Use of a rope system (zip wire) to transport people and goods across the river Tons in the Himalayas. Engraving by H. Jorden after W. Purser after G.F. White.

"Having crossed the rivers of these districts, as we thought, in every sort of way; that is, by fording, wading, swimming, on the trunk of a tree, by means of a sangha, and the more commodious edifice at Bhurkote, we were destined to be initiated into a new method of getting over the stream. The natives, who would form excellent materiel for rope-dancers, perform the operation with great apparent ease, by holding on with hands and feet, and making a sort of loop of their bodies; but, for people who are unaccustomed to such exercise, there is a wooden slide attached to the rope stretched across the water, which is at this place too broad to be spanned by any bridge of native construction, being about seventy or eighty yards in width. The left bank is considerably more elevated than the one opposite, and from this side, a three-stranded rope, about as thick as a man's wrist, was attached to a log of wood, secured among the rocks. The rope being then stretched across the river, was passed through the prongs of a fork, or wooden prop, planted firmly in the ground, and the rope, now divided into three strands, was secured to the trunk of a tree kept in its place by a heavy weight. Upon this rope, which is well twisted and greased, is placed a semicircular slide of hollowed wood, with two handles, to which a loop is attached; the passenger seats himself in this novel conveyance, taking hold of the handles, and is launched from the higher to the lower bank with considerable celerity; a thin cord at the same time remaining attached to the slide, from either side of the river, for the purpose of recovering it, or of pulling the traveller from the lower to the higher bank, in which event the passage is more slowly made. "--White, op. cit., p. 64