Mr. Moorcroft's Letter on the Piirik Sheep ofLadakh, <§-c. 53 



Ladakh, sensual and luxurious, in their way, yet experiencing privations 

 which they know to be such, forbid the collecting of gold in their rivers, lest 

 their harvests of grain should be injured. It would be difficult for a logi- 

 cian to discover a connexion between this cause, and its effect. It is to 

 be found in superstition, and policy, each equally absurd. 



I have procured some of the sheep alluded to, and mean to increase the 

 parent stock to two hundred, leaving them under the care of a respectable 

 Lama, (my pupil in surgery,) for two years ; at the end of which period, my 

 journey will have been completed. Should I fall, an event by no means 

 improbable, the Government will receive them as a legacy, without expense, 

 under the hope that some of the individuals will be sent to Britain, and in the 

 sure expectation that the progeny will be distributed to cottagers and small 

 farmers, in poor and dry counties, I leave to you to estimate the national 

 advantages, derivable from two or three millions of extra animals, supported 

 upon produce now really waste ; provided their present frugal habits of 

 feeding be maintained, and their constitutions be not injured by delicate 

 treatment. 



The British flock-master would be delighted with the fineness of the bone 

 of the sheep of these countries, with the spread of the carcase, the hardi- 

 ness of their constitution, and their aptness to fatten ; but he would object 

 to the rounded nose, and to the stickel hairs, that debase the fleeces of 

 some of the numerous varieties of breed, in these regions. You have seen 

 the flat-tailed sheep of Persia and of Arabia, and so have I, with appen- 

 dages respectable enough ; but prudence causes me to suppress the size 

 and weight of the tails, of some of the fat-tailed sheep of the Calmucks 

 and Kosaks. Such of their fleeces, as have come under my inspection, are 

 little fit for any other than common cloths ; and for these are scarcely de- 

 sirable : but the elastic wiriness, and the glittering lustre of the fibre, re- 

 tained even when dyed, render them particularly valuable for carpets. 

 Yar-kund is under the greatest disadvantage for dyeing drugs ; but, being 

 well placed for the principal material, manufactures carpeting of great 

 beauty, for the China market. 



You will recollect the name of a peculiar kind of shawl, called Asil, or 

 Asli Tus, of a brownish colour, and must have seen cloth and blankets, in 

 which deer-like hairs are worked up with a remarkably fine wool, in Cdshmir. 

 Since the reign of Mahmud Shah, scarcely a single shawl has been made 

 entirely of this kind of wool, for sale, and very few even to order, on 



