218 Notes on MoorcrofCs Travels in Ladakh, [No. 147. 



The Bissehir tea is drank by those who cannot procure Chinese tea, 

 or it is mixed with the superior kind. At Garo when Chinese tea 

 is scarce, that of Bissehir will sell for three seers katcha (or 2 lbs. 

 good) the Rupee. 



Bissehir Cups. — Each man has his own cup, either of China porce- 

 lain, or which is more common, made out of the knot of the horse 

 chestnut, edged or lined with silver, or plain. About five thousand 

 of these are annually exported from Bissehir to Gardokh, and sold at 

 the rate of six for the rupee. — Moor croft, I, 329-30. 



Inferior cups only are made of the chestnut ; they are also made of 

 the apricot tree and of other woods, but the best kinds are made of 

 the knot or excrescence of a tree called in Kunawar, kauzal, and about 

 Rampur, Idbr. The cup itself is called puriveh. — Gerard, p. 1812, 

 calls the vessels porwa, and says, they are made of juniper wood, but 

 on this point he is certainly mistaken, if he means that they are made 

 of the juniper only. 



Pashm Tus. — Although the fleece of the sheep affords a material 

 similar to that of the goat, it is not in sufficient proportion, nor of 

 adequate length, to be considered fit for the manufacture of shawls. 

 Besides the fleece of the domesticated goat, that of the wild goat un- 

 der the denomination of asali tus is exported in smaller quantities to 

 Kashmir. — Moorcroft, /, 348-9. 



The dogs are of a large ferocious breed ; they are covered with black 

 wool. — Gerard, p. 73. 



Of the shawl-wool of the sheep I could never learn, or at least learn 

 of it as an article of trade. It may exist in nature, and yet I appre- 

 hend that such animals only as have coats of hair are provided with 

 an under-coating of what deserves to be called shawl-wool. — Thus the~ 

 dogs of Tibet which are covered with black hair, and not wool as 

 Gerard perhaps inadvertently says, have an under-coating of inferior 

 shawl-wool. 



Asali tus is a Kashmiree, i. e. Persian or rather Arabic, expression, 

 for the wool of the wild goat. Tusi means simply a kind of brown 

 color. In the Punjab tusi is applied to any kind of broad cloths re- 

 taining the natural color of the wool, which may be called tus. Pat is 

 the term given to the wool of the goats of Afghanistan and Turkistan, 

 and the cloth made from it is called pattu ; similarly, barak is 



