arms.

as deduced from seven observations made along "the course of the valley;" but in no sense can it be correctly spoken of as one valley, for it is composed of three great valleys. Taking Padam as a centre, one of these runs up the course of the Tsarap Lingti which we have just descended; another, which we are about to ascend, lies along the upper Zanskar river, up towards the Pense La and Súrú; while a third is the valley of the Zanskar river proper, which is formed by the junction of the two streams just mentioned: these, when conjoined, flow in a nearly northern direction towards the upper Indus. In shape, this province is something like the three legs of the Manx coat of Its greatest length must be nearly ninety miles, and its mean breadth must be over fifty; but this gives no idea of what it is to the traveller who has to follow the course of the rivers and meets with difficult ground. It took me ten marches to get from one end of Zanskar to the other; and no one with loaded coolies could have done it in less than nine. Thornton, in his gazetteer of the countries adjacent to India, describes it as lying between lat. 33°-34°, 30′, and long. 76°-77, 20'; and he says of it, "this region not having been explored by any European, little is known concerning it, except that it is drained by a large stream called the river of Zanskar, which, rising near Labrang, on the southern frontier, and holding a northerly course of nearly a hundred miles, receives several tributaries, and joins the Indus on the left side, about twenty-five miles below Leh." It must, however, have been pretty well explored since his time, for the Trigonometrical Survey have measured a number of stations in this province, and I understand that the

reason why the routes through it have not been published is a rather uncalled-for fear that it might be exposed to an influx of travellers too great for its scanty resources.

*

Cunningham translates the name Zanskar, or rather "Zangs-kar," as "white copper or brass; but an enthusiastic Gaelic scholar suggests to me that it is the same as Sanquhar of Scotland, and has a similar meaning. This latter supposition may seem very absurd at first sight, Tibetan being a Turanian, and Gaelic an Aryan language; but his contention only is, that the names of innumerable places in Tibet and Tartary are identical with the local names of the Gaelic language; and for almost every Tibetan name I mentioned to him he found a Gaelic synonym, having a meaning which suited the character of the Tibetan localities very appropriately. I cannot do more than refer to this matter here, and the above is not sufficient evidence on which to build up a theory; but I should not be surprised if this view were borne out by a strictly scientific investigation of the subject, for it struck me forcibly before I left Zanskar that there must be some unknown relationship between the people of that province and the Scottish Highlanders. The sound of their language, the brooches which fasten

* Emil Schlagintweit, in his 'Die Könige von Tibet' (aus den Abhandlung der k. bayer, Akademie der W. I. Cl., x. B. iii., p. 802, München, 1866), makes the following remarks on the meaning of this name :-" Ein Beispeil der Verdünnung des Auslautes liefert der Name der provinz Zánkhar. Gewöhnlich Zangsmkhar geschrieben, 'Kupferfeste,' so auch findet sich zangsdkar 'Weiss-Kupfer' (so Cunningham) und bzang-khar 'gutes Fort.' Die verkurzte, Form Zang erklärt sich daraus, dass das s bei der Aussprache nicht gehört wird; dadurch kam eine neue Etymologie sehr leicht auf, von der wir für dieses Wort sogar noch ein weiteres Beispeil haben. Ich hatte bereits erwähnt dass es in meines Bruders Adolph Manuscripten zan-khar geschrieben steht."

their plaids, the varieties of tartan which their woollen clothes present, and even the features of the people (which are of an Aryan rather than a Tartar type), strongly reminded me of the Scotch Highlanders. The men had tall athletic forms, long faces, aquiline noses; and the garments of the women in particular presented many of the clan tartans, though the check was not so common as the stripe.

Division of races and of languages have been employed of late to an unscientific extreme; but there is nothing improbable in the supposition that a particular Himálayan tribe, of mixed Aryan and Turanian blood, speaking a mixed language which became almost entirely Aryan as they advanced, but preserving especially the local names of their Tibetan birthplace, with some peculiarities of dress and custom, may have pushed their way along the "Stony Girdle of the Earth" to the islands (if they were then islands) of the Western Sea. R and n being interchangeable, and as tartan is probably a word signifying crossing or weaving across, it is not absolutely impossible that tartan may have some relationship to Tartar, the name of the cloth being taken from that of the people who wore it. This is about as likely as the usual derivation of tartan from the French tiretaine; but it would be almost as unwarrantable to affirm it without some positive indication of its having been the case, as it would be to accept the derivation of an ingenious and learned friend who insists that the word tartan obtained its present application when the Assyrian General Tartan took Ashdod, and carried away the Egyptians captive in an imperfectly clothed condition, which must have made them bear a striking resemblance to Scotch Highlanders in their national costume.

STONES, FLAGS, WHEELS, AND MILLS-KOEPPEN ON THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER MEANING OF OM MANI PADME HAUN -ITS SANSCRIT ORIGIN.

AROUND this highly-elevated village of Kharjak, and at several other places in Zanskar, there is an unusual number of large Choten, nearly solid edifices, generally composed of large square platforms, placed one above another, and surrounded by the larger half of an inverted cone which supports a tapering pillar bearing a Dharma emblem. These Choten were originally receptacles for offerings, and for the relics of departed saints, and they thus came to be considered a holy symbol, and to be made large without containing either offerings or relics. They are sometimes of nearly a pyramidal shape. According to Koeppen, the proper names for them are m Tschhod, r Ten, or g Dung, r Ten; and General Cunningham says that the latter word denotes the proper bone-holders, or depositaries of holy relics; but Choten, or something very like it, has come to be generally applied to all edifices of this kind. There are more than a dozen of them about Kharjak, some nearly

twenty feet high, and they do not seem to be associated with any particular saint. Some of them had what by courtesy might be taken for a pair of eyes figured on the basement; and this, Cunningham informs us, means that they are dedicated to the supreme Búdha, "the eye of the universe." One also frequently finds among the Tibetans small Choten three or four inches high, and I was shown one of these which was said to contain the ashes of a man's wife.

Zanskar is rich, too, in the Mani which are to be found sometimes in the most desolate situations. These are long tumuli or broad dykes of stones, many of which stones are inscribed or sculptured. They are met with even high up among the mountains, all over the Himalaya, and vary in length from thirty feet to so many as a thousand and even more. Their usual height is about five feet, and the breadth about ten. I suppose I must have passed hundreds of these Mani on my journey; and the Tibetans invariably pass so as to keep them on the right hand side, but I have been unable to discover the meaning of this practice. The stones are beautifully inscribed for the most part with the universal Lama prayer, "Om mani padme haun ;' but Herr Jaeschke informs me that sometimes whole pages of the Tibetan Scriptures are to be found upon them, and they have, more rarely, well-executed basreliefs of Búdha, of various saints, and of sacred Búdhistic symbols. These stones are usually prepared and deposited for some special reason, such as for safety on a journey, for a good harvest, for the birth of a son; and the prodigious number of them in so thinly peopled a country indicates an extraordinary waste of human energy.