TIBET. 
269 
A poor emaciated meagre devotee came to me, just before I left 
Calcutta to commence my present journey, who had with infinite 
labour crossed the mountains of Bootan, encountered the noxious air 
of Bengal, and, with a perseverance worthy of a better cause, accom¬ 
plished his purpose of bathing in the sacred stream of the Ganges, in 
spite of all difficulties, which want and sickness could throw in his way*, 
difficulties pressing with accumulated force, on a solitary stranger, 
utterly unacquainted with the language of the country. He was then 
about to return to Tibet, anxious to carry some of the holy water to 
his employer. I committed him to the care of the Goseins, who live 
with Poorungheer, in charge of the temple erected at the expence of 
Teshoo Lama, upon the bank of the river, opposite to Calcutta; and 
he afterwards travelled with my party to the capital of Bootan, whence 
I dispatched him with letters to the Regent of Teshoo Loomboo, which 
he faithfully delivered. While he was in Calcutta, I presented him to 
the Governor General, a distinction which made him inexpressibly 
happy; for, being informed of the friendship subsisting between the 
Governor and Teshoo Lama, he had conceived a reverence for Mr. 
Hastings, which was only inferior to the veneration he entertained for 
his sovereign Lama, in his opinion, the greatest of earthly Beings* 
In the discussion of geographical topics, the Regent’s mind took a 
very extensive range, and scarcely left any quarter of the globe, un¬ 
touched. Teshoo Lama had been visited, he told me,, not many years 
before, by an itinerant Gosein, who assured his inquirers, that he had seen 
a country, in which half the year was day, and the other half night: 
and he appealed to me, whether this was a false report or not; a cir- 
