19Q PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1777. 



months on the whole, having excciitec] his commission to the entire satisfaction 

 of the administration. 



Mr. Bogle divides the territories of the Delai Lama into 1 different parts. 

 That which lies immediately contiguous to Bengal, and which is called by the 

 inhabitants Docpo, he distinguishes by the name of Boutan ; and the other, 

 which extends to the northward as far as the frontiers of Tartary, called by the 

 natives Pii, he styles Thibet. Boutan is ruled by the Dah Terriah or Deb Rajah, 

 as already remarked. It is a country of steep and inaccessible mountains, 

 whose summits are crowned with eternal snow; they are intersected with deep 

 vallies, through which pour numberless torrents that increase in their course, 

 and at last, gaining the plains, lose themselves in the great rivers of Bengal. 

 These mountains are covered down their sides with forests of stately trees of 

 various sorts; some, such as pines, &c. which are known in Europe; others 

 that are peculiar to the country and climate. The valley and sides of the hills 

 which admit of cultivation are not unfruitful, but produce crops of wheat, barley, 

 and rice. The inhabitants are a stout and warlike people, of a copper com- 

 plexion, in size rather above the middle European stalure, hasty, and quarrel- 

 some in their temper, and addicted to the use of spirituous liquors; but honest 

 in their dealings, robbery by violence being almost unknown among them. The 

 chief city is Tassey Seddein situated on the Patchoo. Thibet begins properly from 

 the top of the great ridge of the Caucasus, and thence extends in breadth to the 

 confines of Great Tartary, and perhaps to some of the dominions of the Russian 

 empire. Having once attained the summit of the Boutan mountains, you do 

 not descend in an equal proportion on the side of Thibet ; but, continuing still 

 on a very elevated base, you traverse valleys which are wider and not so deep as 

 the former, and mountains that are neither so steep, nor apparently so high. 

 On the other hand, Mr. Bogle represents it as the most bare and desolate 

 country he ever saw. The woods, which every where cover the mountains in 

 Boutan, are here totally unknown; and, except a few straggling trees near the 

 villages, nothing of the sort is to be seen. The climate is extremely severe and 

 rude. At Chamnanning, where he wintered, though it be in latitude 31^ 39', 

 only 8° to the northward of Calcutta, he often found the thermometer in his 

 room at '29" under the freezing point by Fahrenheit's scale; and in the middle 

 of April the standing waters were all frozen, and heavy showers of snow per- 

 petually fell. This must doubtless be owing to the great elevation of the 

 country, and to the va>t frozen space over which the north wind blows uninter- 

 ruptedly from the pole, through the vast desarts of Siberia and Tartary, till it 

 is stopped by this formidable wall. -, , , 



The Thibetians are of a smaller size than their southern neighbours, and of 



