150 H I N D 0 
he takes notice that there is an immenfe bell in this city, 
under which a hundred perfons may find room to Itand ; 
adding, that he there heard, in a month’s journeying be¬ 
yond Mofcow, a traveller may reach 1 Peterlburgh, and 
thence get to Great Britain. 
From Mofcow he returned by Altrachan, and paffed 
through Perfia, by the route of Shamaki, Sherwaun, Tu- 
brez, Hamadan, and Ifpahan; in which capital he fo- 
journed during forty days, and then palled on to Shiraz ; 
where he arrived during the reign of Kerim Shah, whom 
he delcribes as being then about forty years of age, as far 
as he could judge from an audience he had of him ; and 
there were, he adds, two Englilh gentlemen (one of whom 
he calls Mr. Lifter) at this king’s court at the period of 
his vifiting it. 
Embarking at Aboofheher, on the fouthern coaft of 
Perfia, he reached the ifle of Kharek, then governed by 
a chief called Meer Manna, who had, he obferves, taken 
it from the Dutch, and whom he reprefents as a chieftain 
living by carrying on a warfare againft all his neighbours; 
and he mentions feveral Hindoos as being fettled here. 
He next arrived at the illands called Bahrein, on the coafts 
of which pearls are, he fays, found; whence re-embark¬ 
ing for Baflbra, the veffel he was in was met and exa¬ 
mined, but again releal'ed, by the Bombay and Tartar 
grabs, then carrying on hoftilities againft Solyman, the 
Mahommedan chief of the Bahrein illes. After this oc¬ 
currence he arrived at Baffora, in which he found a num¬ 
ber of Hindoo houfes of trade, as well as two idols of 
Vilhnu, known under his appellations of Govinda Raya 
and Calyana Raya; or, according to the vulgar enuncia¬ 
tion, Kulyan Row and Gobind Row. 
After an ineffectual attempt to penetrate up the Tigris 
to Bagdad, he returned to Baffora ; whence descending the 
Perfian Gulph, he arrived at Mufcat, where he met alfo a 
number of Hindoos; and from that place he reached Su¬ 
rat. From hence he again proceeded by lea to Mocha, 
where alfo he found a number of Hindoos ; and he thence 
returned into India, landing on its weftern coaft, in the port 
of Sanyanpour, fituated in the Cutch or Sind countries. 
From this port he journeyed to Balk, and to Bochara ; 
at which he notices having viewed the famous Derjah of 
Khaja Cheftee, and the loftieft minar or fpire he had ever 
feen. From this place, after twelve days journey, he ar¬ 
rived at Samarcand, which he deferibes as a large city, 
having a broad river flowing under it; and thence he ar¬ 
rived, after ten days journey, at Budukhlhan, in the hills 
around which rubies are found; whence he travelled into 
Cachimere; and from thence palling over the hills towards 
Hindooftan, he came to the Gungowtri, or “ Del'cent of the 
Ganges,” where there is, he obferves, a ftatue of Baghi- 
ratha; at which place the river may, he fays, be leaped 
over ; and he further notices, that thirty cofs to the fouth- 
ward of Gungowtri there is a fountain, or fpring, called 
the Jwnnowtri or Yumnowtri , which he deferibes as the 
fource of the Jumna or Yamuna river. 
Purana Poori, leaving this part of the country, came in 
a fouth-eaft direction-into Oude, and went thence into 
Nepal, the feveral towns in which he deferibes, inclufive 
of its capital, where flow,- he obferves, the four rivers of 
Naugmutty, Bilhenmutty, Roodrmutty, and Munmutty ; 
and at feven days journey beyond which, he notices a 
ftation called Gojfayn-thaun, where Mahadeo took poifon 
and flept, as related in the Hindoo facred books; from 
which place (deferibed by him as a fnowy traft) he went 
into Thibet; crofting in liis way to it the Cofa river by a 
bridge compofed of iron chains; and obferving that, at 
Leftee, the third day’s journey beyond the Cofa, is the 
boundary of Nepal and Thibet, where guards are ftationed 
on both fides ; whence, in another day’s travelling, he ar¬ 
rived at Khall'a, a town within B/iote, or Thibet ; (for by 
the former name the natives often under (land what we 
mean by the latter;) hence he proceeded to Chehang, and 
from thence to Koortee, where paffes are given; and then 
crofted over the hills (called in that country Lungoor) into 
O S T A N. 
the plain of Tipgri, beyond which on? day’s journey is 
Gunguir; after which he reached Lahalfa, and the moun¬ 
tain of Patala, the feat of the Delai Lama; whence he pro¬ 
ceeded to Degurcha, which he mentions as that of the 
Tailhoo Lama; and then, in a journey of upwards of 
eighty days, reached to the lake of Maun Surwur, (called 
in the Hindoo books Manafarouara ;) and his defeription 
of it is fo curious, and the lake fo little known, that we 
fhall let him fpeak for himfelf: 
“ Its circumference is of fix days journey, and around 
it are twenty or five-and-twenty goumaris, religious ftations 
or temples, and the habitations of the people called Dou/kz, 
whole drels Is like that of the Thibetians. The Maun Sur¬ 
wur is one lake; but in the middle of it there arifes, as 
it were, a partition-wall; and the northern part is called 
Maun Surwur, and the fouthern Lunkadh, or Lunkdck. From 
the Maun Surwar part iffues one river, and from the 
Lunkadh part two rivets: the firft is called Brahma, where 
Purefram making tupifya, the Brahmaputra ilfued out, and 
took its courle to the eaftward; and of the two ftreams 
that iflue from the Lunkadh, one is called the Surju, being 
the fame which flows by Ayoddya, or Oude ; and the other 
is called Sutroodra, (or, in the Puranas, Shutudru, and vul¬ 
garly the Sutluje,) which flows into the Punjab country ; 
and two days journey weft from the Maun Surwar is the 
large town of Teree Ladac, the former rajahs of which 
were Hindoos, but have now become Mohammedans. The 
inhabitants there are like unta the Thibetians. Proceed¬ 
ing from Ladac, feven days journey to the fouthward, 
there is a mountain called Cailafa Cungri, (cungur meaning 
a peak,) which is exceedingly lofty; and on its fummit 
there is a Bhoorjputr tree, from the root of which fprouts 
or gullies a lbia.ll ltream, which the people fay is the fource 
of the Ganges, and that it comes from Vaicont’ha, or hea¬ 
ven, as is alfo related in the Puranas ; although this fource 
appears to the fight to flow from the fpot where grows 
this Bhoorjputr tree, which is at an afcent of fomemiles; 
and yet above this there is a ftill loftier fummit, whither 
no one goes ; but I have heard that on that uppennoft 
pinnacle there is a fountain or cavity, to which a Jagui 
lomehow penetrated; who, having immerfed his little fin¬ 
ger in it, it became petrified. At four days journey from 
Cailafa Cungri is a mountain called Brahmadanda, or 
Brahma’s ftaff, in which is the fource of the Aliknundra 
Ganga ; and five or fix days journey to the fouth of that 
are fituated on the mountains the temples dedicated to 
Cedara, or Kedarnauth, and Budranauth; and from thefe 
hills flow the ftreams called the Kcdar Ganga and Shee 
Ganga ; the confluxes of which, as well as of the Alik¬ 
nundra, with the main ltream of the Ganges, take place 
near Kernpraug and Deopraug, in the vicinity of Serina- 
gur ; whence they flow on in a united ltream, which iflues 
info the plains of Hindooftan at Hurdwar.” 
Purana Poori went back from this part of the country 
into Nepal and Thibet; from the capital of which he was 
charged by the adminiliration there with difpatches to the 
Englilh governor-general, Mr. Haftings; which he men¬ 
tions to have delivered in the pretence of Mr. Barwell,. 
and of the late Meffrs. Bogle and Elliot; after which he 
was lent to Benares, with introductory letters to rajah 
Cheyt Sing, and to Mr. Graham, who was at that time 
the refident; and fome years afterwards Mr. Haftings be¬ 
llowed on him, in jaghire, the village of Affapour, which 
he continues to hold as a free tenure; though he is ftill 
fo fond of travelling, that he annually makes fhort excur- 
fions into different parts of India. See a portrait of this 
extrarordinary perfon fitting in Oordhbahu, in the' an¬ 
nexed Engraving. 
Another equally extraordinary fakeer is named Pcrha- 
J'anund ; and he .illumes the title or epithet of Purr rum 
Soatuntre, which implies lelf-poffeflion or independence. 
We fhall give the narrative in his own words, as Hated 
by J. Duncan, efq.—“ I am a Brahmin of the Yujerveda 
feel, and of the line of Pralher. My anceftors. are from 
the Punjab. They had a long time ago come to vifit at 
Jagan-Nath, 
