TIBET. 
235 
capacity of messengers, to be sent on any service abroad, but also to 
assist in domestic business; and these friendly tokens of the good dis¬ 
position entertained towards us, could not but fill our minds with 
satisfaction, and intimate the most auspicious presage respecting the 
event of my mission. 
Towards the close of the evening, I received a visit from the person 
who had been sent to meet me by the Regent, while I resided in Bootan. 
His appearance and manners were extremely conciliating. The fea¬ 
tures of the Tibetian, which are in general high and harsh, were in him, 
softened by a cheerful, intelligent, and placid expression of counte¬ 
nance. I could not but conceive the strongest prepossessions in his 
favour; nor did any conduct of his, that I ever witnessed, cause me, 
in the slightest degree, to alter that good opinion. As long as he con¬ 
tinued in the monastery, his attentions were unremitted, and few days 
passed, in which he did not spend some hours with me. He was 
my instructor in the language of Tibet; and, when tired with the 
repetition of guttural and nasal sounds, of which I found this language 
in a great degree to consist, he would, with the utmost cheerfulness, 
accept my challenge to a trial of skill at chess; in which, though I 
sometimes came off victorious, I was rather disposed to attribute my 
success to his urbanity, than to my own superior play. The station 
and movement of every piece, I found to be the same; and the game 
was conducted by the same rules, which regulate our play in England. 
These visits continued regularly, until he was summoned to a distant 
part of Tibet on the public service. I felt in his departure, the loss of 
an agreeable companion and an useful instructor, and we really parted, 
H h 
