SECTION X

ROUTE OF NEPALESE MISSION TO PEKIN,

WITH

REMARKS ON THE WATER-SHED AND PLATEAU OF TIBET.

THE two following papers (it may be as well to state, in order to show their trustworthiness) were presented to me by the Maha Rajah of Népál in 1843, when I took my leave of him, after having resided at his Court for ten years in the capacity of British Minister. His Highness was pleased to say he desired to give me something which, not being of monied value, I should be permitted to retain, and which he knew I should set especial store by, and all the more because I was aware that the communicating of any such information to the "Feringé" (European) was contrary to the fixed policy of his Government. And therewith His Highness gave me these two documents, as well as several others of equal interest. The papers now in question comprise official summaries of the routes of two of those embassies of tribute and dependence, which, since the war of 1792 with Tibet (aided by China), Népál has been bound by treaty to send to Pekin once every five years. It is customary for these embassies always to keep nearly or quite to the same. track, they being conducted through Tibet and China at the expense of the Celestial Empire and under the guidance of officers appointed by it.

The time of departure from Káthmándú is determined by the opening of the passes over the Himalaya, which takes place usually during the first half of June by the melting of the snows; and that accordingly is the regular period for the setting

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