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

BOOTAN. 99kept the owner always in good humour; and his wife, when he wasnot at home, would readily attend, and help us to the best fruit. Itcontained also apples, pears, and walnuts ; but tliQ latter were notripe during our stay, and the former were extremely harsh andcoarse.In our perambulations down the valley, I often rested at the placewhere the chief manufacture of paper isestablished, which was made,Ifound, by a very easy and unexpensive process, of the bark of a tree,here called Deah, which grows in great abundance upon the mountainsnear Tassisudon, but is not produced on those immediatelybordering on Bengal.The method of preparing this material, as wellas I could learn, is as follows. When a sufficient quantity of bark iscollected to employ the labourer, it is divided into small shreds, andsteeped and boiled in a lixivium of wood ashes ; it is then taken up,and laid in a heap to drain ; after which it is beaten upon a stone, witha wooden mallet, until it is reduced to an impalpable pulp ; it is thenthrown into a reservoir of water, where, being well stirred about, andcleansed from the coarse and dirty part, which floats upon the surface,it is still further depurated in another large reservoir of clean water.When the preparation iscomplete, the parts are finely broken, and thatwhich sinks in the water, appears mucilaginous to the touch-All thatnow remains is to form it into sheets, which is done upon small reedsset in frames.The labourer dips the frame in the water, and raises upia quantity of the pulp, which, by moving the frame iu the water, hespreads, until it entirely and equally covers the surface of the reedshe then raises the frame perpendicularly, the water drains off,Oand the