924 Journal of a Trip to the Burenda Pass in 1836. [Nov. 



and agricultural resources of their yet almost unexplored countries to 

 some account. 



The articles of barter and sale among themselves, and their exports, 

 consist now of wheat, common and celestial barley, bhattu, rice, 

 ogul opium, tabacco in small quantities, tar, turpentine, kelu oil, 

 apricot oil, raisins, currants, ginger, neozas, iron, borax, salt, leathers 

 and skins, chowries, blankets, woollen caps, shawl wool, potatoes, tea, 

 and honey. The wax, too, if separated from the honey, would be an 

 additional and abundant article ; at present it is mixed up and eaten 

 with the honey by the natives. Iron though abundant in some parts 

 is nearly doubled in price by the time it reaches the plains owing to 

 the mode of conveying it by coolies and the taxes levied upon it by the 

 chiefs through whose states it has to pass. 



The cattle on this side the Himalaya, consist of a small herd of cows 

 and oxen, mules, sheep and goats. The sheep are pastured over the 

 open grassy tracts of the upper hills and constitute one of the chief 

 sources of profit, by furnishing good wool for blankets and other 

 woollens, both for export and home consumption. Oxen are used in 

 ploughing in the valleys, and on the hill sides when not too steep, but 

 where the slope is great or the space confined, the ground is dug and 

 cleared by the women, on whom indeed almost all the drudgery 

 devolves, the men, when not engaged in transporting the produce of 

 their farms, preferring to make woollen shoes, caps and blankets, or 

 to lounge about idle in the villages. 



That these mountains contain mineral treasures of no mean value 

 there can be little doubt, and were research encouraged in this branch, 

 some important results might ensue. 



To some valuable discovery, made near the Gangtung Pass on the 

 road from Dabling to Bekhur on the confines of Chinese Tartary, the 

 hints dropped on his return, by the enterprising traveller M. Jacque- 

 mont, no doubt referred ; why else, should he have evinced so much 

 anxiety to prevent any European from visiting that quarter, until he 

 should be able to make known his discovery to the French govern- 

 ment and return under their auspices to avail himself of it ? 



Report says, that he earnestly entreated Major Kennedy, not to 

 allow a European to visit that Pass, until his return, and added that 

 he " hoped whoever attempted it, would fall over and break their 

 necks* ! !" 



* " If an Englishman go thither, never mind; — but if a German or a French 

 naturalist visit it, — give your guide a hint to walk him over the precipice" — was 

 the expression, in badinage, of the enthusiastic traveller ; certainly betokening 



