from Kashmir, at least as far as the Barra Lacha, closing the passes, and preventing the Yarkand traders from getting down to Simla, as noted in the Indian newspapers at the time. Such a snowstorm is not usual so early in the season, but the Zanskaries said it occasionally occurred. It had often struck me how little attention the people of the Himálaya paid to the weather, and how ignorant they were of its signs; and the present occasion was no exception to that rule, as the storm appeared to take our party quite by surprise.

The morning had been cold and dark, but with that peculiar thickening of the air which indicates the gathering of snow. As we advanced up the valley, an ocean of mist began to hurry across it from the glaciers and snowy mountains on the left or south-western side; but admitting, at first, occasional gleams of sickly sunlight, which soon disappeared altogether. At first, also, there was almost no wind where we were, though it was blowing a hurricane above, and the mist rushed over from the one snowy range to the other with marvellous rapidity. After a time, however, violent gusts of wind and blasts of rain came down upon us; the rain changed into sleet; a violent wind blew steadily; and before we reached the village of Phe it was snowing heavily. To camp in our tents in these circumstances was not desirable; and the sowar whom the Thánadar of Padam had given me, prevailed on the principal zemindar of Phe to allow us to take up our quarters in his house; and there we had to stay until the day after next, when the force of the storm had exhausted itself.

This house, which was a typical Tibetan residence of the better class, was built of stone, without mortar, but in

terspersed by large beams, which must have been brought from a distance, and which added to the security of the edifice. It occupied an area of, I should think, about eighty feet in length, and sixty in breadth, was two-storeyed, and had a small courtyard in front. All the lower rooms were occupied by ponies, sheep, and cattle; and savoury were the smells, and discordant the cries, which they sent up-stairs, or rather through the roof of their abode, during my two days' confinement above. The upper storey was reached by a stone staircase, which ascended partly outside the house and partly inside, and which, in its latter portion, required one to stoop painfully. Part of this storey, fronting the courtyard, had no roof, and so formed a kind of balcony, one end of which, however, was roofed over, and afforded shelter and a cooking place for my servants. From that, a low passage, on both sides of which there were some small rooms or closets, led into the principal apartment of the house, on one side of which there was another large room occupied by the women and children, with a very small window and balcony. On another side there was a store-room; and on the third there was a dark room which was used as a chapel, and in which a light was kept constantly burning. The principal apartment, in which I took up my residence, along with the husbands of the wife, and apparently any one who might drop in, including a Balti-wanderer, was about forty feet long by thirty. It had no window, properly speakinglight, air, and, I may add, snow, finding admission through a square hole in the roof, with sides each about six feet. Directly below this, but not so large, there was a corresponding hole in the floor, so that a

sort of well ran down to the ground-floor, and served to carry off the rain and snow which are admitted by the hole in the roof. This is an ingenious arrangement, and shows that the human mind may have some invention, even when it is not equal to conceive of a chimney. The room was just high enough to allow of a tall man standing upright beneath the beams; and the roof was about four feet thick, being composed of thorn-bushes pressed very closely together, and resting on several large strong beams. Inside, the walls were plastered with a kind of coarse chunam; the floor was composed of rafters and slabs of slate; and on the floor, resting against one of the walls, there were two or three small stone fireplaces, which constituted the only furniture, except one or two chests, which served as seats.

To say that this was in itself a pleasant place of residence would be incorrect. The large aperture in the centre of the roof created a low temperature which required a fire to make it tolerable, but the smoke from the fire knew when it was well off, and showed a remarkable aversion to going out at the aperture. Consequently, there was the alternative of being starved with cold, or being occasionally half choked and blinded with the pungent smoke of birch and thorn bushes. However, the smoke, after going up the wall, did collect pretty close to the roof, the inside of which it had covered with a thick layer of soot. That was not nearly so great an evil as the porous character of the roof itself, through which the snow soaked only too easily, and being thoroughly melted by the time it got through the roof, fell everywhere into the apartment in large, black, dirty drops, so that it was somewhat difficult to find a spot on which one could keep dry or clean.

On the second day, when there was no appearance of the snowstorm ceasing, and there was great probability of my having to spend a winter of eight months in Phe, I began seriously to consider what state I should likely be in after so prolonged a residence in such an apartment. The prospect was by no means a pleasant one, and I resolved, if I had to remain, to take up my abode in the half-covered balcony. My liquors were at their last ebb, and my tea was disappearing; but I could keep myself going in coffee by means of roasted barley, and there would be no want of milk, meal, and mutton. Perhaps a knowledge of the Tibetan language might prove more useful to me than that of English; and an intelligent being might find more satisfaction as a Nímapa Lama, than as either Primate or Prime Minister of England in the present age.

The polyandric wife and mother of this house kept to the inner room; but there was a delightful trio which kept me company in the public apartment, and was composed of the aged grandmother and two fine children, a girl and boy of five and six years old respectively. They were delicious children, fair almost as northern Europeans, frolicsome and wild whenever the grandmother was away or not looking after them, and the next moment as demure as mice when the cat is in the room. They ate with great gusto enormous piles of thick scones covered with fine rancid butter. No young lions ever had a more splendid appetite, or roared more lustily for their food. The old woman kept them winding yarn and repeating "Om mani padme haun;" but the moment her back was turned they would spring up, dance about, open their sheepskin coats and give their little plump rosy bodies a bath of cold air; but when old granny, who

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was blear-eyed and half blind, hobbled back, they were seated in their places in an instant, hard at work at "Om mani pad," and looking as if butter would not melt in their mouths. Sometimes they would sit down beside me and gaze into the fire, with all the wisdom and solemnity of Búdha in their countenances; then the boy's naked foot would noiselessly steal out until he caught a burning branch between his toes, on which the girl would give him a violent nudge, push him over, and they would both jump up laughing, and run away.

The grandmother too was interesting. She said she had seen seventy years—she did not know how many more, and the Tibetans rarely know their own ages. There was between her and the children that confidential relationship we often see in Europe, and which, being born of love, creates no fear; and she also found room in her affections for a young kitten, which drove Djeóla almost mad. Though nearly blind she plied her distaff industriously, and she showed her piety by almost continuously repeating the great Lama prayer. It is true she never got any farther than "Om mani pad," thereby getting over more repetitions of it than would have been possible had she pronounced the whole formula; but let us hope the fraud on heaven was passed over. A less agreeable occupation in which she indulged was that of freeing her own garments and those of the children from unpleasant parasites; for, after doing so, she always carefully placed them on the floor, without injuring them; for it would never have done to neutralise the effect of the prayer for the six classes of beings by destroying any of them. To the looker-on, this placing of parasites on the floor is apt to suggest foreboding reflections. But, to tell the