﻿^12 AN ACCOUNT OP 



vault ; from which his people took to the value of a 

 lac of rupees in gilt copper, with which Gainprejdf 

 paid his troops, exclusive of a number of smali ngurej 



in cxoid, or gilt copper, which the people \\ ao had 

 made the search had privately carried off; and this 

 I know very well ; because one evening as I was walk- 

 ing in the country alone, a poor man, whom I met 

 on the road, made me an offer of a figure of an idol 

 in geld, or copper gilt, which might be five or six 

 sicca weight, and which he cautiously preserved un- 

 der his arm ; but I declined accepting it. The peo- 

 ple of Gainprejas had not completely emptied the 

 first vault, when the army of PrifJrwinarayan arrived 

 at Tolu, possessed themselves of the place where the 

 treasure was deposited, and closed the door of the 

 vault, having first replaced all the copper there had 

 • been on the outside, 



To the westward, also of the great city of Lelit 

 Pattan, at the distance of only three miles, is a castle 

 called Banga, in which there is a magnificent tem- 

 ple. No one of the missionaries ever entered into this 

 castle, because the people who have the care of it 

 have such a scrupulous veneration for this temple, that 

 no person is permitted to enter it with his shoes on ; 

 and the missionaries, unwilling to shew such respect 

 to their false deities, never entered it. But when I 

 was at Nepal, this castle being in the possession of the 

 people of Gore ha, the Commandant of the castle and 

 of the two forts which border on the road, being a 

 friend of the missionaries, gave me an invitation to 

 his house, as he had occasion for a little physic for 

 himself and some of his people. I then, under the 

 protection of the Commandant, entered the castle 

 several times, and the people durst not oblige me 

 to take off my shoes. One day, when I was at the 

 Commandant's house, he had occasion to go into the 

 varanda, which is at the bottom of the great court 

 i 



