500 Journal of a trip through Kunawur, fyc. [No. 101. 



from some cause or other it was not found to answer, and the specula- 

 tion as abandoned. I have been told that a difficulty existed in 

 inducing the Tartars to sell to the British agent, they preferring to 

 trade with the people of the higher tracts. 



Whatever might have been the case in those days I know not, but 

 at present I can confidently say, that the Tartars would gladly supply 

 the Government with any amount they might require. They will not, 

 it is true, bring their flocks down, because the climate is unfavourable 

 to them, and also because at the season of the Rampore fair the sheep 

 which are sheared early in summer do not possess a full fleece. The 

 wool however which is cut in the beginning of the year, is sold by the 

 Chinese shepherds to the Tartars of Hungrung and Spiti, and the traders 

 from Kunawur, and it is these people who would supply the market 

 if a demand were made for the wool, and who could procure it from 

 above, in any quantity they chose to pay for. 



The failure is far more likely to have been caused by the avarice of 

 the low country traders, who purchasing the wool cheaply above, and 

 perhaps, as is often the case, intermixed with hairs,* dispose of it 

 again at a rate so exhorbitant as to prevent its yielding a remunerating 

 price in the home markets of Europe. 



Had the agent instead of remaining in the lower hills paid an 

 annual visit to Tartary, and purchased his wool directly from the 

 shepherds themselves, instead of taking it from the hands of the traders, 

 he would not only have procured a better, but a cheaper article. 



In case this wool should ever again become an article of speculation 

 either to the Government or to individual enterprise, it may not be 

 considered superfluous to offer here a few remarks on the method to 

 be adopted in procuring it. 



In the first place I would warn the speculator against trusting to 

 native agents, but would recommend him to make his purchases him- 

 self. He would probably not be allowed to enter the country under 

 the protection of China, but he might with ease and safety every 

 summer repair to Hungrung or to Spiti, where the Chinese shepherds 

 would not fail to meet him by appointment, and furnish any quantity 

 of wool he might have ordered in the preceding year. 



* Since this was written, I have been informed that such was actually the case, and 

 that the wool was found to be so intimately mixed up with hairs as to render it unser- 

 viceable, without incurring a ruinous expense in cleaning it ! ! 



