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

35 4 T I B E T»atmosphere was clear even to brilliancy, and I had seen no fogs inTibet since the day Ientered it.The dust, indeed, was for a shorttime extremely troublesome, butit is the practice of tlic husbandmen to cover the low lands in thevallies with water, immediately on the approach of winter, whichincases their surface, as it were, with a sheet of ice, and preventstheir being stripped of the soil, by violent winds. This method is reportedtoenrich the ground, a material advantage, as they here neveruse manure, and also to render it, upon the first approach of spring,ready to receive the plough. As soon as the land is prepared, theytake the first favourable opportunity to sow it ; fiequent showers,and a powerful sun, contribute speedily to mature the crops. Theautumn afterwards succeeds, which is clear and tranquil ; the harvestis cut in a fair and settled season, and left long upon the ground todry; when the corn is sufficiently hardened, a number of cattle arebrought, a circle is cleared, and they are driven in a lank round acentre, to tread the grain from the ear, as fast as it is thrown undertheir feet ; this, in Tibet, is the general mode of thrashing. Theircourse of cultivation is wheat, pease, and barley. Rice is the productionof a more southern soil.We came early in our march to-day to the post of Dukque, whichI noticed in my journey to Teshoo Loomboo. Nothing afterwardsoccurred, in the course of our journey towards Bengal, which meritsparticular mention, except the extreme severity of cold^of which wesoon becanic thoroughly sensible,and the extraordinary circumstanceof finding large lakes frozen to a great depth, in so low a latitude as