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

:356 TIBET.intense.Though we kept a good fire burning all night, sufficient to linethe upper surface of the tent, which was closed on ail sides, with a ihicfecloud of smoke, yet all was insufficient to mitigate the severity of thefrost ; our breath congealed upon our whiskers, and it cost us someconsiderable lime and pain to clear them of icicles.It was our first care in the morning, to delend ourselves with ourwarmest clothing ; and indeed our thickest garments were no morethan necessary, to guard against thekeen severity of the atmosphere.Yet here we saw multitudes of the valuable animal, whose coat affordsmaterials for that exquisitely fine and beautiful manufacture, the shawl.They were feeding in large flocks, upon the thin dry herbage that coversthese naked-looking hills.This is, perhaps, the most beautifiil speciesamongst the whole tribe of goats ; more so, in my opinion, than theAngola kind. Their colours were various ; black, white, of a faintbluish tinge, and of a shade something lighter than a fawn.They havestraight horns, and are of a lower stature than the smallest sheep inEngland. The material used for the manufacture of shawls, is of aligiit fine texture, and clothes the animal next the skin. A coarsecovering of long hair grows above this, and preserves the softness ofthe inferior coat. This creature seems indebted, for the warmthand softness of its coat, to the nature of the climate it inhabitsupon removing some of them to the hot atmosphere of Bengal, theyquickly losttheir beautiful clothing, and a cutaneous eruptive humoursoon destroyed almost all their coat. I was also unsuccessful in repeatedtrials, to convey this animal to England. It would neitherendure the climate of Bengal, nor bear the sea : though some few of