206 
TIBET. 
At the end of the next day’s journey, we came to the source of a 
river, which ran towards the north, near which we travelled all the way 
to its confluence with the Berhampooter, a little beyond Teshoo Loom- 
boo. The Berhampooter there flows in a very widely extended bed, and 
passes oil; shaping its course to the south of Lassa; it afterwards takes 
a vast circuit through the mountains on the borders of Tibet, before 
it enters the kingdom of Assam, and finally joins the Ganges, in Bengal. 
These great rivers, when united, take together the name of Megna, 
and flow but a short distance, before they divide into innumerable 
streams, that intersect the territory, which is called the Sunderbunds, 
in a most intricate labyrinth, and then finally mix their waters with the 
sea. The prodigious difference of climate affords, also, strong testimony 
to the truth of my assertion, respecting the height of this part of 
Tibet. Perpetual winter may be said to reign at Phari; Chumularee' 
is for ever clothed with snow; and this mountain, from its remarkable 
form, leaves no room to doubt its being the same, which I have 
heard described as occasionally visible from Purnea and Rajemahl ; 
and which I once saw, before 1 set out from Rungpore upon my present 
journey. I had not the means to ascertain its elevation; but some infe¬ 
rence may, perhaps, be drawn from analogy. We hear, that on Mount 
Lebanon in Syria, snow does not remain through the whole year, except 
in the highest cavities. Now it is well known that snow, under these 
circumstances, in that latitude (34° 30' north), requires an elevation of 
1500 or 160 0 fathoms above the level of the sea. The loftiest of the 
i 
Alps, which is Mount Blanc, is estimated at 2400; the Peak of Ossian, 
in the Pyrenees, is said to be 1900 fathoms above the level of the sea; 
