194 TO THE SHAYAK. 



5th August. Sunday. A cloudy morning. I took a 

 ramble before breakfast, and enjoyed it much, finding 

 more beauty than I thought the place possessed, but could 

 not select a site that satisfied me for a sketch. The scene 

 is too extended for any view that would include the prin- 

 cipal features. There is a picturesque lama monastery 

 high above the village on the mountain ; but the village 

 itself is such a scattered, stony, tumble-down place as to 

 defy a definite representation. The valley, looking either 

 way, when lighted, is beautiful the mountains of fine 

 and varied forms. The effects this morning were very 

 striking, as the fitful gleams of sunshine, struggling through 

 the heavy clouds, threw their shifting light here and there. 

 Looking west, a considerable expanse of rich cultivated 

 plain occupies the valley ; east, all is sand and shingle. 



I scrambled up the rock over the village, and thence 

 contemplated the scene below me, and did not omit to 

 turn my grateful heart to the adorable Creator of the 

 beauties around me. I wandered leisurely among the 

 rough winding field- tracks ; and so came back crossing the 

 brawling rivulet which dashes in several rocky channels 

 through the village. There was no news from over the 

 river ; but the gopal came to obtain his dismissal, being 

 ready to start. With many injunctions and oft-repeated 

 warnings from my various followers, by which the poor 

 man, from his perplexed visage, must have been sorely 

 bothered, he withdrew about 11 A.M. 



Tar-gness made his appearance, reporting the road to be 

 'chungy/ that is, comfortable. Phuttoo remained, and 

 I fancy, from observations I so understood, is exercising an 

 assumed authority to a great extent, as I thought he 

 would. I hope to get well across early to-morrow morn- 

 ing, and then proceed on some six miles to a village called 

 Chamseen. It appears that the gopal of this village is 



