

Then come barley fields and poplar and willow plantations, bright streams are crossed, and a small gateway, within which is a colony of very poor Baltis, gives access to the city.

The neat little Moravian church was filled by a motley crowd each Sunday, in which the few Christians were distinguishable by their clean faces and clothes and their devout air; and the Medical Mission Hospital and Dispensary, which in winter have an average attendance of only a hundred patients a month, were daily thronged with natives of India and Kashmir, Baltis, Yarkandis, Dards, and Tibetans.

Some of the Dards and Baltis were lepers, and the natives of India brought malarial fever, dysentery, and other serious diseases.

Both provinces are inhabited by a Mongolian stock, but the Ladaki living on the uppermost stretch of the basin near Tibet are Buddhists and polyandrists, while the Baltis farther down the valley are Mussulmen and polygamists.