356 
TIBET. 
intense. Though we kept a good fire burning all night, sufficient to line 
the upper surface of the tent, which was closed on all sides, with a thick 
cloud of smoke, yet all was insufficient to mitigate the severity of the 
frost; our breath congealed upon our whiskers, and it cost us some 
considerable lime, and pain to clear them of icicles. 
It was our first care in the morning, to defend ourselves with our 
warmest clothing; and indeed our thickest garments were no more 
than necessary, to guard against the keen severity of the atmosphere. 
Yet here we saw multitudes of the valuable animal, whose coat affords 
materials for that exquisitely fine and beautiful manufacture, the shawl. 
They were feeding in large flocks, upon the thin dry herbage that covers 
these naked-looking hills. This is, perhaps, the most beautiful species 
amongst the whole tribe of goats; more so, in my opinion, than the 
Angola kind. Their colours were various; black, white, of a faint 
bluish tinge, and of a shade something lighter than a fawn. They have 
straight horns, and are of a lower stature than the smallest sheep in 
England. The material used for the manufacture of shawls, is of a 
light fine texture, and clothes the animal next the skin. A coarse 
covering of long hair grows above this, and preserves the softness of 
the inferior coat. This creature seems indebted, for the warmth 
and softness of its coat, to the nature of the climate it inhabits: 
upon removing some of them to the hot atmosphere of Bengal, they 
quickly lost their beautiful clothing, and a cutaneous eruptive humour 
soon destroyed almost all their coat. I was also unsuccessful in re¬ 
peated trials, to convey this animal to England. It would neither 
endure the climate of Bengal, nor bear the sea: though some few of 
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