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

1 46 B OOTAN.cloudless sky-Avith most powerful lustre.We were urgently entreatedto pass the night here ;many arguments were used to dissuade us fromproceeding, and we were assured itwas utterly impracticable to reachTassisudoli before midnight ; but all was in vain ; for the recollectionof our past sufferings at Wandipore, determined us not to hazard, ifwe could possibly avoid it, an exposure to similar calamities; a resolutionwhich the wretched appearance of this solitary mansion, and themore comfortable prospect of home, tended strongly to confirm.Afterpartaking therefore of the scanty fare which this miserable place afforded,mifk and roasted rice, we mounted our horses, and, in the blaze of day,moved slowly on ; for a prodigious high mountain lay before us,clothed with thick woods, and we had to climb it by a steep ascent.We were four hours in arriving at its summit, where we looked, as wellas from many openings in the road, upon an assemblage of mountainsbehind mountains, thrown together, like the fragments of a ruinedworld, in wild disorder. On the summit, which was crowned with alittle level space, was one of those long monuments already mentioned,inscribed with the mystic words, Oom maunee paimee com.Wefound here two servants belonging to the Daeb, and one of the TasseZoompoon's, with whom, having taken a cup of tea, we advanced onour way, greatly refreshed and exhilarated.1 he descent was so gradual and short, compared with the precedingascents of this day's journey, as to strike us very forcibly with anopinion, that the elevation of Punukka was much inferior to that ofTassisudon ; and hence we accounted for its superior warmth.Wild animals are so extremely rare, as far as my experience and