India in search of their lost relative Csomo, and it was only by some accident he was able to tell them where the Hungarian they sought was buried.

Csomo de Körös published at Calcutta a Tibetan Grammar in English, and also a Tibetan-English Dictionary: but he had so far been anticipated by Father Georgi, who published a Tibetan Grammar at Rome in 1762, founded on the manuscripts of Father De la Penna, one of the missionaries who went from Peking to Lassa in the first half of the eighteenth century; and by J. J. Schmidt, who issued at Leipsic, in 1841, a Tibetisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch, nebst Deutschem Wortregister.' This Schmidt was a merchant in Russia, at Sarepta, near the Volga, where he learned the Mongolian language, and then, from the Mongolian Lamas, acquired the Tibetan, after which the Russian Government called him to St Petersburg, where he published Mongolian and Tibetan Grammars. A small but convenient lithographed Tibetan Grammar in English, and a Tibetan-English Vocabulary, were prepared some years ago by the Rev. Mr Jäschke, of the Moravian Mission at Kaelang, in Lahoul; but the latter of these will ere long be superseded by the elaborate and most valuable Tibetan-German and Tibetan - English Dictionaries, with registers, which this gentleman is now preparing and passing through the press from his present residence at Herrnhut, in Saxony, the original and central settlement of the Moravian Brethren. I had the pleasure of meeting with Herr Jäschke at Herrnhut a short time ago, and found him far advanced with his dictionaries; and may mention that sheets of them, so far as they have been printed, are to be found in the East India Office Library.

But we are not at Herrnhut just now, but on a cold windy plateau 13,000 feet high, with a gradual descent before us to some white granite and mica-slate precipices, which have to be painfully climbed up; while beyond, a steep and terribly long ascent leads up to a great bank of snow, which must be crossed before it is possible to commence the 5500 feet of descent upon Súgnam. Feeling myself becoming weaker every hour, I must confess that my heart almost failed me at this prospect; but to have remained at that altitude in the state I was in would have been death; so, after hastily drinking some milk, which the pretty Kanam women had been considerate enough to bring with them, we pushed on. No yaks could go up the white precipice, and there was nothing for it there but climbing with such aid as ropes could give. High as we were, the heat and glare of the sun on these rocks was frightful; but as we got up the long slope beyond and approached the bank of snow, the sky darkened, and an intensely cold and violent wind swept over the summit of the pass from the fields of ice and snow around. There was no difficulty in passing the bank of snow, which turned out to be only patches of snow with a bare path between them; but at that height of 14,354 feet, or nearly as high as the summit of Mont Blanc, with its rarefied air, the effect of the violent icy wind was almost killing, and we could not halt for a moment on the summit of the pass or till we got hundreds of feet below it.

Hitherto I had been able to make little use of my dandi, but now I could do little more than stick to it. This was very hard on the bearers, who were totally unused to the work. One poor man, after a little

experience of carrying me, actually roared and cried, the tears ploughing through the dirt of ages upon his cheeks (for these people never wash), like mountain torrents down slopes of dried mud. He seemed so much distressed that I allowed him to carry one of the kiltas instead; on which the other men told him that he would have to be content with two annas (threepence) instead of four, which each bearer was to receive. To this he replied that they might keep all the four annas to themselves, for not forty times. four would reconcile him to the work of carrying the dandi. But the other men bore up most manfully under an infliction which they must have regarded as sent to them by the very devil of devils. They were zemindars, too, or small proprietors, well off in the world, with flocks and herds of their own; and yet, for sixpence, they had to carry me (suspended from a long bamboo, which tortured their unaccustomed shoulders, and knocked them off their footing every now and then) down a height of between 5000 and 6000 feet along a steep corkscrew track over shingle and blocks of granite. How trifling these charges are, though the work is so much more severe, compared with the six francs a-day we have to give to a Swiss portatina or chaise à porteur, with three francs for back fare, and the six or eight franes for a guide on ordinary excursions. Meanwhile, the individual suspended from the bamboo was in scarcely a happier plight. I could not help remembering a prediction of Lieutenant-Colonel Moore's, that if I ever did reach Kashmir, or anywhere, it would be suspended by the heels and neck from a bamboo, with tongue hanging out of my mouth, and eyes starting from their sockets.

Things certainly had an unpleasant appearance of coming to that pass, and this reflection enabled me to endure the suffering of the dandiwallahs with some equanimity. Fortunately, till we got near to Súgnam, there was no precipice for them to drop me over; and when we at last reached one, and had to pass along the edge of it, I got out and walked as well as I could, for I felt convinced that outraged human nature could not have resisted the temptation; and I also took the precaution of keeping the most valuable-looking man of the party in front of me with my hand resting on his shoulder.

CHAPTER XIV.

SLATE PRECIPICES.

SÚGNAM

SHASO-! THE

CHOKRA-THE BOY NURDASS-SHASO ΤΟ PÚ-THE WORST PATH IN BUSSAHIR—THE GORGE OF THE SUTLEJ -SCHWESTER PAGELL.

THERE is a route from Súgnam to Pú, by Lío and Hango, which takes over two 14,000 feet passes, and probably would have been the best for me; but we had had enough of 14,000 feet for the time being, and so I chose another route by Shaso, which was represented as shorter, but hard. It was a very small day's journey from Súgnam (which is a large and wealthy village, inhabited by Tartars) to Shaso, and the road was not particularly bad, though I had to be carried across precipitous slopes where there was scarcely footing for the dandiwallahs. My servants had not recovered the Rúhang Pass, however; and I was so ill that I also was glad to rest the next day at this strange little village in order to prepare for the formidable day's journey to Pú. Shaso consists of only a few houses and narrow terraced fields on the left bank of the Darbúng Lúng-pa, with gigantic and almost precipitous mountains shading it on either side of the stream. My tent was pitched on a narrow strip