286 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 



Kalki, the final incarnation of Vishnu, is to appear. It is 

 identified by some with Sambhal, a very ancient Hindu 

 town in Rohilkhand, which occurs in Ptolemy's Tables. 

 We learn from Ibn Batuta that the last of the Mongol 

 emperors of China sent an embassy to Sultan Mahommed 

 Tughlak of Dehli, to obtain permission to rebuild a temple 

 at SamJial, near the foot of Himalya, whither his (Bud- 

 dhist) subjects used to go on pilgrimage. So it is pro- 

 bable that Sambhal may have been associated with these 

 Tibetan legends, though lying in a wrong direction from 

 Tibet. 



When Mr. Bogle was at Tashi-lunpo the Teshu-Lama 

 desired him particularly to inquire from the Bengal pundits 

 about ' the situation of a town called Shambul ' {MarkJiam, 

 p. 1 68). 



In reference to the apparent identification that had 

 been made between this mystic land of Shambaling and 

 our own Isle of the West, I am tempted to introduce here 

 (somewhat a propos dc bottcs, I confess) an anecdote ex- 

 tracted, once more, from the valuable letters of Mr. Ney 

 Elias, to whom I have been so much indebted in the com- 

 pilation of the Introductory Remarks to these volumes. 

 After speaking of a wide-spread belief among the Mongols, 

 and Chinese of Mongolia, in the existence of a race of 

 people in the Alatau range who have the bills of ducks, 

 my correspondent goes on : — 



' What would a modern Japanese traveller, for in- 

 stance, say, if he were to hear from the natives of Northern 

 Mongolia that in unknown lands far to the westward, be- 

 yond the Aros (Russians) there existed a race called ///^//j', 

 who had but one leg of flesh whilst the other was of wood .-* 

 He would doubtless regard the story as of a piece with 

 that of the duck-headed mountaineers. . . . There has 

 lived at X for many years past one solitary English- 

 man in the person of Mr. Z Z , who has had the 



misfortune to lose one of his legs, and who is well known 

 to the Mongols frequenting that border as an Inglis, or a 

 western man who is not a Russian. . . . On my late 



