INTRODUCTION. 
• • • 
XIII 
obtained, to inquire by what means it might be most effectually com 
verted to advantage. The contiguity of Tibet to the western frontier 
of China (for though we knew not where they were joined, yet we 
knew that they did actually join), suggested, also, a possibility of 
establishing, by degrees, an immediate intercourse with that empire, 
through the intervention of a person so revered as the Lama, and by 
a route not obviously liable to the same suspicions, as those with 
which the Chinese policy had armed itself against all the consequences 
of a foreign access by sea. 
Of the persons deputed on this occasion by the Lama, two only 
ventured to encounter the burning atmosphere of Bengal; one, a native 
of Tibet, named Paima; the other, a pilgrim from Hindostan, whose 
name I have already mentioned, Poorungheer Gosein. These were 
both men of acute understandings, and ready information; and from 
them much knowledge was collected both of the country from which 
they came, and of the way which led to it. Even the presents, which 
they brought from the Lama, added something of information, and 
even of interest, to the other means of intelligence, which the occasion 
furnished. Amongst these were sheets of gilt leather, stamped with the 
black eagle of the Russian armorial; talents of gold and silver, and 
bulses of gold dust; bags of genuine musk; narrow cloths of woollen, 
the manufacture of Tibet; and silks of China. The chests which con¬ 
tained these, were of no bad workmanship, and the parts, which com¬ 
posed them, were joined together by dovetails. All these circumstances 
c 
