4 02 A JOURNEY TO LAKE 



Our diet was certainly of a very frugal kind, and would not have been 

 confidered luxurious even in the cell of an anchorite: but our beverage 

 was water of fo excellent a quality as to make up for the fcantinefs 

 and uniformity of it. We had been promifed by the Pandit, that wq 

 fhould have an opportunity of feeing and probably of killing fome 

 Barals. The fir ft part was verified; for they made their appearance 

 among (t the furze bufhes, almolt immediately above our heads, and 

 at the foot of the bare rocks; but never came within gun (hot. Al- 

 though we were told that the richer Mar Ms- fometime ate animal food, 

 I believe that this occurs very feldom. They are much fubj eel to fe- 

 vers from derangement of the interlines brought on from vegetable. 

 diet little feafoncd; and feveral have the Gegha or Goitre. 



1.3th.— This day two Uniyas arrived at Nfti with a letter to the 

 Sihana, which neither they nor he could decypher. However a meeting 1 

 was held upon the fubilance of the meffage, which they brought, 

 by the head perfons of the principal villages in this neighbourhood. 

 The letter was. fuppofed to be a formal rejection of our deiire to 

 enter the country,. This conclusion was drawn from the refufal 

 of the D^d to accept our prefenf, and. from the verbal notification 

 to us of the deceafe of the Lama and of large bodies of troops having 

 been detached to .all the paffes leading from the mountains into the 

 Uridis, to prevent the entrance of any white people, or perfons wear- 

 ing white clothes, into the country, until after the election of another 

 Lama. This meffage was of courfe very difagreeable to us: ; however 

 we were refolved, not to return 'Without having made every effort in 

 our power to fucceed in our original project* The people of,A%/, 

 confelfedj that they were alarmed at the reports which had been cir- 

 culated refpccling us, previoufly to our arrival: but, that on feeing, 

 more of us,, they had fent a Funid or Vakd to the Li'eba of Ddhd, fiat- 



