BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 27 
so far east as the great lake (I forget its proper name, but not Yar- 
bongh, as it is called on the maps,—it is certainly very large, but the 
island is small, towards the south-west angle) ; the Yarou trends south, 
and the country is warm, producing the Mulberry, and some say, Silk 
and Rice. Every Thibetan describes the people on its southern banks, 
near the bend, as atrocious savages, dwelling in mountainous woods 
bordering Assam; they are the Abors and Bor-Abors, of course : 
there the Yarou (they say) enters the mountains, and flows southward to 
the Burrampooter, the stream becoming too rapid for navigation, and 
the inhabitants of its banks are too savage. East of Bhotan, by 
Towang, there is no snow; ex route from Assam to Thibet, none any- 
where; and Juniper grows to the mountain-tops. The rivers, from a 
little south of the Yarou, flow to Assam. Nor is the boundary of East 
Bhotan well defined. Every information about the Yarou was the 
same, and my informants were very numerous; the best, a well-edu- 
cated monk, who was brought up at Mendoling, a goompa two days 
southward of the Yarou, on a river flowing to Towang and Assam, 
five days off. Menchona is the mart of that quarter, and the only 
great one east of Pari. North of the Yarou is the salt country, lofty, 
rugged, barren, and inhospitable to the last degree. The Yak cannot 
proceed beyond a few days’ march northward of Digarchi; and sheep 
are almost the only beast of burden, except man. 
Of the physical features of Eastern Thibet, its manners, customs, and 
agriculture, religion, &c., I have collected many details, but I forbear to 
weary you with them. Your general account is admirable. Plains, 
as you say, are but local features, and very limited ones ; the country is 
one of stupendous, rugged mountain-chains, and not of plains or table- 
land. The flat-floored valleys, and scarped flanked mountains, which are 
of comparatively uniform elevation above the sea, though of widely 
variable height above the valleys, give it a very different look to the 
snowy Himalaya. The absence of snow and wood completes the delu- 
sion ; and, as you truly observe, the traveller who suddenly encounters 
the features of an open country, the access to which begins abruptly, 
is very apt to be deceived, and the theodolite alone rectifies the error. 
The line of perpetual snow is about 15,000 feet, where the masses of 
the mountains first rise so high; it gradually rises with the increasing 
height of the land, to 19,000 feet, and 19,500 feet is the lowest mean __ 
level in lat. 28° 30’, long. 88° E., and 15,000 in the same long., and 
