TIBET. 
22 5 
journey had lately Iain, till turning to the left, it opened at once into 
a spacious amphitheatre, formed by the receding hills : in the centre of 
the arch, was seen a very handsome village, situated at the foot of a 
rock, called Nainee, belonging to Teshoo Loomboo. The buildings 
were regular and clean, some of them bordered, others striped with 
red, and being partly hid by branches of willows, had to us a new and 
extremely neat appearance. 
The country now opened and improved, beginning to appear better 
peopled ; and the view of trees and houses, afforded a very grateful 
change from the dreariness of our late prospects, which I have not 
seen equalled, in any tract of country through which I ever travelled 
before. 
The greatest part of the space from Phari to this spot, upwards 
of fifty miles, is certainly very little removed, either in aspect, popu¬ 
lation, or culture, from a perfect desert. The hills were still bare, of 
a stiff, dry, unkindly composition: some of them were crowned with 
high perpendicular steeps like ramparts ; whence the mouldering rock, 
split and detached, had sloped their sides with a loose gravelly soil 
down to the plain. Observing the manner in which many of them seem 
shivered by the frost, one would conclude, that not many ages are 
necessary to reduce them to a level with the ground below. 
On passing round a projecting point, the castle of Jhansu-jeung came 
in view, at the distance of five or six miles, standing upon a rock, 
which from its perpendicular height, and the irregularity of its cliff;, 
if not impregnable, must at least be extremely difficult to be subdm, 
by the assaults of any Tartar enemy. 
