EOOTAN. 
137 
us, we left Wandipore; but not till we had visited and taken leave 
of the Raja, who proposed, when we left Punukka, that we should 
meet him midAvay at a place called Telagong, and that we should 
proceed together to Tassisudon; to which end, he promised to give 
us notice of the day fixed lor his departure. 
It was about seven o'clock when we descended the hill of Wandi¬ 
pore, passing by a sort of barn, where a tame elephant was kept, the 
only one I had met with in Bootan. The steep and narrow roads 
preclude the use of them here; and though they are so very abundant 
immediately on the southern frontier, yet is this animal, at but a 
short distance from his native woods, shut up, and treated as an object 
merely of curiosity. 
We were fortunate in our day: the weather was serene, the atmo¬ 
sphere clear, and the sun shone full upon the distant mountains. In 
the rear of all, swelling high above the rest, the mountains of Ghassa 
were distinctly visible, clothed with perpetual snow, whose smooth 
unsullied surface was nobly contrasted by the deeply shaded rocky 
eminences in the fore-ground. A lew luminous and fleecy clouds 
hung on the border of the horizon, which, as they verged towards the 
snow, assumed a darker and thicker appearance, adding much to the 
effect of this beautiful view. 
Ghassa is the capital of a district, and the station of a Zoompoon, 
or provincial governor. The highest mountain in its neighbourhood, 
Whose head is eternally crowned with snow, sends forth a spring of 
water at its base, of so great a degree of heat, that few are found 
capable of bearing, even for a short time, any part of the body 
