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

G2BOOTAN.The country now began to open ; the Tehintchieu ran with lessrapidity, over a more even bed of ground, watering a most beautifulnarroAv valley, in which not a spot of land was unemployed. Theirlabour merited a more grateful soil, for I never saw lands cleaner, orbetter dressed. Heaps of manure in every field, at proper distances,lay ready to be scattered amongst the corn ;yet with all their care thecrops were thin, running much to straw.In addition to this, the barenessof the hills, and the diminutive size of the pines, were evidentindications of an unkindly soil.The road, however, improved ;and we seemed to have conqvieredthe enormous mountains and craggy steeps, which were now reducedto moderate hills, with gradual and easy slopes.Traces of winter yetremained;and upon some of those hills that were near to us, there wasmuch unmelted snow.Leaving VVangoka, we continued our course, on Sunday the 1st ofJune, through the same kind of verdant valley, intersected by the river,as we had travelled through the day before. Upon our right, on thesummit of a lofty mountain, we saw an extensive monastery aboveSymtoka, and soon after, at the end of a valley, on our left, anotherImountain, whose top was covered with snow.We crossed a substantialand elevated wooden bridge over the Tehintchieu, six miles fromWangoka, where the bed was a rocky descent, and the stream, ofcourse, extremely rapid.At the distance of two miles, Tassisudon now\ ^opened to our view, situated in a valley, which I compute to be aboutthree miles in length, and one in breadth, lying north and south ;the Tehintchieu running through it.We were conducted to a house