out of the ambassador, who usually reaches Pekin about the middle of the following January. The ambassador's suite is rigidly fixed as to number, and as to every other detail; and, well or ill, tired or not, His Excellency is obliged by his pragmatical Chinese conductor (perhaps we should add in candour, by the character also of the country to be traversed) to push on towards his destination with only one halt of about a month and a half at Lhása, where, luckily for him, there is always some necessary business to transact, the Népálese having long had commercial establishments in that city. The ambassador, who is always a man of high rank (Hindú of course) and rather advanced in life, can take his own time, and cook and eat his own food, and use his own comfortable sedan chair or more comfortable litter (dándi, hammock) as far as Tingri. But there the inexorable Chinese Mehmandar (honorary conductor) meets him with the assigned set of ponies for himself and suite, and His Excellency must now mount, and unceasingly, as inflexibly, pursue his journey through a country lamentably deficient in food, fuel, and water, by pretty long stages and without a halt save that above named, on horseback, over a very rough country, for some one thousand seven hundred miles, and then only exchange his pony for the still worse conveyance of a Chinese carriage (more properly cart), which is to convey him with like persistency some seven hundred miles further, fatigue and bad weather notwithstanding, and the high-caste Hindu's cuisine (horresco referens) all the while entirely in the hands of filthy Bhótias and as filthy Chinese! Of course there is a grand lustration after each embassy's return home, which usually happens about two years from the time of its departure for Pekin; and many a sad and moving story (but all reserved for friends) the several members of these embassies then have to tell of poisonous compounds of so-called tea* and rancid lard or suet given them for drink in lieu of their accustomed pure lymph or milk; of heaps of sun-dried flesh incessantly substituted for the farinaceous and vegetable food of all decent Pagans; nay, of puppies served up to them for kids, and cats

*The so-called brick tea, which is composed of the sweepings of the tea manufactories, cemented by some coarse kind of gluten.

for hares, by stolid beastly cooks of Bhót (Tibet), under the orders of a seemingly insouciant and really pragmatical Chinaman, who answers all objections with "Orders of the emperor," "Food of the country," "You nicer than us, forsooth," " Fed or unfed, you start at such an hour." It is singular to observe the Celestial Empire treating Asiatics with like impertinence as Europeans, and it is satisfactory to think that the recent treaty of Népál with Tibet has put an end to these and other impertinences.

I proceed now to a few remarks on the form and substance of the papers. The form is such as might be expected from men, of a nation of soldiers and statesmen, scant of words and having an eye to business in the survey of a country. Blucher regarded London merely as a huge storehouse of valuables, fit, and haply destined, to make spoil for a conquering army. And a Népálese regards Tibet and China, not from a picturesque or scientific point of view, but with reference to the obstacles their natural features oppose to a daring invader having an eye to business in Blucher's line. The chief item, therefore, of both itineraries, and the only one of the shorter, is an enumeration of the mountain ridges or ranges intersecting the way (a most valuable piece of information, as we shall soon see); and to this the longer paper adds a similar enumeration of the intervening rivers, with the means of passing them, or the ferries and bridges; the forts occurring all along the route; and, lastly, the lakes and tanks where drinking-water can be had-a commodity most scarce in those regions, where half the lakes are brackish. The several items, together with the stages and the distances (computed by marching-time as well as by reference to the Népálese kós of 2 miles each), comprise the whole information conveyed. But it will nevertheless be allowed that so authentic an enumeration of so many important particulars, relating to so vast an extent of country so little known, is of no small value; and though here packed into the smallest compass, that information might, in the hands of a skilful bookmaker, suffice to furnish forth a goodly volume. But bookmaking is in no repute with the gentry of Népál. It belongs solely to pandits, whilst on the class of official scribes is devolved the task of

recording all useful information, which they are strictly required to embody in the fewest possible words and smallest space. I will only add on this head of the form of the papers

Ist. That the records of the two embassies having been made at the several times of those missions, and quite independently of each other, the statements of one may be used to correct and explain those of the other; and that, where discrepancies occur, the longer paper, which is complete in its details, is probably, on the whole, more correct than the one which is not complete in its details, though I confess a strong leaning to the Chountra statement, because of its sound discrimination of interesting facts.

2d. That the assigned distances, though not measured but computed, yet having a double basis of computation* by marching time under given assigned circumstances, and by kós according also to a given standard in use in Népál, ought, I should think, to be capable of very definite determination in competent hands.

3d. That both papers are literal translations, and that the additional information procured by myself, and embodied for convenience in the documents, is carefully distinguished by the use of brackets; the rest of such information being thrown into foot-notes.

The Chountra's embassy, as I learnt before I left Káthmándú, set out in 1817; that of the Káji in 1822, as appears on the face of the document. Chountra and Káji are titles of ministers of state in Népál. I proceed now to the substance of the documents; and here, in imitation of my friends, I shall be as curt as possible, and endeavour, in a few words, to bring together the most generally interesting items of information furnished by the two papers. The total distance from Káthmándú to Pekin, according to the Káji, is 1268 kós; according to the Chountra, 1250 kós; and in that space occur, according to the former authority, 106 mountain-ranges, which are crossed; according to the latter, 104. The Káji's paper gives us the further information, that 150 lakes and tanks occur in the

* I have heard that the whole road is measured and marked by the Chinese; and if so, the Népalese could never be much out, the only thing required of them being the conversion of Chinese li into kós.

route; 652 rivers, crossed by 607 bridges and 23 ferries; and lastly, 100 forts.

It would be very desirable, in dividing the whole space into the political and natural limits of the several countries traversed, to make the Chountra's and Káji's papers coincide. But I have attempted this in vain, owing to the different names cited in the two papers and the different methods of citation. In regard to political limits, they concur sufficiently, but not in regard to natural limits. I therefore give the former according to both papers; the latter according to the Chountra's only, it being quite clear on that head. I annex the langúrs or mountainranges to both statements.

I. From Káthmándú to Khása there is a difference of 5 kós, obviously caused by the Káji's detour vid Sankhu, instead of keeping the direct road as the Chountra did.

II. From Khása to the iron bridge of Tachindo, the difference is 13 kós. It is pretty clearly caused, partly by a small detour as before, and partly by a slightly different use of terms. In the Chountra's paper the specification in the body of the

Say rather rivers and river-crossings, for the same mountain-locked stream is here and there crossed twenty or thirty times in a very moderate distance. When I pointed out this at Káthmándú, I got the explanation, and was referred to the crossings of the Raputi River between Hitounda and Bhimphédy on the road to Káthmándú from the plains of India for a sample.

document is "on this side of Tachindo;" in the remarks. appended to it "beyond Tachindo;" whereas the Káji's paper specifies Tachindo itself.

III. From the iron bridge of Tachindo to Pekin the difference is only half a kós, which is not worth mentioning.

To these distributions I subjoin, though it be a repetition, the excellent concluding remarks of the Chountra's paper:

"Thus there are 104 langúrs (or mountain-passes) between Káthmándú and Pekin, and of these 102 occur in the noncarriageable part of the way, or the first 897 kós; and the last 2 langúrs only, in the remaining 353 kós, or the carriageable part. The last-named part of the way may be said to be wholly through plains, for, of the two hills occurring, only one is at all noticeable, and both are traversed in carriages. From Káthmándú to the boundary bridge beyond Tachindo (China frontier) is 665 kós, and thence to Chinchi Shan is 20 kós. Throughout these 685 kós from Káthmándú, mountains covered (perpetually?) with snow occur. In the remaining 565 kós no snowy mountains occur."

In the way of provincial boundaries we have the following. From Gnaksa, the 37th stage of the Káji's paper, to Sangwa, the 51st stage of the same paper, is the province of U, which contains the metropolis of Tibet or Lhása. At Sangwa, or in full Kwombo-gyamda-Sangwa, commences the Tibetan province of Khám, which extends to Tachindo or Tazhi-deu, which is the