330 
TIBET. 
tor would willingly have silenced their importunities, by the active ap' 
plication of a long whip, which he was just upon the point of exercising; 
when I stopped his hand, and, being not altogether unprovided for the 
encounter, I opened a passage amidst the crowd, to the right and left, 
by the most effectual and potent of all instruments, the influence of 
money. It had the power of magic. The road was cleared in an 
instant; and while the eager mendicants were busied in scrambling for 
the different pieces I had thrown to them, we made the best of our time 
to pursue our way. Though they were less numerous, yet all along 
our route this day, knots of beggars repeatedly beset us. Many for 
the love of God, and his prophet, solicited alms of us in Persian. I 
was told, they came from Turkestan and Cashmeer. Some Mogul 
fakeers spoke the language of Hindostan ; one of them told me he had 
come even from Surat, and naturally enough inquired of me intelli¬ 
gence respecting his friends, whom he had left, he said, when almost 
a child. 
Thus I unexpectedly discovered, where I had constantly seen the 
round of life, moving in a tranquil regular routine, a mass of indi¬ 
gence and idleness, of which I had no idea. But yet it by no means 
surprised me, when I considered that wherever indiscriminating cha¬ 
rity exists, it will never want objects on which to exercise its bounty, 
but will always attract expectants more numerous, than it has the 
means to gratify. No human being can suffer want at Teshoo Loom- 
boo. It is on this humane disposition that a multitude even of 
Mussulmen, of a frame probably the largest and most robust in the 
world, place their reliance for the mere maintenance of a feeble life; 
