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

B O OT AN. 21hesitation and difliculty, over this tremendous path, we arrived at asmall hut, inhabited by a poor but liospitable cripple, who refreshedus, as well as he could, with tea, and with a kind o{ whisky; a treatwhich we afterwards frequently experienced. In the mean time, a messengersent by the Soobah arrived, with orders to the officer in chargeof the pass, to give admittance to our party. I looked about for thisimportant personage, and was surprised to find him at my elbow ;acreature that hardly bore the resemblance of humanity; of disgustingfeatures, meagre limbs, and diminutive stature, with a dirty cloththrown over his shoulders. He was of a mixed race, between theBooteea and the Bengalee; and it was wonderful to observe how greatlyithe influence of a pestilential climate, had caused him to degenerate,from both. At the foot of the Bootan mountains, a plain extends forabout thirty miles in breadth, choked, rather than clothed, with themost luxuriant vegetation. The exhalations necessarily arising fromthe multitude of springs, which the vicinity of the mountains produces,are collected and confined by these almost impervious woods, andgenerate an atmosphere, through which no traveller ever passed withimpunity. Its effects Avere fatal to Captain Jones, and to a great part /of the troops that served under him, in 17 72; and Colonel Sir John/Cuming % one of the few that escaped with life, still feels its injurious)consequences. Yet even this spot is not without inhabitants, althoughits influence hath wholly debased in them, the form, the size, and thestrength of human creatures.The Soobah's messenger was soon followed by a led Tangun horse,,which came neighing and prancing with such impetuosity, that I ex^» Colonel Sir John Cuming is since dead.^