232 TEESTA RIVER, Chap. XXVI. 



Dewan produced a little bag from a double-locked escritoire, 

 and took out three dinner-pills, which he had received as a 

 great favour from the Rimbochay Lama, and which were 

 a sovereign remedy for indigestion and all other ailments ; 

 he handed one to each of us, reserving the third for himself. 

 Campbell refused his ; but there appeared no help for me, 

 after my groundless suspicion of poison, and so I swallowed 

 the pill with the best grace I could. But in truth, it was 

 not poison I dreaded in its contents, so much as being 

 compounded of some very questionable materials, such as 

 the Rimbochay Lama blesses and dispenses far and wide. 

 To swallow such is a sanctifying work, according to Bood- 

 hist superstition, and I believe there was nothing in the 

 world, save his ponies, to which the Dewan attached a 

 greater value. 



To wind up the feast, we had pipes of excellent mild yellow 

 Chinese tobacco called " Tseang," made from Nicotiana 

 rastica, which is cultivated in East Tibet, and in West 

 China according to MM. Hue and Gabet. It resembles 

 in flavour the finest Syrian tobacco, and is most agreeable 

 when the smoke is passed through the nose. The common 

 tobacco of India {Nicotiana Tabacum) is much imported 

 into Tibet, where it is called " Tamma," (probably a corrup- 

 tion of the Persian " Toombac,") and is said to fetch 

 the enormous price of 30s. per lb. at Lhassa, which is 

 sixty times its value in India. Bice at Lhassa, when 

 cheap, sells at 2s. for 5 lbs. ; it is, as I have elsewhere said, 

 all bought up for rations for the Chinese soldiery. 



The Bhotanese are more industrious than the Lepchas, 

 and better husbandmen ; besides having superior crops of 

 all ordinary grains, they grow cotton, hemp, and flax. The 

 cotton is cleansed here as elsewhere, with a simple gin. 

 The Lepchas use no spinning wheel, but a spindle and 



