An Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet - Prajna Quest

96 BOOTAN.communicated with distant springs, and conveyed water, whenever thefarmer saw occasion to avail himself of such a resource, to every part! of the valley. Three of these aqueducts were ranged one above theother, with a considerable space between them ;and, as w^e looked up/ to the Raja's villa above them, surrounded with well grown firs, andother choice trees, Ithought them highly ornamental to the prospect.The hollowed trunks of large trees, w hich were insome parts fixedin the soil which covered the rock, and in others sustained by beamsinserted in it, across deep dells, and along the sides of precipices,/ gave a passage to the waters. The eye could trace these conduits forImore than two miles in continuation ; they exist as noble thoughmodest monuments of the genius of the people, and lose very little incomparison with the more costly models of antiquity. So plain butingenious a contrivance certainly merits admiration, especially whenwe see the inventors of it intrenched, in impervious mountains, amongwhom, the sciences never yet became a study, and who are totallyexcluded, as well by natural impediments, as local prejudices^ fromall communication with more enlightened nations.The most perfectcomprehension of the science of hydraulics, could hardly, in the presentinstance, have suggested to them any improvement.Our return, when we chose to vary from the road by which wecame, was in front of the palace of Lam' Ghassatoo'^, on the southside of which was a long narrow tract of level ground, supportingmany tall flagstafis, that had narrow banners of white cloth reachingnearly from one end to the other, and inscribed with the mystic words,VPlateVII.