194 
BOOTAN. 
A little beyond Gassa we were struck with a very singular appear¬ 
ance. A breach in the opposite mountain discovered a most beautiful 
valley, which at once surprised me by its sudden burst upon the view, 
and forcibly excited a desire of closer examination. But the immense 
chasm between prohibited the attempt; yet I could plainly trace the 
practicability of climbing to it by a zig-zag narrow path. The moun¬ 
tains rose with steep sides, towering to a prodigious altitude, and 
branching into many heads. This, in particular, as if compressed, 
and flattened about a third part of its height, displayed a plain of 
wide extent, covered with the finest turf, and intersected, as the 
Booteeas informed me, by a large brook: and here, they said, was 
the favourite resort of the herdsmen with their droves, at this season 
of the year. The Patchieu was now seen to shape its contorted course, 
deep in the division between the mountains, dashing from one side of 
the rock to the other; sometimes pouring a smooth transparent body 
over huge stones that lie across its course, and sometimes dashing a per¬ 
fect cataract. It seemed greatly diminished in size; but the numerous 
Currents that flow down every division of the mountain, and join it in 
its Avay, swell it, before it finds the bottom, into an immense torrent. 
Travelling on, we inclined towards the right, and came to a sort 
of break in the ascent; a hollow, formed by the coinciding slopes of 
many heads of the mountain. We were met here by the Lama of 
Phari, who had advanced thus far, and pitched some tents for our 
accommodation, which we entered about four o’clock, after a long and 
tiresome ascent of ten hours, though the distance we had travelled 
was little more than twelve miles. 
