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

:214 TIBET.comprehended in the same view, heightened the effect.The snow hadassumed ten thousand varying folds, and dissimilar forms, in fallingupon the rocks ;nor could the finest imagination, directing the pencilof the most skilful painter, possibly express the sublime beauty thatcharacterised the drapery, which this pure light substance had spreadover their craggy tops. It was a glorious day ; not a vapour obscuredthe air, or obstructed the view, to the edge of the horizon all aroundthe sun was not yet so high, as to have totally withdrawn the shadows,thrown by its oblique rays from one mountain on the other, but itimparted to every hill, all the advantage that a prospect could derive,from the happiest combination of light and shade.We descended from this plain, upon the dry bed of a large lake.The ancient banks, of nearly the same acclivity and height, were clearlyto be traced all around. On the eastern side, it gave rise to a brook,whose clearness betrayed numberless shoals of small fish glidingnear its bottom, as it hurried over a gravelly bed, to join anotherstream a little farther off. They formed together no inconsiderableriver, which, enlarging as it went along, shaped its course near ourroad all the way, and fell at length near Teshoo Loomboo, into theBerhampooter.On the banks that bordered this low ground, which I conclude tohave been atsome time covered with water, were a vast number ofpebbles and loose stones, that bore evident signs of having been rolledand rounded by the action of water. We encamped on its borders,near the village Sumdta, fourteen miles from Chaloo, within a stoneinclosure, similar to the walls erected in the hilly parts of England, for