634 Notes upon a Tout in the Sikkim Himalayah Mountains. [No. 7. 



peculiar virtue. An intelligent Lepcha with me who read the inscrip- 

 tions freely, and also copied some for me, rendered the words " Om 

 mane pemi horn" into the following prayer " Oh God receive me 

 into Thine essence when I am going;" (dying) ; absorption into the 

 divine essence being the Budhist's idea of heaven, I have no doubt 

 that the prayer, meaning whatever it may do in strict reality, is used 

 by the Budhists in that sense. 



On our descent, we met a slave girl toiling up the steep ascent 

 laden with a large bamboo full of water for the use of the monks. 

 This girl had been kidnapped from Bengal in her infancy and had 

 forgotten her native language, she was in good condition, fat and 

 plump, but with a melancholy expression of countenance, an expres- 

 sion only seen upon the face of a slave. To prevent people being 

 kidnapped from Bengal and from our own hill territory has long 

 occupied the attention of our government ; at every bridge leaving 

 the British territory there is a guard ; over these bridges a slave 

 is never taken to Sikkim and no slave who may seek shelter from 

 Sikkim is ever sent back again. Slavery and its attendant miseries 

 have in an indirect manner been the cause of the Rajah's losing his 

 country ; mild reforms proposed by our government with regard to 

 the existing slave-trade in Sikkim roused the anger of the Sikkim 

 Durbar which led to direct violence offered to the person of our go- 

 vernment representative. 



August IStli, 1852. — Descended to the Kullait river in two hours, 

 the path the whole way displaying mica schist ; saw small red mon- 

 keys, doves, and green pigeons (koklah) in the forests. 



To our annoyance we found that all the cane-bridges over the 

 Kullait had been cut away to prevent any of the people from Hee, 

 and the neighbouring clearances crossing to Pemionchi, the whole 

 of the inhabitants near the southern bank of the river being more 

 or less affected with dysentery, such is the horror and alarm with 

 which that complaint is viewed by these people. Men were sent 

 up and down the river for miles but without success, all the bridges 

 had disappeared and as the river was at its height, very deep and 

 impetuous, we were at our wits end, as I particularly wished to avoid 

 the hot and miasmatic valley of the Eungeet, which appeared to be 

 our only alternative. Men were again sent off down the stream to 



