2 10 
TIBET. 
have little doubt, by many persons who were at that time resident at 
\ 
Calcutta ; for Paima was the messenger deputed to Bengal, in the year 
1 773, and was the first native of Tibet who had visited Bengal, at least 
since it became subject to the British government. 
We proceeded early in the morning, on Tuesday, 16th September, 
over an extensive plain ; a desart, I think, it might be termed, for there 
was not a vestige of vegetation upon it, except a few thistles, a little 
moss, and some scanty blades of withered grass. The wind was vio¬ 
lently high, and so sharp that we dared not expose our faces to its 
fury: the want of caution the day before had left our noses, sore me¬ 
mentos of its keen rudeness, and we now rode muffled up in such a 
manner, that we could but just breathe. To the very great and sudden 
change of climate I attributed what I had suffered: warmth, and a 
good night’s rest, removed ail my ills. 
From Phari, to the distance of more than twenty miles north from 
hence, I was told that the most boisterous winds perpetually prevail ; 
in the dry summer months, raising clouds of dust and sand from the 
plains, almost intolerable to the traveller; and in other seasons, con¬ 
veying a degree of cold, unknown even in the severest winters ever felt 
in Europe. Such, they said, is sometimes the intenseness of the frost 
here, though in so low a latitude as twenty-eight degrees, that animals 
exposed in the open fields, are found dead, with their heads absolutely 
split by its force. 
Having travelled about nine miles, we met with three springs issu¬ 
ing out of the plain, near the foot of a hill, to whose waters the 
Tibetians ascribe medicinal virtues. They send out three separate 
