354 
II BE T*. 
atmosphere was clear even to brilliancy, and I had seen no fogs io 
Tibet since the day I entered it. . 
The dust, indeed, was for a short time extremely troublesome, but 
it is the practice of the husbandmen to cover the low lands in the 
vallies with water, immediately on the approach of winter, which 
incases their surface, as it were, with a sheet of ice, and prevents 
their being stripped of the soil, by violent winds. This method is re¬ 
ported to enrich the ground, a material advantage, as they here never 
use manure, and also to render it, upon the first approach of spring, 
ready to receive the plough. As soon as the land is prepared, they 
take the first favourable opportunity to sow it; frequent showers, 
and a powerful sun, contribute speedily to mature the crops. The 
autumn afterwards succeeds, which is clear and tranquil; the harvest 
is cut in a fair and settled season, and left long upon the ground to 
dry; when the corn is sufficiently hardened, a number of cattle are 
brought, a circle is cleared, and they are driven in a rank round a 
centre, to tread the grain from the ear, as fast as it is thrown under 
their feet; this, in Tibet, is the general mode of thrashing. Their 
course of cultivation is wheat, pease, and barley. Rice is the produc¬ 
tion of a more southern soil. 
We came early in our march to-day to the post of Dukque, which 
I noticed in my journey to Teshoo Loomboo. Nothing afterwards 
occurred, in the course of our journey towards Bengal, which merits 
particular mention, except the extreme severity of cold, of which we 
soon became thoroughly sensible, and the extraordinary circumstance 
of finding large lakes frozen to a great depth, in so low a latitude as 
