MA'NASAROVARA IN UN-DES. 401 



LloiTom. The natives have fome barley, of which a few blades appear, 

 and they are engaged in getting into the ground the awi-jou, phdphar, 

 and chui. This is, it is prefumed, their fpring; and our rains mud be 

 their fummer, as their harveft is cut before the middle of September, 

 when the people go in fearch of a milder climate. 



This morning (the 9th) I faw a beautiful crop of rock cry Hal 

 fhooting out of an expofed layer of quartz which had formerly 

 been a vein in a niafs of very hard (tone. Thefe mountains, which 

 -are primordial, would, if eximined by an able and careful lithologift, 

 throw great light upon the natural hiftory of the mineral king- 

 dom; for here, at almofl every flop, he might come in fight of 

 the furfaces of rock which have never been altered by the hand of man, 

 but have alone been fubjeft to the laws of compofition and of detrac- 

 tion, induced by the operation of natural caufes. 



Wi-th the exception of grain of various kinds which is to be ob- 

 tained at an exorbitant rate, little eatable is to be procured at NHL The 

 only animal food, which we have had, has been two or three lean 

 goats. There was no want of kids or lambs: but the owners would 

 only fell fuch as were ill or extremely old This country at the pre- 

 fent feafon gives no fruit. The inhabitants have no gardens, and the 

 only efculent vegetables, which we could find, were the Bithua ^Che- 

 nopodium album,) a fmall quantity of felf-fown phdphar about three 

 inches high, and fome rhubarb, the leaves of which were only juffc 

 fpringing from the ground; yet, even in this early ftate of vegetating, 

 the flowers were thrown out on the fides of fhort finger-like procefles 

 and yielded a fweet fmell. The vital principle feems to be moft ra- 

 pidly called into action amongfl the vegetables of this climate to com- 

 penfate for the long period during which they remain in a torpid ltatc- 



£5 



