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

56 B OOT AN.tligious thickness. \\'e were conducted hither, on our entrance, andlodged by the commandant in a large and lolty apartment, in whichthere were two or three loop holes towards the river, and on the otherside, a projecting balcony : the floor was boarded with tiiick planksthat were pretty well joined together.In a nation where no records are kept to perpetuate the memory ofthe achievements of genius, and in which the minds of the people areremarkably prone to superstition, perhaps more than a century maynot be necessary, to deify the author of a great work. Thus it is, thatthe bridge of Chuka isreckoned to be of more than mortal production.No less a being than the dewta Tehuptehup could possibly have contrivedso curious a piece of mechanism. Neither the origin nor the^ .,1•/''history of this renowned Tehuptehup, can be traced with any degree of^'f^ certainty; but the works they assign to him, the road up the mountainwe lately passed, (many parts of which are held, itmay be said, upona precipice, by pins and cramps of iron uniting together the stonesthat form it,) and the bridge at Chuka, do credit to a genius, whodeservedly ranks high upon therolls of fame, and justly claims fromthe inhabitants, decided tokens of respect and gratitude.At twelve o'clock, on Monday the ^6th of May, we departed fromChuka. The mountains in our way to Punugga, for the distance ofabout ten miles, were in some parts not so completely covered withtrees, asthose we had passed, and we observed a material change inthe face of them, as well as in the climate.The road side was coveredwith strawberries, which ripen, and decay, unnoticed by the ploddingpeasant of Bootan. I could not view them with the same apathy, but