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

16 BENGAL.butes of the sovereign were announced with all the pomp of orientalimagery and diction ;and they were enriched by a splendid recital ofthe blessings which it had pleased a gracious Providence to showerdown upon this favoured land. But mark the sequel. The cunningof the Assamees, a quality, which no lessfrequently than eminentlydistinguishes the feeblest of all creatures, impelled them to seek refugeat first in inaccessible mountains and wilds, till the season of therains began ;they then poured down in multitudes from their haunts,hovered around the imperial army, circumscribed their range, and soonreduced them to extreme distress both for forage and provisions :thusharassed and fatigued, as well by perpetual alarms, as by the inclemencyof the weather, the effect of noxious exhalations from a low andhumid soil was soon added to complete their ills.The robust Mogul,accustomed to a climate in allrespects so opposite, now felt the poisoncreep irresistibly through his palsied frame ;sickness made alarmingstrides, and every day reduced the strongest to a level with the weak.The necessity of aretreat became too obvious to admit of hesitation.Already the flower of the Afghans, the Persians, and Moguls, were cutoff; the rest, entangled in gloomy forests, and hemmed in by impracticablemorasses, had no way to escape but by a perilous passage overlong and narrow causeways.In a hasty flight, bewildered and pressedy..on all sides, numbers fell into the snare that had been so long preparjKjjing ; few indeed reached the banks of the Berhampooter ; and stillSL^J*fewer lived to cross its wide and rapid stream, and relate the miserablefate of their fellow soldiers.Thus ended an expedition which has seldom been paralleled inthe