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Jeffrey Uid. 
 
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 V 3E<DT<0>B, JJ A(^TLTE M<Q>N 
 
LETTERS FROM INDIA; 
 
 DE^CRlBlXl 
 
 IN 
 
 THE BRITISH DOMINIONS OF INDIA, 
 
 TIBET, LAHORE, AND CASHMERE, 
 
 DURING THE YEARS 1828, 1829, 1830, 1831. 
 
 UNDERTAKEN BY ORDER OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT, 
 
 VICTOR JACQUEMONT, 
 
 TRAVELLING NATURALIST TO THE MUSEUM OF 
 NATURAL HISTORY, PARIS. 
 
 ACCOMPANIED 
 
 WITH A MAP OF INDIA AND A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 EDWARD CHURTON, 26, HOLLES STREET. 
 
 (LATE BULL AND CHURTON.) 
 
 1834. 
 
HRADBURV AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITUKRI. 
 (LATB T. DAVISON.) 
 
RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR ALEXANDER JOHNSTON, 
 
 MEMBER OF THE KINfi S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, 
 
 F.R.S., F.S.A., F.L.S., 
 
 THESE VOLUMES 
 
 ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In giving an English translation of Victor Jacque- 
 mont's Letters to his family and friends, during his 
 travels in India, we shall endeavour to supply a great 
 defect in the French edition of this Work, by stating a 
 few particulars of the life of this interesting young 
 victim to science, prior to his departure for those shores 
 where he was doomed to find a premature grave. 
 
 We shall also add those documents which we con- 
 sider necessary to complete his correspondence. 
 
 Victor Jacquemont was born at Paris in 1801. His 
 father, a man held in the highest estimation, is a philo- 
 sopher of the Tracy school, and a writer of no ordinary 
 power on those psychological speculations to which a 
 long intercourse of friendship with Destutt de Tracy 
 had probably directed his mind. He has two sons 
 besides Victor: the elder in the army, the younger 
 a merchant at Hayti. The three brothers received an 
 excellent education; such a one, in short, as may be 
 
 b 
 
11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 given in the public institutions of France, where 
 instruction is not limited to a knowledge of the ancient 
 classics, but combines with them that practical and 
 scientific information which renders a man a useful 
 member of society. 
 
 At a very early age, Victor Jacquemont evinced a 
 strong attachment to natural history, which was pro- 
 bably strengthened by his acquaintance with the late 
 Baron Olivier. His intimacy with the Tracy family, and 
 especially with Victor de Tracy, for many years past 
 one of the most distinguished members of the French 
 legislature, made him an ideologist, though the natural 
 bent of his mind led him rather to investigate facts 
 than to unravel the perplexities of metaphysics. And 
 it is a singular contradiction, that at the very time 
 he was pursuing his researches in natural science, 
 doubting every thing until proved by the test of 
 his senses, he indulged, when yielding to the confi- 
 dence of friendship, in all the hypothetic ratiocination 
 of the Tracy philosophy. 
 
 This exercise of his mind, and the opinions he im- 
 bibed from it, probably induced him, soon after he left 
 school, to become a member of one of those societies, 
 so numerous in France, where metaphysical politics 
 are debated, and lead to wild and impracticable 
 
INTRODUCTION. iii 
 
 theories which mar every generous exertion for rational 
 improvement. These societies would fain class the art 
 of government among the exact sciences. They would 
 establish it upon rules and principles as unchangeable 
 as the law of the Medes and Persians, and applicable to 
 all nations under the sun, without taking into consider- 
 ation that government must necessarily be founded 
 upon expediency, — that it is an assumption of power 
 by a few for the benefit of all, — and that such power 
 cannot be yoked to abstract philosophy. They appear 
 not aware that no form of government was ever 
 established upon abstract principles, but that all are 
 formed and consolidated by circumstances, and the 
 experience of events, to meet the wants of any one 
 community, which may differ from those of another 
 community. The only true science of government is 
 practice; the only power to constitute it is the majority; 
 the only test of its efficacy is a fair trial; the only way 
 to improve it is to make its blemishes physically 
 apparent, and then eradicate them by degrees, and 
 not overthrow the whole fabric to build up another 
 equally bad. But these metaphysico-philosophers have 
 one form of constitution — I should say a thousand, 
 but each is the one — adapted to all nations; one coat to 
 fit a hundred individuals;— they have, .we repeat, a 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 thousand systems — each the best and only good one — 
 founded upon their own Utopian notions of pure 
 republicanism, without ever dreaming that man is by 
 nature so imperfect — almost always swimming in so 
 strong a current of infirmities and passions of the 
 most fearful kind, that a republic like theirs, founded 
 solely upon human forbearance and virtue, would be 
 swept away ere its foundations were well laid. Each 
 individual in the mass of society, loves himself best; 
 his country, his fellow-citizens, hold but a second- 
 ary place in his regard ; and, unless he can divest him- 
 self of the feelings of his species, he will naturally seek 
 to overturn a power which has no other strength to 
 maintain itself but the strength of opinion, whenever 
 that power clashes with his personal interests. 
 
 Though Jacquemont imbibed freely the false 
 theories of this visionary republicanism, though he 
 indulged in the wildest metaphysico-political dreams, 
 he was, nevertheless, not tainted to an irremediable 
 extent. His unbiassed good sense led him to separate 
 the practicable from the absurd; and in his remarks 
 upon the rule of our Asiatic empire, he gives views of a 
 very high order, which our statesmen would do well to 
 examine. 
 
 Whilst very young, Victor Jacquemont undertook 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 a voyage to Hayti, where his brother was settled, 
 whence he proceeded to the United States, and made 
 a short stay there. In both these countries his 
 talent for scientific observation was displayed in a re- 
 markable degree; and it is this probably which, on his 
 return to France, got him an appointment in the 
 Museum of Natural History at Paris. Baron Cuvier 
 now took him by the hand, and to this great naturalist 
 Victor Jacquemont owed his selection by the Council 
 of the Museum to fulfil the scientific mission to the 
 East, which led to the correspondence here published. 
 
 He was instructed to investigate the natural history 
 of India in all its branches, and collect materials where- 
 with to enrich the Museum, and promote the progress 
 of science. Though the French government was not 
 quite so liberal as could be desired in supplying him 
 with the means of accomplishing his object, he suc- 
 ceeded, nevertheless, in an extraordinary manner. The 
 light he has thrown upon parts of Asia hitherto unex- 
 plored by European travellers, must prove of the 
 greatest benefit to science. The present letters, written 
 to his confidential friends and relatives, and never 
 intended for publication, give a very lively description 
 of the manners of the natives in the different countries 
 through which he travelled, but are almost wholly free 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 from scientific details. The results of his scientific 
 labours are confined to his Journal, which will soon be 
 published, and contains a most valuable account of the 
 natural history of those parts of Asia which he visited. 
 
 Victor Jacquemont, in pursuance of his mission, 
 arrived in London in 1828, and was the bearer of a 
 letter of introduction from Baron Cuvier to the Right 
 Hon. Sir Alexander Johnston, through whose kind 
 assistance he was enabled to overcome the various diffi- 
 culties with which he found himself beset at the very 
 commencement of his undertaking. 
 
 To Sir Alexander Johnston, who is indefatigable in 
 the promotion of science, and ever ready to bring forward 
 men of talent, Jacquemont was further indebted for his 
 flattering reception from the Royal Asiatic Society, and 
 for letters of introduction to the most influential men 
 in India. Sir Alexander personally recommended him 
 to the attention and kindness of Lord William Ben- 
 tinck, the Governor General of India, Mr. Lushington, 
 Governor of Madras, the late Sir John Malcolm, 
 Governor of Bombay, and Sir Edward Owen, com- 
 manding the British naval force in India; and also 
 obtained for him, from the President of the Board of 
 Control, letters to all the principal personages in the 
 East India Company's dominions. The kindness he 
 
INTRODUCTION. VII 
 
 afterwards experienced from the individuals to whom 
 these letters were addressed is explained in his corre- 
 spondence, and in a manner that does him the greatest 
 credit. 
 
 Shortly after Jacquemont's arrival in London, he 
 was allowed, under the auspices of Sir Alexander John- 
 ston, to attend the meetings of the Asiatic Society, and 
 those of its Committee of Correspondence, of which Sir 
 Alexander is chairman. There exist two resolutions 
 in the minutes of its Asiatic Society, which, as they 
 refer especially to Victor Jacquemont, and to the object 
 of his mission, are entitled to a place here. 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of the Committee of Cor- 
 respondence of the Royal Asiatic Society, 19th June, 
 1828. 
 
 " It was resolved : — 
 
 " That this Committee, having been informed of the 
 scientific object for which Monsieur Victor Jacquemont, 
 Travelling Naturalist to the Royal Museum of Natural 
 History of Paris, is sent by that institution to India, is 
 of opinion that the attainment of that object is of the 
 greatest importance to natural history ; and therefore 
 recommend to the Council to assist him by every 
 means in its power in the prosecution of his scientific 
 
VIII INTRODUCTION. 
 
 inquiries in India, and that C.Moreau, Esq., be requested 
 to communicate this resolution to the Directors of the 
 Royal Museum of Natural History at Paris." 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of the Council of the Royal 
 Asiatic Society, June 28, 1828. 
 
 " The Committee of Correspondence having recom- 
 mended to the Council assisting M. Victor Jacquemont, 
 Travelling Naturalist to the Royal Museum of Natural 
 History of Paris, in his scientific researches in India, 
 
 " It was resolved : — 
 
 "That the Council furnish M. Jacquemont with 
 letters of introduction to the literary societies in India, 
 and recommend him for election as a foreign member of 
 this Society." 
 
 Jacquemont, on receiving information of these reso- 
 lutions, wrote the following letter to the president of 
 the Asiatic Society. 
 
 " London, June 26, 1828. 
 
 " Mr. President, — Allow me to express to the 
 Royal Asiatic Society the gratitude I feel for the reso- 
 lution in my favour adopted at its last meeting of the 
 19th of June. I hayewio doubt that a recommendation 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 by the Asiatic Society to such of its members as reside 
 in India, will prove of the greatest use to me in the 
 scientific voyage I am about to undertake to that 
 country. I shall endeavour worthily to justify this 
 favour, by arduously employing the advantages I shall 
 derive from it, in extending and multiplying my 
 researches in natural history. The reception I have met 
 with from the Asiatic Society is a sufficient proof to me 
 that science belongs to all countries ; and I also know 
 that, by labouring to make the natural history of some 
 parts of the immense British empire in the East better 
 known, I shall co-operate in the object to which the 
 labours of the Society tend. I am likewise convinced 
 that by the success of my undertaking I can give better 
 testimony of the noble assistance afforded me by the 
 Royal Asiatic Society. By promoting the general 
 interests of science, which are those of every enlightened 
 man, I shall be proud, Mr. President, to be able more 
 particularly to pay my debt of gratitude to the institu- 
 tion over which you preside. I am about to pass 
 several years in exploring the Malabar coast, and 
 especially the mountains adjacent. Perhaps the Asiatic 
 Society would feel more particularly interested in the 
 verification of some obscure or contested points relating 
 to the physical history of those regions. Among such 
 
X INTRODUCTION,. 
 
 of its members as have resided there, some perhaps 
 may set a great value upon information which they 
 had no opportunity of obtaining, and which would 
 complete or confirm their general knowledge of the 
 country. In this case, may I beg that the Asiatic 
 Society will have the goodness to let me know its 
 wishes, which I shall endeavour to meet by associating 
 them with my habitual researches. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 " Victor Jacquemont." 
 
 The two resolutions were communicated to the 
 Royal Museum of Natural History at Paris, and the 
 Directors of that institution wrote two letters on the 
 occasion : one to Sir Alexander Johnston, and the 
 other to the President of the Asiatic Society. We 
 insert both. 
 
 "TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR ALEXANDER 
 JOHNSTON, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 "Paris, July 11, 1828. 
 " Sir, — M. Jacquemont, Travelling Naturalist to the 
 Museum, has informed us of the interest with which 
 you have received him, and the inappreciable advan- 
 tages for which he is indebted to your kindness. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 " The voyage which M. Jacquemont is about to 
 undertake, and in which your advice and recommenda- 
 tions will be so useful to him, being intended for the 
 advantage of the Museum of Natural History, we are 
 under a real obligation to you, and we hasten to express 
 our gratitude. 
 
 We have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 " Desfontaines, Director. 
 
 "L. CORDIER. 
 
 " A. de Junier, Secretary." 
 
 "TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC 
 SOCIETY, LONDON. 
 
 "Paris, August 8, 1828. 
 
 " Mr. President, — The secretary of the Committee 
 of Correspondence of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great 
 Britain and Ireland, has made known to us the reso- 
 lution of the Committee, adopted at its meeting of the 
 19th ultimo, in favour of M. Jacquemont, Travelling 
 Naturalist of the Museum. 
 
 " We appreciate this favour to its fullest extent, as 
 well as the favourable effects which it cannot fail to 
 produce in the success of M. Jacquemont's undertaking. 
 
Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " We beg of you, Mr. President, to have the good- 
 ness to convey to the Royal Asiatic Society, and to its 
 Foreign Committee, the expression of our gratitude, 
 and to accept personally our best thanks. 
 
 " We have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 " Desfontaines, Director. 
 " A. DE Junier, Secretary." 
 
 About this time Sir Alexander Johnston, in his 
 speech, after reading to the Asiatic Society the report 
 of the Committee of Correspondence, alluded to Jacque- 
 mont in the following terms : — 
 
 " The English and French governments, equally 
 anxious to promote scientific inquiries in India, have 
 recently aided each other in the attainment of this 
 great object: France, by the appointment of M. 
 Jacquemont, an eminent naturalist, to proceed to India, 
 and to remain there for seven years upon a public 
 salary, for the purpose of investigating the natural 
 history of that country; England, by affording M. 
 Jacquemont, in every part of British India, the most 
 ready and most efficient assistance. Both nations, by 
 completely divesting themselves of the national jealousy 
 which has so long prevailed between them, have set a 
 bright example to all other nations, of the cordial and 
 
INTRODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 unreserved manner in which all countries ought to co- 
 operate, according to the means which they respectively 
 possess, in promoting those researches which are calcu- 
 lated to extend the limits of scientific and literary 
 knowledge." 
 
 After encountering various delays and objections, — 
 some of the latter fastidious enough, — Victor Jacque- 
 mont obtained his credentials from the Board of 
 Merchant-Kings, in Leadenhall-street, who there govern 
 a vast empire ten thousand miles off, and a hundred 
 millions of subjects whom they have never seen. The 
 enterprising man of science then " girded up his loins," 
 and took his departure for the shores of British India. 
 
 In allusion to the feelings and opinions which 
 actuated Victor Jacquemont, when he set out upon his 
 long and wearisome travels, we cannot do better than 
 insert the following extract, together with a letter from 
 Jacquemont to Sir John Malcolm, from a very clever 
 article on the correspondence of the young naturalist, 
 which appeared in the Foreign Quarterly Review for 
 February last. 
 
 " At the period when Jacquemont prepared to under- 
 take his important task, there were certain opinions 
 received as aphorisms by the liberal politicians of 
 France, to which he had yielded implicit faith. It was 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 held to be a self-evident truth that intense selfishness 
 characterised the policy of England in public, and the 
 conduct of the English in private ; that insular arro- 
 gance rendered us the tyrants rather than the masters 
 of the sea, made us reserved towards all foreigners, 
 inspired us with a haughty jealousy always disagree- 
 able and frequently offensive ; that in India our 
 dominion was a nuisance which ought to be abated, but 
 that its duration depended on the will of Russia, the 
 speedy appearance of whose forces at the passes of the 
 Indian Caucasus was * a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished, and speedily to be obtained.' Full of these 
 notions, Jacquemont arrived in England ; the treat- 
 ment which he received from Sir Alexander Johnston 
 and other members of the Asiatic Society, was well cal- 
 culated to remove his prejudices ; but on the other hand, 
 the difficulties and delays he experienced in obtaining 
 his passport from the lords of Leadenhall-street, coun- 
 terbalanced the impressions produced by the kindness 
 of his scientific friends. For this, Jacquemont was pro- 
 bably as much to blame as the Directors ; they could 
 scarcely have imagined that a single Frenchman, even 
 though his tall gaunt figure reminded them of the last 
 of the knights-errant, would contest with them the 
 empire of India ; still less would they have mistaken 
 
INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 his packing cases for parks of artillery, or his dissecting 
 knives for a supply of military weapons ; they probably 
 doubted the object of his mission, regarding him either 
 as a Russian emissary, or the bearer of some secret 
 treaty to Runjeet Sing and the rulers of the Afghans ; 
 he perhaps was less explanatory than he should have 
 been, especially with persons to whom scientific missions 
 are by no means familiar. Jacquemont manifestly felt 
 that his objects, if not suspected, were liable to suspicion ; 
 this appears evident in the letter he addressed from 
 London to Sir John Malcolm, which we insert entire, 
 as it has not yet been published. 
 
 « « TO SIR JOHN MALCOLM, &c. 
 
 " * It is in the name of science, and under the auspices 
 of Sir A. Johnston, that I take the liberty of writing to 
 Sir John Malcolm, without having the honour of his 
 personal acquaintance. The accomplishment of a 
 scientific tour through India has been intrusted to me 
 by the Royal Museum of Natural History at Paris, 
 and I am about, to undertake it. The researches to 
 which my attention must be directed, relate exclusively 
 to natural history ; true, that it is not the species of 
 study and labour by which Sir J. Malcolm has so much 
 
XV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 with life, if, after several years of labour and research, 
 he should be plundered, and lose all the results of 
 his toils. 
 
 " ' Sir J. Malcolm, whose high office in the part of 
 the British empire bordering on these countries, must 
 give him better information of their internal condition 
 than any one else can possess, would perhaps favour me 
 with his opinion respecting the hopes first entertained 
 of the possibility of visiting them. 
 
 "'If I must renounce them, I have determined to 
 devote all my time and all my resources to exploring 
 the coasts of Malabar and the long chain of the 
 Western Ghauts. This territory, naturally circum- 
 scribed, forms a kind of geographical unity, favourable 
 under many points of view to the studies of a naturalist. 
 The establishment to which I belong, possesses in its 
 immense collections a very small number of natural 
 productions belonging to this part of India. It has 
 also been greatly neglected hitherto by the English 
 naturalists. The geological museums in London, 
 sufficiently rich already in collections from Nepaul and 
 the Himalaya, are absolutely destitute of specimens 
 from the rocks of Malabar. The zoology, with the 
 exception of that belonging to the coast, is but little 
 known, and the voluminous works we have on the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 Flora of this country, such as the Hortus Malabaricus 
 of Rheede, bear all the marks of the imperfect state of 
 botany at the time they were written, and no longer 
 satisfy the demands of this science. 
 
 " * Finally : there is one circumstance that induces 
 me to adopt this resolution, already nearly fixed, 
 namely, that it will make me begin the painful and 
 laborious part of my journey through the provinces 
 governed by Sir J. Malcolm, and that it will permit 
 me to enjoy the advantages of his noble protection. 
 
 " ' Giving up my visit to Cabul, should I, in my route 
 from Calcutta to Bombay, take the road by Delhi or 
 Agra, or should I not rather take a more direct line to 
 the south of this great curve ? 
 
 " ' These are the doubts that I respectfully submit to 
 the consideration of Sir John Malcolm. Sir A. John- 
 ston leads me to hope that the general will kindly solve 
 them, and guide me by his counsel through this vast 
 country. The kind and dear Johnston adds, that the 
 slowness of my voyage from France to Pondicherry 
 (slowness occasioned by a projected delay of some weeks 
 at the isle of Bourbon) will doubtless permit me to 
 receive Sir J. Malcolm's reply, if he would be so kind 
 as to send it under cover to the French governor. 
 
 " ' In addressing myself to the elevated and generous 
 
 c 2 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mind of the historian of India, I must not forget that 
 Sir J. Malcolm holds an official station, and has duties 
 to perform. I would not trespass on his kindness, had 
 I not the honour to inform him that I have obtained 
 an official passport from the Honourable Court of 
 Directors, granting me free passage through all the 
 territories of the Company. The innocent character of 
 my pursuits would perhaps ensure me sufficient pro- 
 tection from the Company's officers ; but I was anxious 
 to have the special and formal assent of the Court of 
 Directors, and it was granted me on the 25th of this 
 month. I entreat Sir J. Malcolm to add his consent. 
 
 ' Victor Jacquemont, 
 
 ' Travelling Naturalist to the Royal Museum of 
 Natural History. 
 
 * London, June 30, 1828.' 
 
 " A greater contrast can scarcely be conceived, than 
 there is between the sober formality of this letter, and 
 the lively sketches of life and manners addressed by 
 the young naturalist to his family and friends. He 
 left Europe with high hopes, unconquerable spirits, 
 and a love of adventure almost Quixotic, but with 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXI 
 
 an affectionate heart that clung fondly to his family 
 circle, 
 
 ' And dragged at each remove a lengthening chain.' 
 
 These feelings, combined with no ordinary graphic 
 powers, lend an irresistible charm to his little narra- 
 tives ; they are dashed off with an ease and freedom 
 such as is rarely seen ; their vis comica frequently 
 reminds us of Cruikshank ; like that admirable artist, 
 he extracts fun from every thing, even from subjects 
 apparently the most hopeless ; like him, too, he has a 
 moral in every jest, not the less effective because it is 
 incidental. In the letters now published, Jacquemont 
 rarely alludes to his scientific pursuits ; consequently 
 they have not anticipated the interest which all the 
 naturalists of Europe must feel in the publication of 
 the valuable manuscripts which he sent to the Museum 
 of Natural History of Paris ; duplicates of which were 
 forwarded by the French ministry to our government. 
 It is on these of course, whenever they appear, that his 
 future reputation as a naturalist must mainly depend. 
 The chief value of the present collection rests on the 
 account it gives of our Indian possessions, the effects of 
 our government on the native population, the result of 
 recent efforts to diffuse the elements of civilisation, 
 
XX11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and the future prospects of Hindustan. On behalf of 
 England, Jacquemont is a witness above suspicion ; 
 his prejudices, which never wholly disappeared, were 
 all against the British government ; and it is some- 
 times amusing to see how slowly and reluctantly, in 
 the early part of his career, he yielded to the strong 
 evidence of facts, while in some of his more recent 
 letters he rallies his correspondents unmercifully for 
 repeating opinions, which he had himself entertained 
 a few months before. 
 
 " The process of Jacquemont's conversion began at 
 the first English settlement he visited, the Cape of Good 
 Hope ; there he discovers how honestly the British 
 government had acted in the abolition of the slave 
 trade, and how other powers had connived at its con- 
 tinuance. For this connivance, indeed, he makes 
 rather a lame apology ; but ' liberal ' as he was, we 
 shall too often see that Jacquemont was willing to 
 sacrifice justice to expediency." 
 
 Jacquemont, during his arduous duties, never forgot 
 the kindness shown him by Sir Alexander Johnston, 
 to whom he wrote from Benares, but, unfortunately, 
 the letter miscarried. He again wrote from the Ladak 
 territory, in 1830, and this letter arrived safe. It 
 
INTRODUCTION". XX1I1 
 
 contains an excellent, though rapid, sketch of his 
 journey to the Himalaya, and we insert it here as 
 necessary to complete Jacquemont's correspondence. 
 It is rather surprising that the French editor omitted 
 it, as we know that he must have been aware of its 
 existence, because Sir Alexander Johnston was in 
 communication with Jacquemouf s family before these 
 letters were published at Paris. 
 
 •• Camp, under the Fort of Dankdr, m Ladak. 
 3rd Sept 1S30. 
 
 " My Dear Sir, — I rely on your kindness to 
 excuse mv lone; silence, since the time I left Benares, 
 whence I had the pleasure to acquaint you with the 
 successful beginning of mv journey. After a long 
 interval of eight months. I avail myself of an oppor- 
 tunity to India, to trace shortly (as impending busi- 
 ness obliges me) mv journey since quitting the Holy 
 City. 
 
 fi I went to Delhi by the circuitous route I pointed 
 out to vou, making a very lono- turn to the south- 
 west, almost to the banks of the Xerbuddah, over the 
 table-land and across the hills of Bundlecund. — a 
 province lately surveyed by Captain Jas. Franklin, 
 and geologically described by him in the ' Asiatic 
 Researches :" and I was fortunate enough to meet in 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 several with phenomena of super-position that had 
 escaped him in his explorations, and which will enable 
 me to lay down another exposition of the geological 
 structure of that country. 
 
 " From Delhi I went to the westward, through the 
 protected Seikh country, to the banks of the Caggar, an 
 inconsiderable stream, that vanishes in the sandy desert 
 of Bickaneer, before it reaches the Sutledge. I was 
 then engaged in a grand hunting-party, which 1 
 expected would have been fruitful to my geological 
 collections, but it proved interesting to me only as 
 showing me, in a fortnight, more of Eastern display 
 and Asiatic manners than I had yet seen in a twelve- 
 month. The hot winds were then threatening to invade 
 the plains every day. I repaired to the hills, which I 
 entered by the valley of Dheya. During about two 
 months I travelled from the sources of the Ganges and 
 the Jumna to the north-western limits of the British 
 dominions on the banks of the Sutledge. Tacking, if 
 I may be allowed that expression, between the snowy 
 barrier of the Himalaya and its lower branches, I 
 arrived at Simlah in the middle of June. 
 
 " It would have been impossible to experience a 
 greater degree of hospitality than I have been wel- 
 comed with from your countrymen, during my long 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 march from Calcutta to the latter place. The numer- 
 ous letters of introduction Lord William Bentinck 
 gave me, when my departure from Bengal left him 
 no other way to evince his extreme kindness to me ; 
 those for which I was indebted to many of mv 
 acquaintance in the Indian metropolis ; and, above 
 all, to a gentleman with whom I became a friend, — 
 Colonel Fagan, the adjutant-general of the army, — all 
 these I might have lost, and still, I am sure, have been 
 equally entitled to eulogise British hospitality. Even 
 the last European station I reached, Simlah, is like the 
 beginning of my journey, — like Calcutta, — amongst 
 the most hospitable, the one I shall ever remember 
 most gratefully. Whilst I was rapidly forgetting, at 
 Captain Kennedy's (the political agent in that dis- 
 trict), the privations and fatigues of my first journey 
 through the hills, he was busily employed in preparing, 
 and I dare say ensuring, the success of my journey 
 over the Himalaya, by all the means his situation 
 afforded him. 
 
 " It is now upwards of two months since I com- 
 menced travelling to the northward of the southern or 
 Indian range of the Himalaya. I am no longer 
 within the vast limits of British influence. I am but 
 two days' march distant from the Ladak village, where 
 
XXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I shall close my reconnoitrings to the north, as it 
 would prove very difficult, if not dangerous, to go 
 further. Information that I got from the natives 
 gives me reason to hope that I shall find there some 
 strata swarming with organic remains, which will 
 afford me the means of determining the geological 
 age of that immensely developed limestone-formation, 
 that constitutes the mighty Tartar ranges of the 
 Himalaya, superior in height to the granitic peaks 
 of the southern chain. 
 
 " Lately, whilst engaged in similar researches on 
 the frontiers of Chinese Tartary, I had the good luck 
 to meet with the very object of my inquiry, and also to 
 find Chinese vigilance at fault, insomuch that no obsta- 
 cle was thrown in my way. I had then to cross twice 
 two passes, that were considerably more than eighteen 
 thousand feet of absolute elevation, whilst the passes 
 across the outer Himalaya scarcely average sixteen 
 thousand feet. 
 
 " My observations on the skirts* of the Himalaya, 
 along the plains of Hindostan, are quite confirmatory 
 of my friend M. Elie de Beaumont's views respecting 
 the late period at which that mighty range sprung 
 from the earth. As to the geological age of its 
 granitic base (a question wholly distinct from the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXV11 
 
 consideration of its rising up), I think that my obser- 
 vations in the different parts of the Himalaya, but 
 particularly in the upper valley of the Sutledge, will 
 prove also to a certainty, contrary to the still pre- 
 vailing opinion, that it belongs to one of the latest 
 primitive formations. 
 
 " In ten days I hope to re-enter the Tartar Han- 
 gerang-pergunnah, under British control, and before 
 two months hence to return to Simlah. I shall then, 
 without delay, proceed down to the plains, and resume 
 the prosecution of my journey towards Bombay. I 
 am in perfectly good health, and have suffered nothing 
 from six months' exposure to the sun, during my 
 circuitous journey from Calcutta to the hills." 
 
 The remainder of this letter relates merely to private 
 matters. We, however, insert the postscript, giving 
 an account of a singular Hungarian enthusiast, whom 
 Jacquemont met in Kanawer, and to whom he more 
 than once alludes in his correspondence. 
 
 " P. S. I will add a few lines on a subject accept- 
 able, I presume, to your warm interest in the East. 
 You have, no doubt, heard of M. Alexander Csoma 
 de Koros, a Hungarian, enthusiastic for Oriental 
 
XXV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 philology, who has travelled through many parts of 
 Asia during the last ten years. I saw him at Kanum, 
 where he has resided for four years, supported by a 
 small subsistence granted to him by the government of 
 Bengal, to enable him to prosecute his investigation of 
 the Tibetan language. M. Csoma has performed his 
 task, and is about to leave Tibet, and to proceed to 
 Calcutta. His energetic exertions and his depressed 
 fortunes inspired me with a great interest for him ; 
 but I fear that disappointment awaits him at Calcutta, 
 the government, in the present circumstances, being 
 probably unable to afford him any pecuniary remu- 
 neration. 
 
 " M. Csoma will carry to Calcutta the result of his 
 long labours, consisting of two voluminous and beau- 
 tifully-neat manuscripts, quite ready for the press ; 
 one is a grammar, the other a vocabulary, of the 
 Tibetan language, both written in English. The 
 species of information obtainable through these new 
 instruments of knowledge, is not, probably, of a nature 
 to make them useful to the Indian government ; and I 
 do not believe that the circumstances of the Asiatic 
 Society of Calcutta will enable them to undertake the 
 publication of M. Csoma's works. I have, therefore, 
 spoken to him of the illustrious Society in which you 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXIX 
 
 take so eminent a concern *, as being, in my opinion, 
 the public body whose learned patronage is more 
 likely to become the promoter of his labours. 
 
 " How M. Csoma de Koros has performed his task, 
 no one can decide, since he is the only person pro- 
 ficient in the Tibetan language. But a conjecture, 
 and a most favourable one, may be made. M. Csoma 
 has never been in England, and has never had an 
 opportunity of speaking English ; yet he is tho- 
 roughly acquainted with your language. Most European 
 tongues seem to be equally familiar to him, although he 
 has had no opportunity of a practical acquaintance with 
 them. Moreover, for the last ten years he has been 
 entirely deprived of European intercourse, travelling 
 throughout Asia in the character of a poor native, 
 without any books, &c. ; whilst he has spent four 
 years in reading, with a learned lama of Ladak, 
 hundreds and hundreds of Tibetan books preserved in 
 the temple of Kanum. The medium of communi- 
 cation between him and his teacher, was the ver- 
 nacular jargon of the Zead, or Tartar tribes." 
 
 Jacquemont was most kindly received and assisted 
 
 * The Asiatic Society, to whom this letter was communicated 
 by Sir Alexander Johnston, authorised Jacquemont to treat with 
 his Hungarian friend for these manuscripts. 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by all to whom he had letters of introduction, and by 
 many others with whom he became acquainted in the 
 different residencies of India. He speaks of Lord and 
 Lady William Bentinck in the most glowing terms, 
 as he does, indeed, of all his India friends. The 
 following is a letter which he wrote, in English, to 
 Mr. Lushington, Governor of Madras, a short time 
 before his death ; it belongs to this collection, as part 
 of his correspondence from India, though never before 
 published. 
 
 " Tanna, Island of Salsette, September 26, 1832. 
 
 " Sir, — I hasten to express my profound gratitude 
 for the kindness which you have honoured me with in 
 favouring me with such a number of valuable intro- 
 ductions to the officers of your Government. I have 
 just had the honour of receiving them, enclosed in 
 your letter of the 10th instant. 
 
 " With respect to the guard you are kindly pleased 
 also to grant to me, if required, I beg leave to state, 
 that the smallest, — a naick and four, was amply suffi- 
 cient, in most of my travels through the Bengal 
 provinces ; and that it was only to go through the 
 Rajpoot states, and insecure Bheel tracts, that a havil- 
 dar, a naick and twelve were offered to me, and recom- 
 mended by the Bengal and Bombay officers. In the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXI 
 
 well-settled provinces of your Government, I trust a 
 naick and four, or, . at the utmost, a naick and six, will 
 leave nothing more to desire to me for the perfect 
 protection of my baggage. 
 
 " I shall not fail to do my best to travel the road you 
 are so kind as to recommend to me, from Mysore to 
 the Neilgherries ; and I feel very grateful for your 
 pointing out to me, amidst the troubles and cares of 
 high office, such interesting particulars. 
 
 " With the expression of my fervent hopes to be 
 able of testifying viva voce to you, in the Neilgherries, 
 the deep sense I entertain of your kindness, I beg you 
 will accept the assurance of my profound respect. 
 " I have the honour, &c. 
 
 " Victor Jacquemont." 
 
 To this we add an extract from a letter enclosing 
 the above, written by Mr. Lushington to Sir Alexander 
 Johnston, dated Madras, October 10th, 1832. 
 
 " My Dear Sir, — Your letter of introduction, 
 given so long ago to Monsieur Jacquemont, only reached 
 me the other day. He very prudently kept it until he 
 was approaching our territories ; and you will see, from 
 the enclosed copy of his letter to me, that he is entirely 
 satisfied with the arrangements made for his comfort, 
 
XXX11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and for the furtherance of the important objects of his 
 researches." 
 
 After encountering the greatest difficulties and 
 privations in his arduous labours, the fruits of which 
 have greatly enriched the science of Natural History, 
 and will soon be made public, Jacquemont was attacked 
 with that bane of Indian climes, the liver complaint. 
 He was then at Tanna, a town and fortress in the 
 island of Salsette, where, pursuing his researches in the 
 pestilential atmosphere of this unhealthy island, under 
 a burning sun, and in the most dangerous season of 
 the year, he imbibed the seeds of the disease which 
 terminated his life. On his arrival at Bombay, 
 extremely unwell, his powerful constitution gave way, 
 his complaint assumed a fatal character, and he expired 
 on the 7th of December, 1832, after lingering more 
 than a month in intense agony. 
 
 Victor Jacquemont was deeply and generally la- 
 mented in India. He had acquired many friends there. 
 His amiable manners, his strength and simplicity of 
 mind, his great power of intellect, and above all, his 
 warmth and sincerity of heart, made him beloved by 
 all who knew him. Though at first somewhat cold 
 and stately in his manner, and extremely reserved, this 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXX111 
 
 soon wore off in the intimacy of friendship, where, as 
 is evident from his letters, he found delight in the 
 outpourings of his attachment, for his nature was warm 
 and affectionate. Among his friends, he was a most 
 entertaining companion, lively to excess, and sparkling 
 with wit. With great depth and rapidity of discern- 
 ment, he granted his friendship to those only who were 
 able to comprehend and appreciate his mind. To 
 strangers or casual acquaintances he was distant and 
 uncommunicative. Not that he acted thus from reflec- 
 tion, — he was, perhaps, not aware of the feeling ; it 
 was mere instinct, an impulse identic with his nature, 
 and totally free from any imagined superiority. But 
 it was apparent to every one who saw him ; and it 
 may account for the character given of him by some 
 who had casually met him, of being the most frigid 
 and least communicative of men. 
 
 In person Victor Jacquemont was very tall, and had 
 rather an awkward gait. But genius beamed from 
 his fine countenance, and in its expression might be 
 read the workings of a superior mind. 
 
 We shall conclude this Introduction with a letter 
 from Sir Alexander Johnston to M. Jacquemont, the 
 elder, Victor's father, who resides at Paris. It was 
 written subsequently to the death of the young natu- 
 
 d 
 
x\\ ox. 
 
 ralist, and in consequence of an application to Sir 
 Alexander Johnston for any documents be might 
 possess, throwing light upou Victor Jacquemont's 
 proceedings in England, prior to his departure for 
 India. 
 
 -t " ■; rs . . : nt, paris 
 
 "Dear Sir.. — As I a nd from Mr. Sharp that 
 
 the letters which the late IE. Jacquemont wrote from 
 different parts of India, to his friends in France, are 
 soon to be published, and that you are anxious, in 
 order to prefix them to those letters, to procure from 
 me any documents I may possess, explanatory of his 
 proceedings while he was in England previously to his 
 departure for India, I have the pleasure to send you 
 copies of two reports, in which I. as chairman of the 
 mittee of Corresponder ue -iatic So- 
 
 ciety, thought it necessary to call the attention of the 
 society to him and to his mission : and also copies of 
 the following documents : — 
 
 ■• No. I. he resolution relative to If. 
 
 Jacquemont, passed, on my motion, by the Comrr. 
 of Correspondence, on the ISth of June, 1828. 
 
 '.'.. ' py of the resolution relative to II 
 
INTRODUCTION*. XXXV 
 
 Jacquemont. passed, on my motion, by the Council of 
 the Asiatic Society, on the 28th of June. 1mJ:v 
 
 •• Ni :». III. Copy of a letter from M. Jacquemont to 
 the Roval Asiatic Society of Literature, acknowledging 
 the receipt of the resolution Xo. II. 
 
 • N .. IV. Copy of a letter, of the 11th of July. 
 L828, from the Directors of tl im at Pari- 
 
 me. thanking me for the assistance which I had given 
 11. Jacquemont. 
 
 •• Xo. V. Copy of a letter, dated Bombay. September 
 26th. 1832, from M, Jacquemont to Mr. Lushington, 
 thanking him for the preparations which had been 
 made for his reception within the Madras territories, 
 in consequence of the letter which I had given him for 
 Mr. Lushington. 
 
 •• Xo. VI. : a letter from Mr. Lushington to 
 
 me. inclosing the letter Xo. V.. for the purpose of 
 showing me that M. Jacquemont was satisfied with 
 the preparations which had been made for his reception 
 at M 
 
 " On M. Jacquemont's arrival in England, he 
 brought me a letter from the late Baron Curler, who 
 spoke ot him in the highest terms of praise. I was 
 convinced, after a very short acquaintance with him, 
 that he merited in even* respect the character which 
 the baron b en him, and that he was peculiarlv 
 
XXXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 well qualified for the important mission upon which he 
 was about to proceed to India. I, consequently, as one 
 of the vice-presidents of the Royal Asiatic Society of 
 Literature, and chairman of their Committee of Corre- 
 spondence, felt it to be my duty to take every measure* 
 in public and in private, to forward his object and that 
 of the French government. He was, on my proposal, 
 invited «to attend all the meetings of the society, and 
 those of the Committee of Correspondence ; to make 
 use, whenever he pleased, of their library and their 
 museum ; and finally, as a mark of the highest respect 
 which the society could show him, he was unanimously 
 elected one of their foreign members. 
 
 " He, on his part, took every opportunity to evince 
 to the society his readiness to adopt any suggestions 
 which they might offer him with respect to his re- 
 searches, and to assure them of his anxiety to obtain 
 for them every information they might require from 
 him in India. He devoted himself with the greatest 
 assiduity to the examination of all the different works, 
 inscriptions, and other documents, relative to India, 
 which are preserved in the library of the Asiatic 
 Society, and in that of the East India Company. He 
 was indefatigable in acquiring a practical knowledge of 
 every mechanical art, which could be of use to him in 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXV11 
 
 preserving such specimens in natural history as he 
 might collect during his travels ; and by the whole of 
 his conduct while he remained in England, he gained 
 the admiration and esteem of all those who felt any 
 interest, or took any part in inquiries relative to the 
 natural history, the geology, and the geography of 
 India. On his departure from England, the President 
 of the Asiatic Society, who was then also the President 
 of the Board of Control of Indian affairs, at my request 
 gave him letters of introduction to all the governors of 
 the East India Company's possessions in India. I 
 myself recommended him in the strongest terms to the 
 protection and particular attentions of Lord William 
 Bentinck, the Governor General of British India, of 
 Sir John Malcolm, the Governor of Bombay, of Mr. 
 Lushington, the Governor of Madras, and of Sir 
 Edward Owen, the commander-in-chief of the British 
 navy in the Indian seas ; to the three first, that they 
 might afford him every assistance in their power, while 
 he was within the limits of their respective govern- 
 ments ; to the last, that he might, by means of the 
 different ships of war which might be, from time to 
 time, returning to England, enabled to send such 
 collections as he might make, with safety and without 
 delay, to the Museum at Paris. 
 
XXXV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " The scientific object for which the French govern- 
 ment sent M. Jacquemont to India; the liberality* 
 with which the government was at the expense of his 
 mission ; the reputation of the men who advised the 
 measure ; the talents, the acquirements, and the zeal 
 of the man who was chosen by them to carry it into 
 effect ; the cordiality with which Great Britain and 
 France co-operated upon the occasion ; the frankness 
 and good sense with which M. Jacquemont himself 
 conciliated the public functionaries in England and in 
 India; the ardour with which he prosecuted his un- 
 dertaking ; the intrepidity with which he encountered 
 and overcame every difficulty ; the disinterestedness 
 with which he sacrificed his comfort and his health to 
 the performance of his duty ; the calmness and the 
 resignation with which he met his premature death at 
 Bombay, and the universal regret which must be felt 
 for his loss by every man of science in France, in Eng- 
 land, and in India, are circumstances which must 
 render every fact connected with the life of such a 
 
 * We cannot say much in favour of this liberality. The allow- 
 ance made to Jacquemont was so small, that without the presents 
 from Runjeet Sing and other native princes, and* the assistance 
 afforded him by the different governments in India, it is doubtful 
 whether he would have been able to accomplish the object of his 
 mission. — Ed. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXIX 
 
 man interesting to the public, and peculiarly gratifying 
 to the friends of science throughout Europe. 
 
 "I am, dear sir, yours very faithfully, 
 
 "Alexander Johnston." 
 
 We have only to add that the documents, so kindty 
 sent by Sir Alexander Johnston, were not used in the 
 French edition of Jacquemont's letters. It was in- 
 tended to insert them in a memoir of the author, to be 
 prefixed to the correspondence ; but from some mis- 
 management of the editor, it was not ready when it 
 should have been. The curiosity and interest of the 
 French public had been highly excited, and the de- 
 mand for the work was so urgent, that there was not 
 time to prepare the memoir, which was necessarily 
 omitted. It is a question whether, in any future 
 edition, this omission will be supplied ; for the letters 
 alone are said to excite sufficient interest without any 
 such addition. But this is a question to be settled 
 between the French public and the publisher. 
 
 London, September \2th, 1834. 
 
A JOURNEY IN INDIA, &c. 
 
 VICTOR JACQUEMONT. 
 
 TO M. PORPHYRE JACQUEMONT, PARIS. 
 
 Brest, 24th August, 1828, one o'clock. 
 
 On the fourth day after my departure from Paris 
 I arrived here, my dear Porphyre, without accident, or 
 more fatigue than I anticipated. I have called upon 
 M. Poultier, commander of the Zelee ; he is a lieutenant 
 in the navy, a man about your age, and very pleasing 
 in his appearance. He paid me every attention, and 
 to-morrow, he is to take me on board to see the vessel 
 which is to be my future dwelling : I say future, 
 because we shall not sail for a week to come, as 
 M. de Melay is not yet arrived. 
 
 What pleased me more with M. Poultier, was his 
 telling me that, on our way to Rio Janeiro, we should 
 make a short stay at Madeira. Short, however, as it 
 may be, it will be a piece of good fortune for me, and 
 will, moreover, considerably reduce the number of our 
 salt beef dinners* Between each of the four stations, 
 
 B 
 
2 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the Canaries, the Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the 
 Isle of Bourbon, we shall, certainly, never be longer than 
 a month at sea ; and for such short passages we can 
 always lay in a sufficient stock of fresh provisions, live 
 animals, fruit, and vegetables. This is a pleasant pros- 
 pect for me. 
 
 The king, as they tell me here, does not provide me 
 with a bed on board ship, but gives me fifty francs to 
 buy a cot with three thin mattrasses and sheets. This 
 sum is nearly sufficient, and the bedding will remain my 
 property. I am besides, from this day, entered at the 
 officers' mess, at which his aforesaid majesty pays for 
 my breakfast and dinner, if I choose to take them. 
 
 I am content. To tell you that my satisfaction is 
 not grave, and serious, would be useless. There is 
 a conflict within me. Reflection must combat the 
 liveliest of my instinctive emotions ; and in truth, if it 
 does not overpower, it at least keeps them silent. It was 
 high time indeed, five days ago, that six o'clock should 
 strike, when you saw me to the carriage, for my feelings 
 were nigh overcoming me ; yet, two years ago, when I 
 took leave of you at Havre, it was with much more 
 anguish and sorrow. I had then, my dear friend, 
 reached the summit of misfortune ; every day since has 
 been more lucky to me ; and now in looking forward to 
 the future, I see an acclivity before me, more or less rug- 
 ged, but which in the end will necessarily lead me to an 
 honourable and satisfactory position in the world. It is 
 to you, my dear Porphyre, that I am indebted for this 
 
AND IN LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 3 
 
 renewed prospect of happiness. You are the cause of all 
 I shall be, and of all that I may accomplish. I now 
 regret nothing of what is past. 
 
 Shall I tell you the truth, my dear friend ? The week 
 which may probably elapse ere I quit France, I prefer 
 passing alone, here, far from you and our father. 
 I should have been much to be pitied, even during 
 the last moments of my stay in Paris, if I had not been 
 so overwhelmed with business relative to my departure, 
 that I could not find leisure to ponder with you over 
 our approaching separation. My father would have 
 seen me pensive and sad, and I should have made him 
 the same ; instead of which, we had no time to think 
 beforehand of the moment of our parting. Thus, not- 
 withstanding all the delay of my departure, that 
 moment surprised us almost unexpectedly: we scarcely 
 said good-bye. 
 
 To-morrow, I shall write to our father. I thank 
 him kindly for the two long lines, which he wrote on 
 the margin of your letter. I leave him as he saw me 
 depart, if not with pleasure, at least with security. 
 Adieu, my friends ; I embrace you with all my heart. 
 
 TO M. NARJOT, CAPTAIN OF ENGINEERS, BREST. 
 
 Brest, Saturday Evening, 2Zrd August, 1828. 
 
 You will see, my good friend, that I shall soon 
 request you, who know this place, to hire me a house for 
 
 b 2 
 
4 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 six months. This morning, while I was multiplying 
 myself by four, in order to be, at the same time, here at 
 my inn, at the post-office, at the observatory, and on 
 board ship, writing, countermanding, going backwards 
 and forwards in all haste, for fear of arriving too late, 
 it was quietly decided, that the wind had not yet suf- 
 ficiently veered round to carry us out of the roads ; and 
 as to-morrow is Sunday, and of course a holiday, we 
 shall not be impious enough to sail on that day. Thus 
 our departure is adjourned till Monday without fail, 
 and very early in the morning, so that to-morrow night 
 I must sleep on board. 
 
 Then on Monday, you will see that the wind will 
 be perhaps so much reduced, that there will be scarcely 
 any left, so that we shall still be unable to sail. This 
 is monstrous ! and is it not also a little ridiculous ? The 
 Americans do not make so much ado ; they sail invari- 
 ably on the day fixed. Thus, on a certain 3rd of 
 November, 1826, I left Havre in a ship called the 
 Cadmus, in the very midst of a storm or squall, which 
 retained all the other vessels in harbour, and let us off 
 with the loss of our main-sail. 
 
 I have discovered, that, among the officers, there is 
 one whom they term a supernumerary lieutenant : that 
 is to say, a captain of a merchantman, pressed, for a 
 time, into the king's service. Although still young, he 
 has been, among other places, three times in India. He 
 is simple and artless, and will be useful to me. Persons 
 of his class know a great many things without being 
 
AND IN LAHORE AND CASHMERE. O 
 
 aware of it, and many interesting little facts may be 
 gathered from them. By interrogating them with a 
 little address, one can obtain from them information 
 which they alone can give, because it can be acquired 
 only by individuals in their situation. 
 
 Is it not the same thing whether a painful object meets 
 our eyes, or an idea of sadness passes over our mind ? 
 Imagination, and memory, form a little magic lantern 
 which makes us melancholy or cheerful, according 
 to the things it calls to our recollection. Without rising 
 from our chair, and without any appreciable change in 
 the external things around us, we are by turns, passively 
 and irresistibly, either serene or madly merry, or taci- 
 turn, gloomy, and melancholy. Others, who, with the 
 eyes in their heads, cannot perceive these little internal 
 tempests, see only unevenness of temper in these effects, 
 and unhesitatingly impute it to us as a weakness inhe- 
 rent in our nature. You know too that M. Fortin, our 
 skilful engineer, makes scales, which, on being changed 
 with the weight of a kilogramme, enclosed in a glass- 
 case, and placed in a well-closed room, will fearfully 
 move up and down, if a poor hack but roll along the 
 street. The happy few, my good friend, are machines 
 equally subtle, and still more delicate and impressible. 
 The grocer, who weighs his articles in ~ude scales, 
 always tending to be in equilibrio, seeing those of 
 Fortin trembling at the passage of a carriage, would 
 not divine the cause of their motion, and, like some 
 others, would condemn them, as bad and fantastical. 
 
6 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Well then ! the true reason, why, yesterday evening, 
 you found neither me, nor the hot water, to your taste, 
 is, that I at least was in a very serious mood, and, what 
 is worse, dreadfully ennuye. In such a case, the best 
 thing a man can do, is to go to bed ; others gain by it, 
 in not seeing him when disagreeable, and he escapes 
 with, perhaps, dreaming sometimes of annoyances such 
 as a pair of slippers too short, or any other bedevilment. 
 All my unlearned friends tell me, that I shall return 
 very wise, doubtless, but quite worn out, and crushed 
 by the stones and animals, with which my thoughts will 
 have lived on very intimate terms, for many years. If 
 such be the case, my good friend, beware of a fiasco, 
 for the two or three volumes, whether learned or not, 
 to which you have promised to subscribe, and which I 
 wish to make amusing — a quality too much despised. 
 
 Yet, when I tell you, that all my friends utter this 
 direful prediction, I say too much : some two or three 
 pretend the contrary. But they are those who love 
 me most, and know me best, it is true ; and are the only 
 ones who have had any specimen of my prosaic abilities. 
 Now, it is quite natural, that their too tender friend- 
 ship may blind them : but we shall see. If they are 
 wrong, I will take to writing sermons ; and, in that 
 grave key, I hope to take my revenge. I assure 
 you, my good friend, that, at least four times a year, 
 I regret not being a priest or a missionary. I meet or 
 hear none, without envying them the high and noble 
 duties they have to perform, and without being dis- 
 
AND IN LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 7 
 
 gusted with the stupidity of the most famous among 
 them. I do not except from this severe judgment their 
 defunct men of celebrity. In spite of what you will 
 term my slander, which is nothing but my exclusive 
 esteem of absolute honesty and sincerity, I protest that 
 I am very devout : though it is not my habitual state, 
 for devotion is only useful on occasions. 
 
 Good night, — adieu, my amiable friend ! Retain 
 some remembrance of the moments which chance has 
 permitted us to pass together. Perhaps it will re-unite 
 us ! I should be glad if it were in a political assembly, 
 for I am sure we should be near neighbours in it. 
 We, who have no religious faith, must employ the 
 tenderness of our souls to the advantage of humanity. 
 That should be our religion : and unless we possess 
 those extraordinary talents, which, by means of written 
 language, give us great authority over our contem- 
 poraries, it is in the performance of what our peculiar 
 talents enable us to do in public affairs, that we should 
 place our ambition. Adieu, — Adieu ! 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 On board the Zelee, at sea, between Madeira and Teneriffe. 
 Wednesday, 10th September*, 1828. 
 
 My dear and excellent father ! Yesterday, according 
 to the vulgar mode of reckoning, it was fifteen days 
 since I left Brest, the Zelee having sailed on Tuesday, 
 the 26th August. Ever since the day after our departure, 
 
8 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 we have had contrary winds, which have blown almost 
 constantly, but without violence 5 so that if we have 
 not made much way, we have not been fatigued. I 
 need not say that my health has not been disturbed for 
 a single instant, by the change of element ; and, what is 
 singular, another passenger quite unused to the sea, 
 has felt scarcely anything, and the others have been 
 but little tried. The young surgeon of the vessel, who, 
 though familiar with the sea, paid the accustomed 
 tribute the first week, and M. de Melay, who has 
 paid and will pay for all, are the only two who have 
 suffered. I knew he had not a sea stomach : but, in 
 this way, he was quite beyond all my expectations. I 
 wonder how, with a nature having such an antipathy 
 to pitching and rolling, he can have remained a 
 sailor. Had I been in his place, I would have 
 changed my profession thirty years ago. 
 
 Contrary winds are not the sole cause of the 
 slowness of our progress. A good deal is owing to the 
 vessel : she is very good and very solid — an excellent sea 
 boat, as they say ; she has a thousand good qualities ; 
 each more valuable than the other, but — she sails 
 badly. The captain himself is forced to allow this, and 
 therefore, you may rely upon its truth. But, after 
 all, what does it matter ? we shall perhaps reach 
 Pondicherry a month later than I calculated upon! 
 Wel^ the first year of my travels, which ought 
 evidently to be the most burthensome, will be a little 
 shorter for it. This is almost an advantage. M. de 
 
AND IN LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 9 
 
 Melay lives and takes his meals with the captain, who is 
 a young lieutenant in the navy, and but lately the com- 
 rade of two of his officers. They have had the charity to 
 admit into their mess, and to place in a cabin at a distance 
 from the officers' berth, the Apostolic Prefect of Pon- 
 dicherry. Though this is but a trifling service done 
 him, it is, however, a great one to us. His presence 
 would have placed us under perpetual restraint ; and 
 with all our attempts at modesty, and to throw off the 
 manner of the sailor, God knows to what tribulations 
 his ears might not have exposed him among us. 
 
 There are eleven of us at the officers' mess ; five of 
 whom are officers, all younger than myself, with the ex- 
 ception of a poor old junior lieutenant, who seems to me 
 to possess much professional merit, but makes no noise, 
 and will necessarily remain in the same rank all his life. 
 The others are a young navy surgeon, a commissary, 
 myself, M. de Sallabery, M. Goudot, and a young man 
 from Rochelle going to join a relation in India. 
 
 The captain's age, his comparatively low grade in 
 the service, the circumstance of his having been the 
 comrade of several of his officers, and his good-nature, 
 — all contribute to our having less of tiresome eti- 
 quette, than on board any other ship of war. I 
 could wish nothing better. 
 
 With the officers and passengers I live without 
 any bustle ; all is pleasant and agreeable. M. de 
 Melay and myself are becoming more and more 
 intimate every day : sometimes we walk for hours on 
 
10 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 deck, chatting de omni re scibili. Though I thought 
 him a man of mind, I find him even more so than I 
 had supposed. He has a rich fund of fact and anecdote, 
 and is not destitute of imagination ; he is a good critic, 
 and an excellent reasoner; and his style in conversation 
 is beautifully correct, without being heavy. I may truly 
 say, that his being here is a piece of good fortune for 
 me; and he certainly finds me of some advantage. 
 
 However indifferent you know me to be in matters of 
 ordinary life, yet, as the length of the voyage renders 
 them, for a time, less contemptible, I must tell you, that 
 we have very good breakfasts and dinners. Bread is 
 baked every day, and it is excellent. The wine is pretty 
 good; and we have fresh mutton, pork, fowl, fresh 
 and dry vegetables, so that we can hardly perceive 
 that we are not still on shore. Sunday and Thursday 
 are holidays, as at college ; and on those days, our 
 ordinary meal is so much improved, as to become 
 quite luxurious. 
 
 11 ih September. 
 
 As the Z61ee, after landing M de Melay at Pondi- 
 cherry, is to make hydrographical researches on the 
 East coast of Africa, she is provided with several chro- 
 nometers, and the young officers, yet little familiar 
 with the requisite calculations, are constantly occupied. 
 There is not much labour on board, yet more than I 
 should have thought. I am seldom a solitary reader or 
 writer on the great green cloth that covers our mess 
 table. At night, a handsome lamp, hanging from the 
 
AND IN LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 1 1 
 
 deck above, throws its light on us, and makes our cabin 
 look like a handsome study. I hold long sittings there, 
 and always feel satisfied with myself at the close of 
 each, for I work with pleasure and facility. I vary my 
 reading, in order to rest from one subject, by applying 
 to another. I have an excellent Persian grammar, and 
 a tolerably good vocabulary of that language, with 
 which therefore I have begun. The Hindostanee will 
 come afterwards ; it is already half known by a person 
 who understands Persian. With what I shall have 
 learned from books by the time I reach India, I flatter 
 myself that I shall need no very long time to be able 
 to speak it fluently, though incorrectly. 
 
 On board a man of war, there are many noises 
 not to be heard on board a merchantman. Every 
 manoeuvre is commanded with a horribly shrill 
 whistle ; some also, which return periodically several 
 times a day, are performed to the sound of the drum. 
 In fine weather, the afternoon is occupied with prac- 
 tising the guns ; now and then they have the musket 
 exercise. At first, all this was abominable ; I am so 
 used to it now, that I scarcely perceive it. I know not 
 whether it is from the excellence of the crew, or from 
 the indulgence of the officers, but for the last fortnight 
 I have not seen a man punished. All, who are not 
 occupied in working the ship, laugh and amuse them- 
 selves. The sight of these poor ill-dressed devils, who 
 are constantly awake, has nothing saddening in it. 
 They are, besides, well fed, to keep them in health, and 
 
12 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 good humour : each man has a bottle of wine, and a 
 meal with fine fresh bread. The young doctor has 
 nothing to do. I tell you all these things, which will 
 perhaps appear futile to you, because I attach impor- 
 tance to them. Care-worn countenances, and corporal 
 punishments, would make me melancholy, and disgust 
 me with my floating prison. 
 
 I wrote to you from Brest, that we should touch at 
 Madeira. M. de Melay, however, has changed his 
 mind ; the uncertainty of our relations with Don Miguel, 
 and the fear of encounterino; the Brazilians and Portu- 
 guese in deadly strife perhaps with each other, has made 
 us pass that island on our right, and sail for Teneriffe. 
 You see I do not lose by this. Teneriffe with its peak 
 and its volcano, is one of the most beautiful places in 
 the world. If the weather were quite clear to-day, we 
 should already see the summit of the peak, for we are 
 only forty-two leagues distant from it. We shall find 
 admirable grapes, oranges, and lemons, of which we 
 shall lay in a good store, to serve us for lemonade till 
 we reach Rio de Janeiro. 
 
 If we are circumspect with these rabble of Brazilians 
 and Portuguese, we are haughty enough, I promise 
 you, with the poor merchantmen. On Sunday last, 
 the seventh, about noon, as I was engaged with M. de 
 Melay, the captain came and told him that a strange 
 sail, which had kept her course very near us since 
 the morning, was approaching still nearer; that 
 the stranger had a suspicious appearance, and that 
 
AND IN LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 13 
 
 at all events he should clear for action. In less 
 than five minutes, each man was armed with a 
 musket, a cutlass, a pistol, and an axe — the matches 
 placed near the guns — every man at his post — 
 and, instead of waiting for the stranger, we put the 
 ship about, and stood towards him. It was blowing 
 very fresh, and for once the Zelee distinguished herself, 
 and sailed well. Upon this the stranger, who was in 
 fact sailing towards us with a threatening appearance, 
 turned tail, but we gave chase. Seeing that we gained 
 on him, he at last had the tardy politeness to hoist 
 English colours ; we then hoisted ours, together with 
 our pendant (the distinctive mark of a man-of-war), 
 backing it, as they say, with a shotted gun, which raised 
 serious reflections in the crew of the strange vessel. 
 She brought to, and we ran close up along side her. 
 She proved to be an English vessel, the General Wolfe, 
 of Bristol. Our captain wished to speak her in English 
 — a singular pretension on his part. For want of a 
 single person among ten officers able to speak a word of 
 that language, I was requested to take the speaking 
 trumpet, and had the glory of telling the poor terrified 
 devils, that the next time they presumed to bear down 
 upon us without showing their colours, we would sink 
 them with a broadside. I ought to tell you, that, to the 
 great credit of my moderation, I omitted translating 
 through the speaking trumpet certain emphatic exple- 
 tives of the captain. It would have been rather a 
 violation of etiquette 
 
14 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 This little scene was quite a novelty for me ; this 
 real preparation for battle, without any broken limbs, 
 interested me much. I scarcely, however, understand 
 a sea-fight the better for it. 
 
 This, my dear father, becomes quite tittle-tattle, and 
 I must end it. Shall I do so, however, without 
 adding any thing more ? without telling you how 
 many times a day, in my short moments of solitude 
 and leisure, I detect myself thinking of you and Por- 
 phyre ? Yet it is without sadness. I enjoy these ten- 
 der recollections, much more than I regret our separa- 
 tion. The time passes so quickly that I already see its 
 termination, and I expect that you will say to me 
 in five years, when I return, " What! already!" and 
 this will be the best thing to say on both sides. 
 
 My barometers, and other instruments, go on excel- 
 lently. You will see them again, in five years. Every 
 thing in my trunks and chests, also arrived safe. For 
 the last four days, on reaching the latitude of Cadiz, I 
 have adopted linen clothes, which I shall not again leave 
 off; for the winds bring us the heated atmosphere of the 
 tropics. It is the climate which I love. I feel myself 
 caressed by this genial air, and, although my long thin 
 body can scarcely be compared to a rose-bud, I feel 
 that I am beginning to bloom. 
 
 There is not much chance of my finding, on my 
 arrival at Santa Cruz in TenerifFe, a vessel sailing im- 
 mediately for France, or England. At all events, I 
 should be ready, as you perceive, to avail myself of it ; 
 
AND IN LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 15 
 
 but I think I shall have time to add a short post- 
 script from thence. I have written to you, this time, 
 without reserve ; for the future, 1 shall have nothing 
 to do, but to entertain you with any little changes that 
 may happen to me. 
 
 Santa Cruz, Teneriffe, Tuesday, 16th Sept. 1828. 
 The Roads. 
 
 We put in here on Saturday morning, the thirteenth. 
 We sail again tomorrow morning. In this short inter- 
 val, I have taken care to run about sufficiently to see 
 many things and people too. A French ship of war is 
 quite a phenomenon here. They pay us every possible 
 attention : yesterday, for instance, we were at a ball. I 
 danced a French contre-danse with a charming Spa- 
 niard, who spoke English. The ball was given by some 
 rich merchants, who, twenty years ago, received M. 
 Cordier in this island. La grande nation has here 
 been represented in black, from head to foot. There 
 were many present who could speak English and French, 
 so that I was amply indemnified for the little drudgery 
 of the dance. I say drudgery, because these handsome 
 Spanish women have not a word to say for themselves. 
 To-night, we are to have it over again, and the whole 
 city will be there. At midnight, every one retires 
 wrapped in a large black cloak of oil-cloth. The ship's 
 boats are ready to receive us at the quay. We jump 
 in with address, at the risk of tumbling into the sea, 
 for there is always a great swell here ; and, by the 
 
16 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 grace of God, we reach the Zelee, which is at anchor 
 in the roads. The return on board forms a strange 
 contrast with the scene we have just left. 
 
 We are taking in stores of lemons, oranges, and 
 some tropical fruits, which are found here in abun- 
 dance. The fact is, we are to be forty days at sea, 
 before we reach Rio. 
 
 Adieu, my dear father ! I embrace you as well as 
 Porphyre, to whom my first letter will be addressed. 
 I am wonderfully well. Every thing is for the best, 
 in this best of all possible worlds. Remembrances 
 to all. 
 
 TO M LLE ZOE NOIZET DE SAINT-PAUL, ARRAS. 
 
 At sea, on board the Zelee, lot 4° iV., Ion. 22° 35', W. from 
 Greenwich. Saturday Evening, 1 lth Oct. 1828. 
 
 It is night, every one about me is asleep except an 
 officer and half the watch on deck. I am alone, in a 
 tolerably capacious and elegant cabin, seated at a large 
 table covered with a green cloth, and lighted by a lamp 
 hanging above the middle of it. This is my hour of 
 work, when I require silence and solitude. I came 
 for the purpose of writing ; it was to have been on 
 natural philosophy ; but instead of the MS. which 
 I was seeking in my portfolio, chance, and a charm- 
 ing chance too, made me extricate from the divine 
 disorder reigning there, your letter of July last. 
 I began to reperuse it, my dear cousin, and I congra- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 17 
 
 tulated myself on having brought it from Paris, to 
 answer it at Brest if I had time. I recollect that I did 
 so: but I must have done it very stupidly. I was very 
 much annoyed in that town, always uncertain whether 
 I should sleep there the next day, and dreaded being 
 kept there a month by contrary winds. 
 
 I believe, my dear Zoe, that although we differ much 
 on very important questions, we have yet many feelings 
 and affections in common. Though more of a mate- 
 rialist than a spiritualist, I nevertheless take but little 
 count of matter — of positive reality. I allow an immense 
 importance in morals — that is to say, the art of seeking 
 happiness — to what many narrow-minded people laugh 
 at as chimeras. The pleasures of the imagination, are 
 not less real than those of the senses ; its pains are not 
 less cruel than theirs. It is assuredly not from our 
 senses that we receive enjoyment, but from what 
 you call our soul — from our faculty of feeling when 
 excited ; subject, however, in a manner which we call 
 happy, to the physical modifications of our senses, when 
 placed in relation with external objects. Pleasure and 
 pain reach us continually by a route different from 
 that ; they reach us directly, without our being able to 
 perceive the slightest modification of our organs, pre- 
 ceding the sense of them which we experience. There 
 is but one thing certain in all this — sensation. It is 
 simple in its nature, whatever may be the variety of its 
 objects, its origin, or its causes. But let us have done 
 with metaphysics, more particularly, as I was about indis- 
 
 c 
 
18 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 creetly to reveal to you those famous real essences. 
 This would be disposing of my father's property, and 
 managing it very ill, no doubt. If I marry, in India, 
 the daughter of some nabob with a few millions, I will 
 employ one of them, on my return, in publishing the 
 280 volumes of paternal eloquence, and you will there 
 see what sensation is. Notwithstanding, I think you, 
 my dear friend, very happy in entertaining those opi- 
 nions, concerning which we differ. There is a class of 
 enjoyments, quite independent of the material interior 
 of our existence ; and it is by them alone, that we can 
 equalise happiness among mankind: for that which 
 results from satisfying physical wants, will always be 
 naturally very bad, and very unjustly divided. 
 
 Do you think that these pleasures, destitute of 
 material reality, are unknown to those whom you 
 call materialists ? Are not the most exclusive of them 
 subject to the laws of sympathy? Whether it be in 
 them the mechanical result of their organisation, or a 
 faculty of the mind, is of small importance — in all, it is 
 a feeling which makes them share the affections of 
 other men, not only those affections whose indications 
 they see, but also all those of which they become con- 
 scious without the aid, without the physical impression, 
 of their senses. There are atheists who have a wor- 
 ship, and a very useful one too : it is the worship of 
 humanity. I know more than one of this description. 
 To themselves, they are stoics, to others, angels of 
 charity and indulgence. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 19 
 
 You impute to physiology, pretensions which it does 
 not entertain. It is not physiologists who have pre- 
 tended to explain the most secret mysteries of the 
 intellect; metaphysicians, only, are capable of such 
 impertinence. It is true, that a few ill-informed phy- 
 sicians have believed that they could explain the 
 functions of organic life, by the simple laws of physics, 
 and chemistry. But even that is impossible. However 
 admirable chemistry may have become, during the last 
 half score of years — and mark, there are not in France 
 six physicians, even among the juniors, who are aware 
 of the point to which this science has risen — it is quite 
 insufficient to account for these strange phenomena. 
 There is a something in them, of which it is perfectly 
 allowable for reason to form an immaterial and im- 
 mortal principle. The French philosophers of the 
 last century and of the present, who have been termed 
 sensualists, and have been very generally supposed 
 to be materialists, I mean Condillac, Cabanis and 
 M. de Tracy, have seen, it is true, in the senses and 
 intellect of man, only one of the faculties of his orga- 
 nisation ; but they never asserted that the laws of inert 
 matter, the laws of physics and chemistry, presided ex- 
 clusively over organic life. Be that however as it may, 
 my dear friend, the life of the shapeless lichen which 
 grows on every thing that will afford it support and a 
 little moisture, is physiologically quite as inexplicable as 
 that of the most perfect of animals, man ; every thing 
 that has life, is equally incomprehensible. In this respect, 
 
 c 2 
 
20 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 nothing is either more or less so. If you grant us a 
 soul, you must also allow something similar to other 
 animals, which, though so inferior to us, possess, not- 
 withstanding, many intellectual faculties, and several 
 modes of sensation, common to all. Seneca, following 
 Epicurus, of whose philosophical principles he partook, 
 explains the sensibility of organised beings, by the u ani- 
 ma mundi" (the soul of the world), as the mechanical 
 motions of the heavenly bodies have been since ex- 
 plained by attraction. This " anima mundi" pleases 
 me much, precisely on account of its being so vague 
 and indefinite a term. I see in it, something resembling 
 a reason, but which is not clear enough not to be 
 rejected as absurd, if it is not at once adopted as true. 
 I might have talked this stuff to you, at our fireside 
 at Paris, as well as here ; and yet there is nothing so out 
 of the ordinary, as the place where I now am. We are 
 to-day, the 1 3th of October, at a short distance from 
 the equator, after having been nearly fifty days at sea, 
 with the prospect of another month ere we reach Rio 
 Janeiro. You, who have read Lord Byron's works, 
 must think the sea marvellously fine. For my part, I 
 feel none of its poetry. I see, but without admira- 
 tion, the sun rise and set every day. He illuminates 
 only a monotonous and lifeless horizon, which has 
 nothing in it to excite the mind; any more than in the 
 monastic sort of life we are forced to lead on board 
 ship. I read, write, and work a good deal ; but I should 
 like some better company, for I find little entertain- 
 
 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 21 
 
 ment in that of the young officers on board. They 
 are excellent young men, but ill-informed, though 
 perfectly amiable, mild, and good-natured ; and in my 
 intercourse with them, I find all I could wish, except 
 amusement. I should be quite at a loss in this respect, 
 were it not for the governor of Pondicherry, M. de 
 Melay, who is a very clever man. We quite coquette 
 with each other, though we have few infidelities to ap- 
 prehend ; for, except from each other, there is no one 
 on board from whom we*can expect rational conversa- 
 tion. You may say if you like, my dear friend, that 
 I have concluded with a piece of vile impertinence, and 
 you would benight, if you were any one else. But, 
 methinks, we know each other well enough, to state 
 without reserve or false modesty, the good and evil 
 that we think. 
 
 On our voyage hither, we put in for four days at 
 Teneriffe, and I wrote from that place to my father ; 
 so that he will have been but a short time without 
 hearing from me. Teneriffe was quite a new object of 
 interest to me, for it is a Spanish country, and I had 
 never seen one. I made a long trip in the mountains 
 mounted on an ass — do not suppose that these asses 
 are like ours : — I met camels on the way ; this was a 
 stamp of locality ; but at a ball in the evening at the 
 house of a rich inhabitant of Santa Cruz, who had 
 invited the officers of the Zel6e, I had on black clothes 
 as at Paris, and all the men were dressed, like me, in 
 the newest fashions of London and Paris. But few of 
 
22 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the women had any thing Andalusian in their dress ; 
 on the contrary they wore " robes a gigot, v and we 
 danced French contre-danses set to Rossini's most 
 popular airs. Then there was £cart6 in the next room. 
 Farewell to the stamp of locality ! The whole world 
 is tending to assume the same appearance, stupid, 
 rather melancholy, and very vulgar. I shall be out of 
 humour with it many a time, before I return to Europe. 
 Adieu, my dear Zoe, write to me when you think it 
 will afford you pleasure; never mind the place where 
 your letters will find me, only send them to my father. 
 Tell all our friends about you, that I retain a delightful 
 recollection of the two hours which I spfnt at Barly. 
 Rio Janeiro, just arrived, 28th October. 
 
 TO M. PORPHYRE JACQUEMONT, PARIS. 
 
 Saturday, 18th October, 1828, at sea. Lat. 6° south, 
 Lon. 27° 35' west from Greenwich. 
 
 I trust, my dear Porphyre, that before the arrival 
 of this letter which will only be sent from Rio, our 
 father will have received my first to him, dated from 
 Teneriffe, where we arrived on the 1 3th of September, 
 and remained till the 17th. A ship was soon to sail 
 for Marseilles, and the consul promised to take advan- 
 tage of the opportunity. Thus, you cannot have been 
 two months without hearing from me, or having some 
 token of my existence. Since our departure from 
 Teneriffe, till within these few days, our voyage has 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 23 
 
 been very much impeded by calms and contrary winds. 
 The trade winds, which we had a right to depend upon 
 to carry us into the vicinity of the equator, have, to 
 the great surprise of the sailors, almost entirely failed 
 us. Last year, in going to, and returning from, Saint 
 Domingo, I saw them equally inexact at their post, so 
 that this time, I was very little astonished at their 
 absence ; the less so, as I have always had but little faith 
 in the theory which accounts for their constantly blow- 
 ing from the same quarter. You may just as well give 
 the same reason to explain why your daughter is dumb. 
 Nevertheless, I make many little observations on rain 
 and fine weather, which do not exactly confirm certain 
 ideas on meteorology, admitted formerly on trust, and 
 which had always appeared satisfactory to me. The calms 
 commenced about 18° north. The sky then became 
 constantly clouded, every day brought us some drops of 
 rain, followed sometimes, for an hour or two, by a squall 
 which drove us on a few miles ; and thus, with much 
 trouble, we slowly reached the fifth degree. There we 
 were delayed several days, constantly manoeuvring to 
 no purpose, till last Monday, when the south-east wind 
 arose, and taking us on the beam, brought us in two 
 days to the equator which we crossed at full speed — 
 a trim we have since kept up night and day, and 
 which, if we can retain it so long, will take us to 
 Rio in eleven days. With a young captain of thirty, 
 you may guess that the crossing of the line does not 
 take place without the customary ceremonies. A sailor 
 
24 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 — the greatest scamp of all, and the most stupid look- 
 ing — said mass- — a mass after his own fashion, — with 
 a surplice and altar got up for the occasion. He gave 
 us a most laughable sermon, after which, the uninitiated 
 were gravely shaved with a wooden razor four feet long j 
 they then swore to old father Line, never to lie with a 
 sailor's wife, and paid him ten francs for his trouble. 
 This ceremony being over, the officers among them- 
 selves aft, and the ship's company forward, threw 
 buckets of water into each others' faces for an hour. 
 The fire engine also played successfully in drenching, 
 at the mast-heads, the fugitives who had escaped from 
 the fray. We then went below to change our clothes, 
 and on returning upon deck we found every thing in its 
 accustomed order, the little previous saturnalia having 
 left no trace behind. In the evening, the captain gave 
 us a dinner with all the research possible : we had green 
 peas, truffled partridges, and other dainties. M. de 
 Melay, a little excited by the noise and the pretended 
 liqueurs of Madame Anfoux, sang drinking songs, then 
 some of the gayest of Beranger's, and we finished with 
 the most genuine sea songs in the world. The poor 
 Abbe, who was next to me, was near making his escape 
 to avoid the choruses. I confess, I never heard the 
 like. The crew, who during this time — three hours at 
 table — had received double rations and some liquor, were 
 in high glee : they were allowed to come and dance on 
 the quarter deck : and as there were no musicians 
 among the seamen, they accompanied themselves with 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 25 
 
 the voice, to tunes that would have scared the devil, 
 and words abominable enough to bring the whole 
 infernal host to carry off the singers. The poor Abbe 
 went to prayers, in his little retreat, without being able 
 to prevent these horrors from reaching him. It is impos- 
 sible for a priest to exist on board ship. Accordingly, 
 in spite of the regulation which gives a chaplain to every 
 ship and frigate, not one will accept the office: they 
 would have to live in the hold, if they would not be 
 constant witnesses of the most fearful blasphemy. 
 
 Most of the provisions we brought from Brest being 
 spoiled, we have been obliged to throw them overboard. 
 Our fane is hence become right royal : we live on the 
 king's salt beef and pork, dried kidney beans, and sour 
 krout. While you doubtless are eating grapes at your 
 breakfast and dinner, a piece of salt beef brings my 
 meals to an abrupt close. But you have already cold 
 and rain — I enjoy a charming temperature. I am 
 astonished how mild it is, for it does not exceed about 
 26 centigrade (79 Fahrenheit). Then, in another fort- 
 night, perhaps sooner, I shall revenge myself at Rio 
 on the oranges, pine apples, bananas, and all the inter- 
 tropical fruits, which I do not like less than our own, 
 and which are in greater variety. At Teneriffe, we 
 already found bananas, which, fortunately for amateurs, 
 every one -does not like. The grape of this country 
 resembles in size that of the promised land, but it is 
 far from being equal to ours, even the worst in the 
 environs of Paris. Good day, for the present, my 
 
26 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 friend. Here you have enough of gossip, consider- 
 ing I say nothing : it seems as if we were only twenty 
 leagues apart. I chat for the sole pleasure of chatting 
 with you. I reserve for Rio, this bit of white paper 
 that still remains. 
 
 P. S. From Rio, where we are casting anchor, just as 
 a merchantman is getting under weigh for France. In 
 good health, all well. We shall be here a week at 
 least, and I will write before we leave. 
 
 28th October, 1828. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Bio, 6th November, 1828, on board the Zelee, 
 in the Roads. 
 
 I arrived here on the 28th of October. The same 
 evening, I despatched a letter for Porphyre, the first I 
 have written to him since I left Brest. With regard to 
 myself, my dear father, it is one in the morning, I am 
 dreadfully sleepy and fatigued, although wonderfully 
 well, and leave you to go to bed. This place is mag- 
 nificent, I have never seen any thing so beautiful, but 
 we sail the day after to-morrow, and I am plagued with 
 cares of all kinds. Send the enclosed to J. Taschereau. 
 I embrace you with all my heart, and Porphyre also. 
 
 Adieu ! Adieu ! 
 
 14th November. 
 
 This day week, at noon, in the finest weather in 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 27 
 
 the world, in going out of the roadstead, which is 
 immense, we ran foul of a merchantman at anchor. I 
 think if I had wished it, poor wretch as I am, I should 
 not have succeeded in this difficult feat. Nobody was 
 hurt, but plenty of masts and sides broken and driven 
 in. The French agent will pay the damage. We have 
 been under repairs ever since. To-morrow we go to 
 sea again, span new, and finer than ever. 
 
 Every one has been merry at the expense of the 
 Zelee — I as well as the rest. Besides, I am very glad to 
 know by experience, what running foul is. 
 
 Within this week, I have discovered the three young 
 Taunays. One of them is an artist, and professor of 
 painting at the Imperial Academy ; another, major of 
 cavalry in the imperial army ; and a third, chancellor 
 of the consulship. This evening, I am going to see an 
 animal extremely rare in America — an emperor. I shall 
 take advantage of the same opportunity to see-l'Italiana 
 in Algieri, for it is at the opera that I am to enjoy 
 the sight of that excellent imperial groom. I have only 
 time to dress before dinner, and I quit you without 
 farther ceremony, with the kindest regards. 
 
 TO M. ACHILLE CHAPER, PARIS. 
 
 On board the Zelee, at sea, between Rio Janeiro and the Cape 
 of Good Hope, Wednesday, 10th December, 1828. 
 
 I do not wait till we arrive at the Cape to write to 
 you, my dear friend, for 1 am ignorant of the time — 
 
^8 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 probably very short — that' we shall be there, and I shall 
 have leisure only for the stones, plants, things, and, if 
 possible, the men of that country. Besides, what could 
 I say to you from thence, which I cannot equally well 
 say to you now ? Here have we passed over half 
 the distance from France to India ; but it is more than 
 three months and a half since we sailed. The ship sails 
 badly, and we have frequently had contrary winds and 
 calms. At Rio Janeiro, which we lately left, having 
 made a previous stay at Teneriffe, we got damaged in 
 our first attempt to leave ; this obliged us to put in 
 again to refit, and we thus remained there three 
 weeks instead of one. I consoled myself for this delay 
 with the opportunity it afforded me of becoming ac- 
 quainted with some particulars of a country I shall not 
 see again, for which nature had done all, but man has 
 spoiled, irreparably ruined ! I have spoken to you of 
 Saint Domingo — undoubtedly I did not give you a 
 very brilliant picture of it ; well ! in my opinion Saint 
 Domingo has made greater progress in civilisation than 
 Brazil. I here saw, for the first time, negro slavery, on 
 an immense scale, forming the key-stone of society. In 
 twenty days, I saw several vessels arrive from the coast 
 of Africa, loaded with these miserable creatures, a prey 
 to frightful diseases, heaped together on landing, and 
 penned in like animals ; and side by side with these 
 horrors, the most refined luxuries of European civili- 
 sation. The Portuguese, like the Spaniards, feel not 
 the contempt, the physical repugnance towards negroes, 
 which few English or French can resist. They have 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. %9 
 
 not instituted against them, that system of refined 
 humiliation adopted by the colonists of Jamaica and 
 the Leeward Islands ; but they are not less violent and 
 merciless masters. Under their whip, the negroes live 
 a few years, and die without issue. The character of 
 this unhappy race must be very mild, innocent, and 
 timid, for revenge and crimes not to be more common 
 at Rio, than they are. The masters, with their polished, 
 even elegant, European exterior, are, in many respects, 
 as much debased by slavery as the brutalised negroes. 
 I saw them with their golden key on their coat, with 
 their diamonds, their ribands, their titles, their igno- 
 rance, baseness, and dishonesty, and I was disgusted. 
 I sought a middle class — laborious, thrifty, honest, 
 respectable — I found none. Beneath this gilt-edged 
 rabble, I found only black slaves, or free men of colour, 
 who are slave-owners, and the worst of all. Is that 
 a nation ? And is it not the portrait of all the new 
 independent states, dismembered from Spanish Ame- 
 rica ? The Spanish and Portuguese races are not more 
 progressive in the New World, than in the Old. They 
 possess liberty only in name. But what is liberty? — is 
 it an end or a means ? You will see, my friend, what 
 inter-tropical America will become with its liberty : 
 it will be what it was before — a country without inha- 
 bitants, and without riches, because it is without labour. 
 Labour and economy are all that are required ; and 
 liberty is precious only when employed in working, 
 and in laying by. An admirable use is made of it in 
 
30 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the United States ; because the English race, by whom 
 the whole of the North of the New World was peopled, 
 is eminently industrious and orderly. I have told you, 
 how the North Americans crushed us French by 
 free competition. What will their neighbours, the 
 Mexican Spaniards, do beside them ? 
 
 The colonial despotism which still exists in Canada, 
 though much tempered, cramps the English popu- 
 lation on whom it is imposed, in the development of 
 its industry and tendency to improvement, and opposes 
 an obstacle to its increase and strength. In Brazil, the 
 oppressions and vexations, preserved by the monarchical 
 form of government, but feebly defend the country 
 against a contrary principle of decay and weakness. 
 
 In Brazil, all labour is performed by negro 
 slaves. Stop the traffic, abolish slavery, and there 
 will be no work at all. Shoot or depose the emperor 
 Don Pedro, dismember his monarchy into several con- 
 federated republics, — and anarchy will break forth every 
 where ; it will favour the revolt of the blacks, and the 
 whites will, in many places, be massacred. There is no 
 escaping from this alternative, except by maintaining 
 the present order of things. It is most melancholy ! 
 
 Perhaps you will have learnt, ere you receive this 
 letter, that Bolivar has made himself king : I wish it 
 may be so, for the sake of his country. Our friends 
 will exclaim "treason!" — people will cruelly repent 
 having compared him to Washington, because he will 
 have violated the name of a vain and useless liberty ; 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 31 
 
 and they will not understand, that a despotic chief is a 
 thousand times preferable to the frightful anarchy 
 which now desolates the new American republics. 
 Liberty is a superfluity for nations in want of food and 
 laws. 
 
 The time, occupied by my long passage, goes on 
 quietly. The most happy understanding subsists 
 among the inhabitants of this floating prison ; but 
 my life is idle and monotonous. I have lived upon 
 prose since I have been on board : it is the sea system 
 and I must yield to it. If you imagine that there 
 is any poetry in the life of a sailor, how greatly 
 are you mistaken! Nothing is more like a convent 
 than a ship of war. Every day resembles the one 
 before ; each hour brings periodically the same task j 
 there is no care for any thing external, and within, 
 a profound reliance on the return of breakfast in the 
 morning, and dinner in the evening. One is sure, 
 when night comes, to find one's bed made, and on 
 awaking in the morning, a change of linen. This 
 uniformity might suit a studious life : but beware of 
 it. The day drags on, and is wasted on words and 
 trifles. 
 
 I intermix, with my scientific readings, the study of 
 Persian, which I find not very difficult. With respect 
 to the agreeable, it is very confined in my little 
 travelling library, being restricted to three small 
 volumes, Catullus Tibullus and Propertius, in Latin; 
 Moore's Lalla Rookh, and Tristram Shandy — that is 
 
32 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 all. But Tristram Shandy is a feast in itself. I like 
 Sterne infinitely. His eccentricity pleases me. Are 
 we not made so ? Do we not pass in an instant, 
 without knowing why, from one idea to another ? 
 Among the infinite variety of tones in his book, I can 
 always find a page in unison with the actual state of my 
 heart, or the caprice of my mind. No one, assuredly, has 
 more abused the elliptical style than he has, since he 
 has left whole chapters blank. To a fool, it is a 
 complete mystification, and one which he would not 
 find very piquant, because it is very easy : but is 
 that blank page really a wordless riddle? — Why 
 not seek to fill it up ? This is to me, particularly 
 on board ship, Sterne's greatest merit : for when I 
 have read a score of lines, as I am walking on deck, 
 and the ship gives a lurch, I can put the book in 
 my pocket and continue my walk with pleasure. I 
 have matter for thought. The pretty tales of Moore 
 have not an equal power of pleasing me ; and, as 
 for my three ancients, I have far less taste for them 
 than for my modern English. 
 
 Chaper, what a revolution in my existence ! During 
 the six years of our acquaintance and friendship, what 
 vicissitudes have we not encountered — how many things 
 have we not talked of! Sometimes, in those rare mo- 
 ments when I am allowed to be alone, fantastic images 
 of happiness and misery rise before me in the dim 
 obscurity of the past, I know not whether I am dream- 
 ing or awake : for some moments I remain dazzled, and 
 
LAHOUE AND CASHMERE. 33 
 
 when I again open my eyes, I perceive that I was only 
 recollecting, while I thought I was dreaming. Yet, 
 my friend, the memory of those piercing impressions 
 which once thrilled my very soul, is becoming gradually 
 effaced. The mind alone possesses memory. It re- 
 cals exactly the facts of which it has had cognisance, — 
 the ideas which it has conceived. It recals them, 
 even when it has ceased to judge them. The heart 
 has not this faculty : it possesses no memory — it 
 knows only what it actually feels. If it appears to 
 recal past feelings, it is because they are not yet ex- 
 tinguished, and still affect it. Do not you think so ? 
 Do not you think so? — as if we were not a thousand 
 leagues apart ! — as if I knew whether this letter will 
 ever reach you, and when ? And your answer ? — 
 can I expect it in less than a year ? — and where shall I 
 be then ! Oh, my friend, how has my youth been 
 thwarted ! — what a life of wandering is mine ! Yet, do 
 not imagine that I regret having reached the term 
 to which the concurrence of circumstances has brought 
 me. I would change nothing of .the direction my life 
 has taken, since my departure for the United States. 
 Whatever sacrifice I may have made, in tearing my- 
 self for so long a period from my old father and 
 friends, the firm hope of seeing them again, makes 
 me endure it with cheerfulness. We shall meet 
 again, my friend, still young, yet grown old from the 
 agitation of our youth — we shall meet again, in the 
 
 D 
 
34 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 calm strength of manhood. Shall we find more hap- 
 piness in that tranquil state ? I hope so. 
 
 It will, doubtless, be very difficult for me to send you 
 any news of myself. But you will henceforth always 
 know where to find me ; if not on the map, at least in 
 life. You will, in thought, easily fill up the intervals 
 of mine, of which I may leave you in ignorance. You 
 see me now following a straight line ; you have only 
 to prolong it to find me. 
 
 Adieu, my friend ! be happy. 
 
 Cape of Good Hope, 
 Tuesday, \Qth December, 1828. 
 
 We arrived here a week ago, with splendid 
 weather. It has lasted the whole of this week, which 
 I have spent here, comfortably and agreeably on 
 shore, and living in a beautiful spot. I am surrounded 
 by so many interesting objects, that I know not how 
 to manage to examine the whole. I have seen as 
 many as possible, and of every possible kind. 
 
 Adieu, my good friend ! for I have not time to 
 write any more. 
 
 TO M. DE MARESTE, PARIS. 
 
 On board the Zelee at sea, December HtJi, 1828. 
 
 It is very true, my good friend, that were I to pass 
 another year at sea, I might experience the dreadful 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 35 
 
 malady with which our friend Dr. Stendhal threatened 
 me: -for I already feel myself Men paysan du Da- 
 nube, although I have not been at sea more than three 
 months at a time. Though I do not require a large 
 establishment to work, I cannot do it without some 
 accommodation ; a little quiet is moreover necessary. 
 Beranger may reckon upon a dozen leaden bullets 
 if, on my return to France, they should take it into 
 their heads to make me a rey netto*. Figure to your- 
 self, my dear friend, some fifty officers and sailors, 
 singing together, each in his own key, and without even 
 sticking to it, what we liberals call the odes of that 
 great poet. This abominable Dutch concert, of which 
 Beranger has furnished the first materials, makes me 
 have a horror of him. 
 
 The young officers, with whom I live, were, on 
 leaving Angouleme, at the age of sixteen, taken into 
 the service of the constitutional monarchy. They were 
 shipped off without being allowed even to visit their 
 families ; and they have now been from eight to ten 
 years at sea, without being able to obtain more than a 
 few months' leave of absence. This makes them tolera- 
 bly good sailors ; and they do not run against people in 
 the streets, or overturn them against the posts, or into 
 the ditch ; but you will allow, that this system is not 
 adapted to make them amiable men. They all know 
 perfectly well, how to take the sun's meridian altitude, 
 
 * An absolute King-. 
 D 2 
 
36 A JOUKNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 or a lunar distance, and can calculate, methodically, 
 from these observations, and those of the chronometer, 
 their exact situation at sea — all things of little diffi- 
 culty ; but they have not the most superficial notions 
 of astronomy, mechanics, or general physics. No one 
 here distinctly knows the difference between a thermo- 
 meter and a barometer. Several have remained three 
 years in the Mediterranean, constantly in harbour, in 
 the Levant, the Archipelago, or Italy ; others have 
 passed a year in Chesapeake bay ; yet not one knows a 
 word of either Italian, or English. This is monstrous, 
 and I am not yet used to it. 
 
 The most perfect understanding, however, subsists 
 here ; and that is a great deal. I play chess with them ; 
 and chat with them upon the only subject they under- 
 stand — their profession. This curiosity of mine sur- 
 prised them at first ; they satisfy it with a good grace, 
 and without making any remark. If you have any 
 interest at head quarters, pray get me appointed, on 
 my return to France, minister of marine : I warrant I 
 should make a capital one. 
 
 The Zelee is a log, and sails very badly. You will 
 see it by the little way we have made since the 26th of 
 August, when we left Brest : for, since that time, we have 
 remained only four days at Teneriffe and twenty-one at 
 Rio Janeiro, and we are now hardly nearer the Cape, 
 than we are to Brazil. These passages are child's play 
 to the first voyage I made, in winter, from France to 
 the United States. I suppose my d6but, at sea, must 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 37 
 
 have been one of the warmest : for I have since heard 
 people complain of little gusts of wind, which, on my first 
 voyage, occurred every day. Hence I am more than 
 ever Monsieur sans tempete, and if, at Bourbon, 
 I do not see a hurricane blow a few ships into shivers, 
 nothing will drive this idea from my head*. 
 
 Brazil is the abomination of desolation. Imagine 
 some hundreds of viscounts and marquesses, with the 
 gold key on their coat, five or six gold, silver, or 
 diamond stars, of all sizes and colours ; ignorant, cow- 
 ardly, and subservient to the emperor's pleasure ; and 
 under them, no middle class of respectability, nothing 
 but a rabble of retailers and rogues, nearly white; 
 then a terrific number of negro slaves almost naked, 
 who live a few years and die, commonly without issue. 
 They are driven to labour with the whip: a small por- 
 tion of their labour feeds them, and they receive a belt 
 and a pair of trowsers : the rest goes to find the 
 carriages, cambric shirts, and silk stockings of the 300 
 marquesses. Depose Don Pedro, and all the provinces 
 will separate into federative republics. Anarchy will 
 burst forth everywhere : then, soon after, will come the 
 revolts of the negroes, and there will no longer be any 
 European rule in Brazil. Keep the emperor, but 
 abolish the slave trade, and there will be no more 
 labour, no income for anybody; all must decamp if 
 
 * We shall see, that Jacquemont completely changed his opinion, 
 regarding- the non-existence of storms, Bourbon having- offered him 
 one of the most splendid, but horrible spectacles of the kind. 
 
38 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 they would not starve ; and you will see all the 300 
 fashionables, with their stars and gold keys, arrive at 
 the hells of Paris, Cadiz and London. The statu quo 
 is the only thing possible. The emperor, though 
 sincerely devoted to the constitutional theories of M. 
 Constant, is convinced of this, and governs accordingly. 
 He lives from day to day, not caring for the future. 
 Don Miguel is much loved at Rio Janeiro, as it was 
 he who consummated the separation of Brazil from 
 Portugal. 
 
 What few political journals there are here, are edited 
 by foreigners, mostly French. The emperor cannot 
 give his subjects, his macaucos, as he calls them — for 
 he often tells them, they are a set of mischievous apes — 
 the liberty of the press. He has established it by law, but 
 the manners of the country are opposed to it. Several 
 journalists have been knocked on the head, in the 
 streets, at night, for telling the truth. This disgusted 
 the rest, and they do not say a word more. Besides, 
 no one would be at the cost. 
 
 Scenes of violence are frequent. I was near being 
 struck by a pistol shot, fired by a robber, who was es- 
 caping, at his pursuers. He was taken, pinioned, and 
 conveyed to the palace guard-house in the emperor's ves- 
 tibule. There he was examined quite after the Turkish 
 fashion. The police deliberated whether they should 
 release, beat, or kill him ; the officers looked calmly on, 
 smoking their cigars, with their hands behind their 
 backs. He was beat with such severity, as to break 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 39 
 
 one of his arms, and then imprisoned. The same 
 evening, I saw one black beat another to such a degree, 
 that he killed him on the spot. I was told it was a 
 father who had killed his son, the latter having at- 
 tempted to assassinate him. He was not apprehended. 
 Besides, the law scarcely ever condemns to death, even 
 slaves; and when by chance there is an execution, there 
 is a general consternation throughout the city ; and 
 the devotees have mass performed for the salvation of 
 the culprit. Almost all crimes and misdemeanours 
 lead indifferently to the galleys : and they are frightful. 
 Figure to yourself, that the administration of justice 
 does not even order a regular distribution of provisions 
 in the prisons. The prisoners live entirely on alms : 
 when these fail, they die of starvation, unless the chan- 
 cellor sends tliem some bananas. 
 
 The Brazilian navy is composed of two ships of the 
 line and some fine frigates, manned with tolerably 
 good foreign crews ; but so badly commanded by native 
 officers, that the smallest French, English, American, 
 or Dutch squadron would not, in a few hours, leave a 
 single plank of them floating. 
 
 Admiral Roussin, with the threat of destroying the 
 whole, obtained from the government the promise of 
 restoring all that had been lost by French commerce 
 in La Plata. It was necessary to use violence, to 
 obtain this indemnity. 
 
 The Americans have, for a long time, had only a 
 corvette on the Rio station, notwithstanding which, no 
 
40 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 one ever attempts to show them the slightest incivility. 
 They are not loved ; but they are feared. It is 
 because they are in earnest ; and the commander of 
 this corvette lately threatened the Brazilian admiral, 
 that he would sink him and his whole squadron, to 
 the last man, if he dared to overhaul any ship of his 
 nation forcing the blockade, which he never would 
 acknowledge. 
 
 I think, my friend, that France is rapidly returning 
 to that state of low estimation, which it enjoyed at 
 foreign stations, about the year I76O, in the time of 
 Alfieri's youth. We are laughed at every where ; it 
 would be no worse, even if we did not expend fifty- 
 eight millions of francs annually on our navy, and two 
 hundred millions on our army. 
 
 At Rio, we keep up our reputation as hair dressers, 
 and dancing masters. The Rue Vivienne of this country, 
 called Rua d'Ouvidor, is peopled by Parisian milliners, 
 
 tailors, and hair dressers. These milliners are the 
 
 of the highest ton. The emperor amuses his fancy with 
 almost all. The people at Rio therefore believe, ac- 
 cording to a rule-of-three undoubtedly very deceptive, 
 that Frenchmen are all hair dressers, and French- 
 women all . For that reason I spoke English. — I 
 
 put on a stiff, and almost insolent air, — and every one 
 received me kindly. 
 
 There is a fine theatre at Rio, where a detestable 
 Italian company, with a still more execrable orchestra, 
 murder Rossini three times a week. I saw U Italiana 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 41 
 
 in Algieri. The higher ranks yawn there as they do 
 at Paris, by way of ton, and, I believe, a thousand 
 times more. The fashionables of the environs of the 
 city come at eight o'clock in post chaises. The postillion 
 unyokes the two mules, which feed on the grass of the 
 square during the performance ; at eleven they are 
 again put to, and he resumes his seat, ready to take 
 his master. The emperor is always present ; for, be- 
 sides the milliners of the Rua d* Ouvidor, he allows 
 himself all the dancers and figurantes, of the thea- 
 tre. — He pays them according to their merit j that 
 is, from ten to twenty francs. The ballet at Rio is in 
 the taste of that of Brest, or Draguignan. It is the 
 most pleasing part of the performance. 
 
 You are well aware that I unfortunately am ac- 
 quainted with Naples only by means of pictures and 
 panoramas, and you will most likely not acknowledge 
 me as a judge of its beauty. But the roadstead at Rio 
 appears to me to be still more beautiful. The virgin 
 forest of M. de Clarac is not thick enough ; the sky is 
 seen among the trees, and this is incorrect. Enormous 
 parasitical plants, whose scientific names I spare you, 
 but whose foliage resembles the noble leaves of the pine- 
 apple, and their flowers those of the iris, but variegated 
 with a thousand colours, grow on the trees like our 
 misletoe. A thousand different species of creepers 
 climb, and hang in festoons over the flowery masses, and 
 interlace in a hundred different ways. If you wished 
 to pluck one, you would bring down a whole forest. 
 
42 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Then, in the environs of Naples, I, as a botanist, can 
 find only sixty species of trees, both great and small, 
 seven or eight at most of which are common. Around 
 Rio I reckon a thousand very common : hence a 
 prodigious variety of foliage, form and colour. M. 
 de Clarac's engraving does not give these interesting 
 details. 
 
 I think, my good friend, that you will not forget me 
 during my long absence, and that, although distant, 
 you will give me assurance of your existence and your 
 friendship. I shall be dreadfully alone in India ! 
 Letters from Paris have already become very valuable to 
 me ! How will it be two years hence ? You know that, 
 in spite of my rather grave profession of savant, I still 
 have still a tolerable taste for trifles ; — let me have 
 some, for it is precisely what I shall be in want of among 
 the English in India. 
 
 To finish with a bonne bouche, — I have here a 
 prisoner on board, like myself, a very clever and amiable 
 man, the governor of Pondicherry. I knew him at St. 
 Domingo, at my brother's, the American. We protect 
 each other from ennui. He has seen many men, and 
 many things, — has not forgotten them, and talks to me 
 of the whole with candour and elegance. He has nothing 
 of the sailor in him, though a captain in the navy. 
 I shall regret leaving him at Pondicherry. He lately 
 lent me Simond's excellent " Voyage en Angleterre," 
 which I was barbarian enough to know only by name. 
 I say amen! to almost every page in this book — one 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 43 
 
 of the most amusing with which I am acquainted. 
 M. Simond, whose authority the baron de Stendhal 
 assuredly respects, has, notwithstanding his taste for 
 the arts, put storms in their proper place. This passage 
 in his book was a little triumph for me. 
 
 Adieu, my dear friend ! — kind remembrances to all 
 about you that we used to see together. My trade 
 of traveller will perhaps wither me some day ; but, at 
 present, I have still a feeling heart. I do not love 
 you all less at a distance, than near at hand. 
 
 Yours, for ever. 
 
 Closed at the Cape of Good Hope, the 28th De- 
 cember. — I arrived here on the 20th. It is no less 
 a vessel than the Astrolabe * which brings you this. 
 The day after to-morrow I sail for Bourbon. All well ! 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 On board the Zelee, at sea, \&th December, 1828. 
 
 I wrote to you for the first time from Teneriffe on 
 the 18th of September, and then on the 6th of Novem- 
 ber a few lines from Rio Janeiro. In the interval, and 
 also from Rio, I wrote to Porphyre on the 28th of 
 October. You will, therefore, my dear father, have 
 
 * The Astrolabe, commanded by M. d' Urville, was on her return 
 from a voyage of discovery, and also from researches relative to 
 the shipwreck and fate of La Peyrouse. 
 
44 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 known of my pleasant passage from France to the 
 Canaries, and you will thence have also concluded 
 the happy continuation of my sea voyage. 
 
 The slow sailing of the Zelee will make it very 
 tedious. We are to-day fifteen hundred leagues from 
 the Cape of Good Hope, and it is the eightieth day 
 since our departure from Brest ; namely, nineteen from 
 Brest to Teneriffe, forty-one from Teneriffe to Rio s 
 and thirty-one from Rio to this place in the broad 
 ocean. It will take us twenty-five days or a month 
 to go from hence to Bourbon, and six weeks more to 
 reach Pondicherry ; for we shall have the north-east 
 monsoon almost in our teeth. 
 
 My life on board is a little tedious, but very quiet. 
 Dinner and breakfast are not much like those we had 
 before we reached the Canaries. Dried vegetables, salt 
 meat and cheese, are our usual first and second course 
 and dessert. All is hard and tough, and bad-looking. 
 It would be rather unwholesome if we ate too much of 
 it ; but as this cookery, though highly spiced, stim- 
 ulates the appetite but little, we eat only just enough 
 to silence hunger; and our health is better than 
 in the Rue de 1' Universite, where man, in a state 
 of society, eats too much every day. My experience, 
 since I left Rio, confirms me in my system on this 
 head. 
 
 For a fortnight past, we have had the cool tempera- 
 ture of our own September. We have resumed our cloth 
 clothes. In the morning we enjoy the warmth of 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 45 
 
 our bed ; during the rest of the day, we have fine 
 weather and a beautiful sea. Thus we proceed slowly, 
 but without fatigue. The chess-men stand on the table 
 without falling. I prefer this motion of the vessel to one 
 more violent, which would shake us. It is a canter com- 
 pared to a trot. M. de Melay had the folly to catch a 
 cold on our departure from Rio, and is only now recover- 
 ing. We shall remain some days longer at the Cape, in 
 order that he may get well on shore. For my part I shall 
 enjoy life there ; for, notwithstanding the extreme salu- 
 brity of salt meat and dried vegetables, taken in small 
 quantities, I am in want of the green. The Cape being 
 an English town of Dutch origin, all its inhabitants, 
 like those of New York, keep a boarding house. It 
 will cost me a piastre and a half a day, for which sum I 
 shall have the pleasure of stretching myself on a bed, 
 longer and wider than myself, between nice soft sheets. 
 There is nothing like privation for making people deli- 
 cate and voluptuous. Look at Porphyre with his eider- 
 down : if he had not been to Moscow, I am persuaded 
 he would have remained content, like ourselves, with 
 the triple blanket. 
 
 There is a total absence of incident on board — nay a 
 perfect understanding among us all. It is a rinforzando 
 of reciprocal good humour. M. de Melay is, however, 
 the one who most deserves my thanks ; for the good- 
 will of the others only makes my life void of any thing 
 unpleasant, while his makes many of its moments 
 agreeable. The sphere of our conversation widens 
 
46 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 every day ; we often make little discoveries, which sud- 
 denly bring us in contact. They come within the 
 scope of scientific knowledge common to both ; or else 
 they are identical opinions on subjects, which we do 
 not see in the same light as the multitude. 
 
 We talk of the future, and of Paris : his lot is to reside 
 there on his return from India with his little fortune, 
 and his retirement as flag officer, which cannot fail him. 
 You may easily suppose, that we have spoken of the 
 places we shall have to pass through, in order to return 
 to that incomparable Paris. As for him, his way is by 
 sea ; but for me it is a much greater affair ; that same 
 way is my end, and not my means. 
 
 After running foul, on first sailing from Rio, of a 
 ship at anchor, and ten days after, being refitted and 
 sailing anew in earnest, we were for five or six mi- 
 nutes within pistol-shot of some rocks, against which 
 the current was driving us, whilst the wind did not allow 
 to pass them. Had it not been for the thousand crowns 
 in my trunk, my barometers, and other unreplaceable 
 objects, I should have looked on the matter with indif- 
 ference ; I could have saved myself easily by swim- 
 ming. The barks filled with rowers, which were tow- 
 ing us out of this dangerous passage, redoubled their 
 vigour, and we passed at last, our fear being all we had 
 to suffer. 
 
 A fortnight ago we had a hard gale which lasted two 
 days. Every one cried out against it ; but it was no- 
 thing but what was our daily fare from Havre to New 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 47 
 
 York, on board the Cadmus, of rolling and pitching 
 memory. It is lucky for me that my first voyage was 
 so rough. Since then I cannot allow that it is bad 
 weather. 
 
 I yesterday re-perused your letter written to me at 
 Brest. It begins by rectifying the orthography of one 
 of mine, in which I had said, " Tout va de sire (All 
 goes on well)." You will have a c instead of an s. I 
 think you are mistaken ; for " Aller de sire" (or " de 
 cire" according to you) is in Italian, " Andare da 
 signore. That affair goes on well, or, " va de sire, 1 ' 
 " Questo affare va bene" or, " va da signore "; won- 
 derfully well — " da signore" — because signors, with- 
 out doubt, do things marvellously well. What say you 
 to my simile? If you live long enough, you will 
 see me become a philologist, when I am old. In fact, 
 I shall not return from India without a fair pro- 
 vision of Persian and Hindostanee, or without be- 
 coming perfectly acquainted with English. It will be 
 already knowing by half that terrible German, since I 
 shall know more than half its vocabulary. 
 
 From time to time, I spend an hour or two in writing 
 every thing that strikes me. I yesterday made the trial 
 of reading a little manuscript of prose, written these 
 two months, and forgotten. It was not always tedious, 
 and that is a great deal ; for it is not a fault of mine to 
 be in love with my own works. In India I shall put 
 down every thing, that I may select when I return. 
 
48 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Cape of Good Hope, 
 Sunday, 28th December, 1828. 
 
 We arrived here a week ago, with the finest wea- 
 ther in the world. It has lasted the whole week. I 
 have profited greatly. I live on shore, and eat fruit — 
 the fruits of Europe, which are beginning to grow dear 
 to me, and those of the tropics, of which I am never 
 tired. I have walked about a great deal, asked a num- 
 ber of questions, and seen a great deal. Two days 
 after my arrival, M. d'Urville, whom you ought to 
 recollect, my dear father, and who formerly brought 
 me the plants of Greece, and moreover begged some 
 others of me, has just cast anchor at the Cape, with his 
 immense treasures. We are constantly together. I 
 have just spent the whole day on board the Astrolabe, 
 which he commands. He is a very clever man, and 
 I like him exceedingly. I here saw one of the sacred 
 anchors and cannons of La Peyrouse, which he raised 
 from the bottom of the sea, on the reefs of Vanikoro, 
 with immense trouble and danger. His vessel is dread- 
 fully shattered; and many of his men have been killed, 
 or have died. But, on these hard conditions, he has 
 succeeded beyond all sea voyagers. He sails in two 
 days, as we do — but for Toulon. He will bring you 
 this letter, which, but for him, I should have sent you 
 by M. Seguier. I am in excellent health, and am just 
 going to bed; for at four in the morning, M. d'Urville 
 is to knock at my door, to go and make a very close in- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 49 
 
 spection of the giant Adamastor. Yesterday I walked 
 twelve leagues in the mountains, in search of stones and 
 strata. I passed near Great Constantia, where I found 
 M. de Mel ay, who introduced me to the proprietor of 
 the celebrated vineyard of that name ; and after my 
 twelve leagues on foot, I refreshed myself very magnifi- 
 cently with some small glasses of that rare Constantia 
 wine, and a seat in M. de Melay's carriage, to 
 return soberly by the high road, having nothing more 
 to do among the mountains. It is very warm, but 
 
 breezy. I am perfectly well. 
 
 Adieu, my dear father, and Porphyre also. 
 
 On my arrival I received your letter containing a 
 
 page of Porphyre's ; two letters from M. de Humboldt, 
 
 one for myself, and the other to introduce me to Lord 
 
 William Bentinck; and some ludicrous and amiable 
 
 phrases of KorefPs. 
 
 In Lord Bentinck's place, I should look very cross 
 
 at any one who brought me so many letters to read, as 
 
 I have letters addressed to him. 
 
 TO M. VICTOR DE TRACY, PARIS. 
 
 On board the corvette Zelee, at sea, Monday, 12th Jan. 1829, 
 between the Cape of Good Hope and the Isle of Bourbon. 
 
 One of the first letters which I wrote after I left 
 Europe was for you, my dear friend ; the other was 
 
 e 
 
Si) A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 for my father and my brother at the same time. You 
 shared with them in my last thoughts, as I was leaving 
 my native country. Since that time, I have lost no 
 opportunity, from Rio Janeiro and the Cape of Good 
 Hope, at which we successively touched, of writing to 
 my family, through whom you have, no doubt, heard 
 of me. One of the most valuable advantages I have 
 derived from my voyage to America, is the more 
 intimate acquaintance which it has caused you to make 
 with persons who are dear to me, for so many reasons. 
 Since that time, you have better known my father and 
 my excellent brother Porphyre. In knowing them 
 better, you would love them more both for their sakes 
 and my own — I who owe them both so much, and 
 though far from them, find such delight in the tender 
 feelings which they have for me. I will not leave 
 Bourbon without addressing to you, from thence, some 
 words of remembrance, and I therefore set to work 
 beforehand. I avail myself of a calm day to visit 
 you in thought, but I am surrounded by strange, and 
 indifferent people ; I am interrupted with unpleasant 
 noises ; I cannot isolate myself in this tumult, and I 
 know not what delicacy of friendship restrains my 
 secret outpourings, and leaves me before this paper with 
 an overflowing heart, without daring to say to you those 
 tender things, which the presence of a third person 
 suffices to prevent me from expressing. In your com- 
 pany, I have frequently experienced this embarrassment, 
 when we were not alone j I could then only squeeze 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 51 
 
 your hand as I departed ; but that pressure said 
 every thing — and now we are more than two thousand 
 leagues asunder. 
 
 I remained twenty days at Rio Janeiro. A happy 
 chance brought me in contact with some fellow country- 
 men, of a character unfortunately too rare among the 
 greater number of Frenchmen who seek their fortunes 
 abroad. I soon became intimate with one of them> a son 
 of Taunay the painter, an artist, like his father, but a 
 philosophical one. He and his brothers, whose pro- 
 fessions are different, have been settled in Brazil these 
 six years. They have conversed with me in a very 
 interesting manner about what I was desirous of know- 
 ing with regard to this country, where my short stay 
 did not allow me to study the objects of nature. All 
 that man has done there is detestable. There is no 
 nation in Brazil ; the population of the empire is com- 
 posed of negro slaves, who die without issue, and require 
 constant renovation ; and some hundreds of Portu- 
 guese, decorated with titles and ribands, dressed, in spite 
 of the climate, in the Parisian fashion, but displaying 
 meanness and ignorance which would in vain be sought 
 in Europe, united in the same individual. The emperor, 
 who undisguisedly despises his subjects, and is better 
 a hundred times over than the aristocracy of birth and 
 riches by whom he is surrounded, is nevertheless not 
 far above his courtiers ; he can drive extremely well 
 through the narrow and crowded streets of Rio, 
 without running against either the posts or the passen- 
 
 e 2 
 
52 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 gers ; he is coarse in his tastes, often brutal in his 
 manners and conversation ; and yet he is one of the 
 most distinguished men of his country. 
 
 The political bond, which forms a single monarchical 
 state of the different provinces of this empire, is very 
 weak. The whole policy of the emperor consists, as he 
 himself says, in preventing it falling to pieces before his 
 death. As he gives no external strength to the terri 
 tories, which he unites under his rule — and this is fully 
 proved by the issue of the war with Buenos Ayres — the 
 remote provinces, those of the north in particular, Bahia 
 and Pernambuco, are always ready to throw off the 
 yoke of a power, whose central seat is four or five 
 hundred leagues distant, doubled at least by the want 
 of roads, and which pretends to govern them, without 
 affording them any protection. We shall therefore 
 infallibly witness a new shock of republics in this 
 beautiful portion of South America. They will not go 
 far, I think. The primitive matter of future exist- 
 ence is absolutely wanting in them. 
 
 They will be involved in anarchy ; and insur- 
 rections of the negroes, atrocious quarrels, perhaps 
 the extermination of the whites, — the inevitable con- 
 sequence of a violent emancipation of the slaves, will 
 soon follow as a matter of course. With slavery 
 labour will end, and want devour the remains of the 
 population. 
 
 The abolition of the slave trade, which, according 
 to the treaties, is to cease in a year, but which the form 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 53 
 
 of the Brazilian coast will always protect from the 
 vigilance of the English cruisers, would be the aboli- 
 tion of the empire. I have had a near view of this 
 horrible traffic at Rio, carried on on an immense scale. 
 From the sight of this human wretchedness, I have 
 retained a feeling of horror which will scarcely ever 
 be effaced from my mind. Nevertheless, whoever will 
 have the end, will also find the means. It may truly 
 be affirmed, that slavery is the sine qua non condition 
 of the existence of Brazil, as of European domination 
 in all parts of America situated between the tropics, 
 without being much elevated above the level of the sea. 
 As regards ourselves, in particular, if Cayenne and 
 Bourbon have for a few years experienced a little 
 prosperity, it is solely owing to the government of those 
 colonies, having connived at, not to say its openly 
 protected the landing of several cargoes of slaves. 
 Were I in your place, my friend, in the station which 
 you occupy, I would employ my power in the sup- 
 pression of such crimes. You do not fear extremes 
 in good : say, then, that the general voice of opinion 
 accuses the administration of these colonies of a crimi- 
 nal connivance at the slave trade. Say, that you are 
 convinced that they can prosper only by this traffic \ 
 that they could not even support themselves with- 
 out continual importations of negroes ; and that 
 their actual prosperity is the highest censure of their 
 administration. If it were honest, if it prevented the 
 introduction of slaves, the number would gradually 
 diminish, and these colonies, instead of prospering, 
 
54 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 would fall into decay. The law, which prohibits the 
 slave trade, has condemned the sugar islands to perish. 
 They do not perish ; far from it, they are flourishing ! 
 Then the law is not carried into execution. 
 
 Its execution would, however, be very easy. An 
 attempt is made to enforce it with cruisers on the coast 
 of Africa, and about the places where the slavers 
 usually attempt to land. This method is expensive 
 and ineffectual. Suppress all cruisers against the traffic ; 
 but appoint in each colony a civil officer, charged with 
 settling the civil condition of the slaves. Let every 
 slave owner be obliged to keep a book, in which they are 
 all to be inscribed, with their name, their exact descrip- 
 tion, and their filiation. The officer thus protecting 
 the civil condition of the negroes, shall go from one 
 plantation to another, without previous warning. On 
 his arrival, he shall do as our military sous-intendants 
 do in the army ; he shall pass the slaves in review, and 
 shall make the owner account for the possession of 
 each. Apply to delinquents, unable to explain how 
 they came by any slave in their possession, the penalties 
 awarded against the accomplices of the slave dealers, 
 and the traffic would, from that moment, absolutely 
 cease ; and if a slave ship was to land negroes on the 
 estate of any colonist, you would see the latter eager to 
 denounce him to the authorities, for fear the civil officer 
 should arrive at his house just at the time, render him 
 responsible, and accuse him of being an accomplice. 
 
 Yes, the colonies must perish. The law prohibiting 
 the traffic has decreed it : but they must fall slowly : 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 55 
 
 they must perish from exhaustion : — In the first place, 
 to avoid the scenes of carnage which would inevit- 
 ably follow the premature emancipation of the negroes ; 
 and in the next, to cause the burthen of the loss of 
 the property, in the actual possession of the colonists, 
 to fall on two or three generations of whites instead of 
 one. 
 
 The colonists are certainly not a very interesting 
 class ; yet humanity should rejoice that there are means 
 of withdrawing only gradually from them their iniqui- 
 tous property. However ill-acquired their riches may 
 be, however contemptible such wealth may appear in the 
 eyes of humanity, the law which makes them masters of 
 the descendants of their actual slaves, does not condemn 
 them to sudden ruin, but to gradual decay. It will 
 leave their families the time and means of re-entering 
 French society. 
 
 26th January, at sea, near Bourbon. 
 
 This desolating question of slavery constantly recurs 
 to my mind. Had you, my friend, like me, seen the 
 sales of slaves at Rio, you would be unceasingly tor- 
 mented by them. 
 
 The colossal magnitude of the English sway is a 
 blessing. There are doubtless many iniquities, many 
 odious falsehoods in the national and colonial adminis- 
 tration of that government, but it every where proscribes 
 atrocities. The war, which it carries on against the slave 
 trade, is sincere. At the Cape of Good Hope, since 
 
56 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the British have been masters there, not a slave has 
 been imported. The great caution they must use with 
 regard to the interests of the Dutch colonists, who form 
 the great majority of the population of that colony, has 
 not yet allowed them to establish in the colonial law 
 provisions for the redemption of slavery, and the enfran- 
 chisement of the children of actual slaves ; but they 
 impose such charges and such conditions on slavery, 
 that the keeping of slaves becomes too expensive to 
 pay a profit on the price they have cost their master. 
 Thus their labour becomes too dear to be lucrative, 
 and it is their personal interest which leads the colonists 
 not much to regret this horrible species of property. 
 
 A singular meeting enough at the Cape, was that 
 of a naval officer of my acquaintance, called D'Urville, 
 who put in there at the same time we did, on his re- 
 turn to Europe, after being three years occupied in 
 physical and geographical researches in the Polynesian 
 islands. He will obtain celebrity by his labours. 
 He gave me news from New Holland, New Guinea, and 
 New Zealand ; I told him those from Paris : and this 
 exchange was to our mutual liking. There is a town in 
 Van Diemen's Land, where three journals are pub- 
 lished ; the roads in the neighbourhood Mac-Adamised; 
 there are inns where you may dine sumptuously, if you 
 consent to pay your guinea ; learned and literary 
 societies, such as they are ; and no slaves. And we 
 know not the name of this place ! That great English 
 nation invades the whole universe. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 51 
 
 Adieu, my dear and excellent friend, adieu. I leave 
 you, because on one side I am consulted about a hit at 
 backgammon, while at the other ear, I am asked the 
 meaning of an English word. These annoyances are 
 odious to me. In India, no doubt, I shall have the 
 opportunity of writing long letters to you ; but in a few 
 lines written during my solitary journeyings, you will 
 find more of myself. Adieu — I embrace you tenderly. 
 
 Saint Denis, Isle of Bourbon, 1st Feb. 1829, Sunday at night. 
 
 I have been here six and thirty hours. I here found 
 your letter, from Paray, dated 8th of September, which 
 contains one from Madame Victor, and another from 
 Madame de Perey. I am indebted to you, for many 
 soft emotions, in a place full of immense interest, but 
 only mental interest ; and where the mind finds no 
 place of rest. 
 
 Chance made me live, for twelve hours, with some 
 slave dealers. It was without my knowledge. Chance, 
 afterwards, caused me to be received with the noblest 
 hospitality by some very rich inhabitants of this 
 colony. I enjoy a short period of magnificence ; in a 
 few days, the privations of life on hoard ship will 
 return. Such will be my life for several years : 
 luxury to-day, want to-morrow. What matters it at 
 my age ? What food for thought in this infinite 
 variety of scenes, presented by man and by nature ! 
 
 You, my friend, who know me, know whether there 
 is any thing in me that can lead to the enjoyment of 
 
58 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 waking dreams. Those melancholy recollections of 
 times and places, which you recall to my mind, and 
 where the thought of you remains attached to my 
 memory, make me shudder. These images make me, 
 for a few instants, lose sight of the present, of my 
 actual life ; I penetrate into the past, I seize on it again. 
 I walk about on your lawn, on your heath, under your 
 birches. I saunter on the margin of your pond. I 
 have your arm linked in mine. The strangeness of 
 the scene, in which I now am, checks and destroys 
 the illusion ; and I resume my actual life, in which 
 my thoughts are exercised only on real and positive 
 objects. 
 
 I measure, I count, I calculate ; I estimate the value 
 of things capable only of moral appreciation. In the 
 morning I am in the country among the rocks, with 
 a compass in my pocket, and a hammer in my hand ; 
 in the evening I throw off my linen clothes and straw 
 hat, and resign myself to my black cloth dress, to see 
 the lords of this place. They are in general clever ; 
 I learn a thousand things from them. 
 
 Adieu, my dear friend. It is very late, and I wish 
 to be up by sun-rise. I am alone, in a pavilion in 
 the middle of a garden, hidden by jasmine and lemon 
 trees. The fragrance, which they exhale in these warm 
 moist nights, passes through the Venetian blinds, and 
 makes me feel sleepy. But as Arimanes always comes 
 with Orosmades, the musquitoes enter along with these 
 perfumes, and contend against their drowsy influence. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 59 
 
 I enjoy and suffer at the same time. This is better 
 than not feeling at all. I embrace you with all my 
 heart. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT, THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 On board the Corvette Ztlee, at sea, 
 Monday 12*A Jan. 1829. 
 
 My dear father, I wrote my No. 3, from the Cape 
 of Good Hope ; it was commenced at sea on my passage 
 from Brazil to the Cape, and closed on the 28th of 
 December, on the terra firma of Africa. That letter, 
 which I confided to the care of M. D'Urville, com- 
 mander of the expedition of the Astrolabe, to forward 
 to you on his arrival at Toulon, where his vessel is to be 
 paid off, will have informed you of the very agreeable, 
 but very slow continuation of our voyage from Rio 
 Janeiro ; the pleasantness of our short stay at the Cape 
 of Good Hope ; and the fortunate chance by which 
 I there received the first packet you have sent me since 
 my departure. The Madagascar, which like ourselves 
 had touched at that colony, hastened to carry it to M. 
 de Melay, under cover to whom, it was addressed to me. 
 I found in it your No. 1, that of Porphyre, and M. de 
 Humboldt's letters. 
 
 We left the Cape of Good Hope on the 30th De- 
 cember. I spent the previous day in making, along with 
 D'Urville, a last and magnificent excursion to the 
 mountains overlooking the town ; and I could not re- 
 turn on board, in the roads, but the very morning of 
 
60 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 our sailing. The kindness of the officers, who had 
 promised me a boat to come ashore for me and my 
 baggage, enabled me to enjoy, to the last moment, 
 the pleasure and convenience of terra Jirma. The 
 week which I spent there, has greatly refreshed and 
 rested me. Not, however, that I remained idle in 
 the shade ; but I drank milk, which I had not had 
 an opportunity of seeing since 1 left Brest. I ate 
 fruit, and fed upon fresh and succulent food. The 
 evening meal made me forget the fatigues of the day, 
 of which some hours' slumber in an immoveable bed, 
 longer than myself, left me no feeling in the morning 
 when I awoke. When one can recruit in this way, 
 a great deal may be spent without growing poor. 
 
 I again found myself, without discomfort, in my 
 floating prison. It was peopled the day before our 
 departure with a number of new inhabitants, whose 
 society is infinitely agreeable. They consist of some 
 thirty large sheep, which Porphyre would certainly 
 charge with smelling of wool ; but we do not find fault 
 here. We thus have, that is to say, we had, two hun- 
 dred fowls, and a profusion of vegetables ; so that twice 
 a day, we can literally forget that we are at sea. 
 The whole crew partake of these niceties ; hence the 
 general health on board is excellent. For ourselves, 
 the aristocracy of this little society, they will last till 
 we reach the Isle of Bourbon. 
 
 Two days after our departure, we encountered off the 
 Cape of Tempests, and as we doubled it, the gale ren- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 6 1 
 
 dered a matter of course by poetical tradition. It 
 drowned a few of our fowls, and that was all. You 
 know that decidedly there are no tempests. The 
 longer I am afloat, the more I am convinced that they 
 are only a happy fiction of poets. The word is 
 hardly known to seamen, and they never make use of it. 
 The maximum of the species, speaking prosaically — that 
 is, sticking to the truth — is a very strong wind : it breaks 
 a mast or two, and drowns nobody. It is not terrible 
 to look at ; it is only vexigenous (engendering vexa- 
 tion), disagreeable, and ugly. The picturesque in it 
 is very rare. 
 
 Nevertheless, we had a slight specimen three days 
 after our soi-disant tempest. It was in the even- 
 ing ; the night was clear enough, but no moon. It 
 was nine o'clock. We had on deck only half the 
 crew ; these keep watch while the rest sleep. A ship 
 which we saw the whole afternoon astern of us, sailing 
 in a slightly different direction, at two leagues' dis- 
 tance, changed its course to bear down upon us ; and the 
 advantage of the wind permitted her to gain rapidly 
 upon us. This suspicious manoeuvre caused us to clear 
 for action, which was done quickly and in silence. The 
 stranger, having come within hearing, hailed us. We 
 thought we heard English. The captain desired me 
 to go up to listen, and answer. Behold me, then, 
 mounted on the poop, my ear to the wind, stationed 
 in the first tier of boxes, to receive the cannon-shot if 
 there were to be any. The stranger, of whose strength 
 
62 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 we could not judge in the position in which he presented 
 himself to us, but which all the officers asserted was a 
 ship of war, asked us in English, " What ship ours 
 was?" to which I answered, that he was very impudent 
 to think of asking such a question — that he must im- 
 mediately tell us who he was. He spoke again, without 
 our being able to understand each other ; but his atti- 
 tude became more and more hostile. We thought that 
 he meditated boarding. Immediately, a seasonable turn 
 of the helm placed us so that we could fire with advan- 
 tage. We then gave him a broadside of round shot and 
 grape ; and then directly, while all the guns were 
 being reloaded, the ship was worked so as not to wait 
 for his broadside. But the stranger seemed to be 
 stopped. I re-mounted the poop, and thence, with 
 a gigantic speaking trumpet, the only one of real use, 
 I ordered him to bring-to, and an officer to come on 
 board, or we should continue to fire. We did not at 
 first hear their reply, but we saw them execute the 
 submissive manoeuvre which had been ordered ; and we 
 waited patiently for their boat, which, however, did not 
 come. As, however, people are not very patient, when 
 they have sixteen guns ready to pour forth their con- 
 tents, without any more trouble than saying "Fire!" 
 the captain and M. de Melay, who thought the stran- 
 ger was a pirate, and owed him a grudge for the trou- 
 ble he had given, begged me to repeat the threat of 
 complete destruction. So I sacrificed my larynx to play 
 the stentor, and with success. Their people soon 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 63 
 
 arrived. I proceeded, with the captain, to interrogate 
 the officer who had come in the boat, which was done 
 in the most pacific style in the world, at least apparently. 
 However, the captain and M. de Melay desired that his 
 ship should be searched. I communicated, therefore, our 
 intended visit to him. One of our boats was lowered ; 
 there was a heavy sea; and the lieutenant of the 
 Zelee was charged with the office of boarding the 
 vessel, to reconnoitre her in detail. But as he could 
 not speak English, I was wanted again. I complied 
 with a good grace — the circumstance seeming, besides, 
 not to offer any danger, for I believed in my English- 
 man's sincerity. We were nevertheless on our guard. 
 Our boat's crew were armed ; we had at our feet, in 
 the boat, a number of pistols ready loaded. The officer 
 and the four sailors belonging to the stranger, were 
 detained on board during our absence, and were there, 
 besides, to answer for our safety. After struggling for 
 ten minutes against the sea, our boat ran alongside of 
 the stranger, which we immediately perceived to be a 
 merchantman. We were received with the greatest 
 politeness, by people of very good appearance, but 
 extremely terrified. 
 
 The vessel was from Liverpool, bound to India with 
 merchandise and three passengers. Ever since her 
 departure from Europe she had communicated with 
 nobody ; and seeing another vessel so near, had veered 
 round to say " Good night !" and exchange longitudes. 
 They had taken us in the night for a merchantman, 
 
64 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 and had approached without fear. Our shot had 
 broken a yard, and one had passed through one of her 
 courses about five feet above the deck. Fortunately no 
 one was killed. 
 
 The harsh part of our expedition was terminated in 
 an instant. The innocence of the accused was evident 
 from their weakness. I pretended to read the papers of 
 the Nancy, and told the captain that he had been only 
 guilty of extreme imprudence in approaching an un- 
 known ship at night; that, however, we were very happy, 
 as it had turned out, that none of his crew were killed ; 
 and that we should return on board our own ship, and 
 send him his men. The poor devil confessed his error 
 with all due humility, and made a thousand excuses for 
 the shot we had fired at him ; and then it was im- 
 possible for us to leave him without accepting something 
 to drink. The passengers, who were of very respecta- 
 able appearance, and for whom our arrival was a pledge 
 of the termination of that horrible music, had received 
 us with the most vehement goodwill. We were Jetted, 
 and caressed. They would have been hurt if we had 
 refused to allow them to uncork a bottle for us. The 
 steward was called, who asked me respectfully what I 
 would like to have. I replied, with a disdainful air, 
 " A glass of champagne." The cork flew to the ceil- 
 ing, and our glasses were filled. I recommended my 
 companion only to moisten his lips, in order to make 
 these people believe that we had in our hold two or 
 three feet of the same. In this respect I preached to 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 65 
 
 them from example, although their champagne was 
 excellent, and I was very thirsty from shouting so 
 much. We then adjourned, after a little admonition 
 which I gave the English captain, with whom his pas- 
 sengers seemed to be very angry on account of the 
 danger to which his imprudence had exposed them. 
 We were lowered into our boat with a thousand pre- 
 cautions, they wishing us all kinds of prosperity. We 
 were no less polite. At midnight, we returned on 
 board our own ship, where they were under no appre- 
 hensions about us. We dismissed the five hostages, 
 who passed under the fire of my English eloquence, 
 and pursued our course. 
 
 But in the tumult of the preparations for battle, one 
 man had been seriously wounded; yesterday, he was 
 obliged to make up his mind to lose his fore-arm. Our 
 young doctor had never performed any operations any 
 more than myself; it was a grand affair for him. I 
 had the pleasure of being very useful to him, by encou- 
 raging beforehand, and assisting at the critical mo- 
 ment. I tied the arteries. You may tell Jules Clo- 
 quet, that instead of tying only three, the radial, 
 cubital, and inter-osseous, I tied five, without more 
 trouble than if I had been operating on a dead body ; 
 and if you, my dear father, or Porphyre, say again that 
 Victor is awkward with his hands, I will send you a 
 stamped paper, signed by twenty witnesses, as a cer- 
 tificate of the contrary. I agree so much with the 
 opinion of these witnesses, that I regret, for the sake 
 
 F 
 
66 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 of the patient, that I did not perform the operation 
 myself. In spite of all I did to encourage the doctor 
 — a good sort of young man of twenty-three, tolerably 
 well versed in ordinary anatomy, and the minor ope- 
 rations of surgery, but nothing more — his hand shook 
 at the beginning of the operation, and it was only 
 after some minutes that he recovered completely. The 
 limb was then amputated, and I think badly enough : 
 tell Cloquet that I should have kept more skin to 
 cover the stump. I shall not close this letter at 
 Bourbon, without letting you know the result of the 
 operation, and I will then tell you, whether I should 
 have been right or wrong in keeping more skin. I 
 reckon confidently that when Frederick is minister 
 of marine, which he wishes much to be, he will make 
 me at least a knight of the Legion of Honour, for the 
 services I am doing on board the king's vessels. 
 
 The priest, whom we have on board, of course 
 availed himself of our man's amputated arm yesterday, 
 to go and puzzle him with salutary thoughts on life and 
 death. But, being informed of what was going on, 
 by M. de Melay, who had seen his reverence going on 
 tiptoe towards the hospital door, I went immediately, 
 and caught him in the act of frightening the poor 
 devil. He understood me directly, and sheered off 
 as soon as he perceived me. I have advised the 
 wounded man's friends not to quit his bedside, but 
 to keep the cure, as they call him, at a distance : 
 if he insists, they will receive him with a good broad- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. f>7 
 
 side of slang. My vocabulary, as you see, my dear 
 father, is enriched with very choice expressions. 
 
 M. de Melay is more and more amiable : he is an 
 immense resource to me ; his conversation, though 
 extremely graceful and elegant, does not the less 
 abound with thought and facts. Our backgammon 
 sometimes excites a revolution between us, but never 
 coldness. He is gay. As we are always inclined to 
 discover merit in those who find merit in us, you will 
 hence, no doubt, conclude that M. de Melay is sen- 
 sible how amiable my lordship is. 
 
 27 th January, at sea, morning. 
 
 We shall see the island of Bourbon in the afternoon, 
 and shall very probably go on shore to-morrow. Un- 
 fortunately it will not be for more than six days. Af- 
 terwards, we shall, at last, come to the beginning of the 
 last part of our voyage, but it will be a long and hot one. 
 
 The voyage had somewhat impaired my health, ere 
 we reached Rio Janeiro. From the Canaries to Bra- 
 zil, the salt provisions heated me extremely ; and I 
 slept badly. This indisposition has entirely passed 
 away ; I have been very well ever since we left the 
 Cape of Good Hope. They say I am growing fat j 
 perhaps this appearance is caused by my whiskers, 
 which I have allowed to grow for the last two months ; 
 but I certainly feel myself full of vigour. 
 
 Every thing on board continues to go on de sire, or 
 de cire — whichever you please. It is a great pity that 
 
 F 2 
 
68 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Domergue is dead, for you might have consulted him 
 on that great question, by objecting to his cire, the 
 sig?2ore of the Italians: " Tutte cose vanno da sig- 
 nore." Signorilmente, an adverb, is also used, 
 though seldom in the same sense. 
 
 I reserve the small space I have left for Bourbon 
 itself. Good-bye, my dear father. Porphyre must have 
 received my first letter. I think of both of you without 
 sadness, because I see your existence flowing on in tran- 
 quillity. We are all happy in being so constituted. The 
 love we bear to each other would serve only as a reci- 
 procal misfortune, if this feeling had with us the form 
 which it often has. We are all well here; we are 
 satisfied with our situation in life, be it what it may. 
 Methinks that, at a distance, I enjoy your satisfaction, 
 as you share in my contentment. 
 
 When I can have an hour's silence and solitude, I 
 easily quit the ground on which I stand, and transport 
 myself to you. I lose all thoughts of the enormous 
 distance which separates us. Of course you also pay 
 me similar visits : they are full of delight. Adieu. 
 
 Bourbon, 3rd February. 
 
 I have been here for three days, in the handsome 
 and elegant mansion of a rich colonist, an acquaintance 
 of Madame Ram on d. He has a son-in-law of forty- 
 five, an old naval officer, amiable, witty, and well in- 
 formed. All is for the best in this best of all possible 
 worlds. I sleep little but eat heartily ; I work a great 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMEKE. 69 
 
 deal, and am extremely well pleased here. I learn twenty 
 things every hour. Adieu, my dear father : I embrace 
 you and Porphyre. This letter will go off this evening. 
 
 TO M. PORPHYRE JACQUEMOXT, PARIS. 
 
 Quarter or Toivn of St. Denis^ Island of Bourbon , 
 Tuesday, 10th February, 1829. 
 
 I write to you, my dear friend, in the midst of 
 public consternation. We are, you know, in the hur- 
 ricane season, the summer of this country. It is the 
 dangerous season, that of those frightful rains and 
 tempests which desolate the islands situated within the 
 tropics. The weather since our arrival has been al- 
 ways rather threatening ; a whole day has seldom 
 passed without a squall. It has, however, become fine 
 again. During the last four days of last week, which 
 I employed in making a very interesting excursion in the 
 north-east part of the island, I was caught only in one 
 heavy shower. On my return here on Saturday evening, 
 I regretted not having prolonged my little journey, on 
 learning that the Zelee's departure was postponed 
 till Tuesday, this day ; but yesterday, at sunrise, the 
 sea became tremendous, a heavy swell of unusual vio- 
 lence beat on shore, and destroyed the boats and light 
 craft moored close in. Every vessel at anchor in the 
 roads immediately weighed, on the signal being made. 
 All cut their cables, leaving one or two anchors at the 
 bottom, and got out to sea, taking advantage of the 
 
70 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 south-east breeze, which fortunately blew with suffi- 
 cient force, and without which they would have been 
 dashed to pieces on the coast. I went two leagues 
 from hence to an estate belonging to my host, 
 in front of which there is also a small roadstead, where 
 the European vessels take their sugar on board. They 
 had already sailed at eight o'clock in the morning. 
 
 The day was pretty fine. I spent it in galloping 
 through the cane and other plantations on the estate 
 of M. Martin de Flacourt, my host, whose son, a man 
 of my own age, obligingly acted as my cicerone. We 
 returned to the town at four o'clock, to dine. The sea, 
 whose margin we followed in our carriage, from Sainte 
 Marie to Saint Denis, had increased but little since 
 the morning; it had, however, caused several small 
 streams, which our cabriolet had passed easily in the 
 morning, to rise so that they had become by no means 
 pleasant to cross in that manner. We heard of some 
 new accidents on our arrival. A small vessel from 
 St. Paul had capsized and eight negroes were drowned. 
 The Zel6e, in getting under weigh, had shipped three 
 enormous seas. There were on board, at the time 
 the signal for sailing was made, only two officers, the 
 lieutenant on duty and a midshipman. 
 
 The wind, which had been only fresh and steady 
 during the day, began to blow in the evening in sud- 
 den and violent squalls, and the sea again rose. It de- 
 molished some advanced works which served to protect 
 the landing-place. A hurricane was apprehended ; 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 71 
 
 and every thing moored there, or left on account of 
 its weight, was hauled on shore, as far as possible from 
 the water's edge. The rain poured down in torrents. 
 
 At two in the morning the hurricane began. 
 
 As, during the previous week, I had been constantly 
 galloping about in the day-time, up all night convers- 
 ing, mundanizing, or writing, I had an arrear of 
 sleep to pay — so much so, that the terrible shaking of 
 the houses was lost upon me. I awoke as if nothing 
 had occurred, when, at six, the negro who waits upon 
 me came into my room with the morning's cup of cof- 
 fee, and pulled me by the legs. The roaring of the 
 sea, the whistling of the wind, and the creaking and 
 trembling of my pavilion, stunned me a little. I was 
 however, soon up. I went to the harbour — at least 
 what they call the harbour. I found a crowd of inha- 
 bitants collected to contemplate the disasters of the 
 night, and those of each fresh breaker and each fresh 
 gust of wind. The pier had been carried away, and 
 they were hastily emptying the warehouses which it 
 protected. An indiscreetly curious person received a 
 stone on his head, and was carried off bleeding, in a 
 palanquin. He was scarcely noticed. Every one was 
 thinking of his own sugar, his cloves, and his coffee, 
 and cared very little for his neighbour's limbs. 
 
 The sky is charged with rain, which is falling in tor- 
 rents. Nevertheless, the wind is increasing, and the 
 sea is rising higher and higher. By not staying on 
 board the Zelee, I have missed the opportunity of see- 
 
72 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 ing, or rather experiencing, a tempest. The sea has 
 never before risen so high here, and we must go back 
 to the year 1806 for an equally violent hurricane. That 
 year it was much more terrible : it was a hurricane like 
 those whose velocity is reckoned in the " Annuaire du 
 Bureau des Longitudes" at forty-five metres per se- 
 cond. As such storms are common here, the houses 
 are built very low ; they therefore offer but slight hold 
 for the wind. None have been blown down yet ; 
 perhaps there will be some by and by. Notwithstanding 
 that, I esteem myself in perfect safety in my pretty 
 pavilion. Neither do my hosts, whose principal ha- 
 bitation is a story higher than the ground floor, fear 
 being blown into the garden. Their house, it is true, 
 is the handsomest in the town, and I know many in 
 which I should not like to sleep to-night. All are 
 built of wood — for they must also provide against 
 earthquakes ; but there are different kinds of wood : 
 good and bad. M. de Flacourt's house, as well as the 
 pavilion in which he has placed me, is built of large 
 logs of a red wood as beautiful and as heavy as maho- 
 gany, but harder ; so that I say to the wind, " Blow 
 on, you rascal ! Blow on : I defy you." 
 
 Good-by, my friend : for all this is no reason why 
 I should not dine, and I am reminded that it is three 
 o'clock. Adieu! 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. lo 
 
 11 th February. 
 
 Two small schooners, which had been drawn on 
 shore for repairs, and were lying more than thirty 
 feet above the water's edge, were carried by a sea on 
 the roof of a warehouse, which they broke through. 
 Guns were torn from their places. I returned to 
 the sea shore yesterday evening. It was covered with 
 fragments, which the waves sometimes carried off 
 to throw back again : anchors, wood, and enormous 
 rocks. Several houses had been demolished. One part 
 of the town, threatened by the progress of the inunda- 
 tion, was deserted. It was evening : the light was 
 disappearing, and night commenced fearfully. The 
 wind still blew with the same fury, and the rain was 
 dreadful. 
 
 The wind, however, has ceased. The crisis is over. 
 The sea is less terrible than yesterday, and can add 
 nothing to the damage already done, which is going to 
 be estimated. The shipping will not be able to return 
 to their anchorage for five or six days. I know not how 
 they will be able to take in their cargoes afterwards. 
 This is an iron-bound coast. The landing-places have 
 been destroyed, and it will take time to repair them. 
 The Z61£e, which had taken in all her provisions, 
 and being a King's vessel, passes before the rest, 
 will be able to sail the first ; but, like the rest, she will 
 have to get up her anchors. We are to remain here 
 ten days longer. Perhaps our vessel has suffered 
 
74 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 damage ; in that case we must go to the Isle of France 
 to refit. 
 
 So far as regards me individually, I should console 
 myself for this delay, if in the meantime I could go 
 through the island ; but it is impossible to proceed half 
 a league from the town without finding an imprac- 
 ticable torrent. The roads are masses of mud, and the 
 deluge of rain continues without intermission. 
 
 There were twenty merchantmen at anchor abreast of 
 Saint Denis, and at least an equal number must have 
 been in the other roads of the island. Several stood 
 out to sea without officers on board. There will 
 certainly be some lost. 
 
 As men of war must have this justice done them, 
 that, if they get more damage in roads than merchant- 
 men, fewer serious accidents occur to them on the high 
 seas, I rather regret that I was not on board the Zel6e 
 when the signal for sailing was made. I, who deny 
 tempests, might perhaps have had reasons for chang- 
 ing my opinion. 
 
 If, which is impossible, she should not return, — if 
 she should have perished, I must make up my mind to 
 return to Europe, for I only brought on shore a small 
 trunk with a coat and six shirts. My letters are on 
 board, so is my money — all my means of tra- 
 velling in India. But, in truth, I must not think 
 of it. 
 
 Adieu ! I will write again to you in my prison. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 15 
 
 Monday, 18th February. 
 
 The Zelee returned these three days since, with the 
 loss of her top-gallant masts, an anchor, all her boats, 
 having part of her nettings carried away, and seve- 
 ral ports driven in, &c. ; she has been almost swamped. 
 There were three feet water between decks, which 
 they were obliged to let run into the hold in order 
 to pump it out. It is probable that my clothes, 
 which I left on board, are damaged, or lost. The 
 provisions just taken in, are spoiled. 
 
 Notwithstanding this damage, she sailed again the 
 day after her arrival to cruise round the island, in order 
 to assist any vessels in distress that she might fall in 
 with. As I have no taste for horrors, I had no wish to 
 re-embark during this short cruise, in which she will 
 undoubtedly see some. Two crews, struggling with 
 death on the wrecks of their ships, have already been 
 brought in by merchantmen which had been more for- 
 tunate in weathering the gale. It is known, moreover, 
 that there are at least ten ships in the offing entirely 
 dismasted, perhaps without provisions, and entirely 
 without crews. The hurricane was also felt at the 
 Isle of France. The ships at anchor there were 
 obliged to put out to sea ; these also must be assisted. 
 The only two officers on board the Zelee remained 
 sixty hours on deck, without sleeping. Not a life has 
 been lost, nor any one seriously hurt ; but all on board 
 expected to perish. 
 
?6 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 The damage suffered by the Zelee does not affect her 
 solidity. On her return to her anchorage she will 
 take in a new supply of provisions, purchase boats from 
 the merchantmen who have saved theirs, get up her 
 spare top-gallant masts, repair her bulwarks, and we 
 shall proceed again to sea in three or four days. It will 
 not be necessary to put into the Isle of France. M. 
 de Melay will send her to refit at Calcutta, whither 
 she will take me. 
 
 The hurricane of the 10th of February has caused 
 more disasters than all those remembered by the oldest 
 inhabitants of the island. The sea was never seen 
 so high. M. de Melay, who has often been stationed 
 in the classical sea of hurricanes, the Leeward Islands, 
 never beheld any thing equal to it. My host's son-in- 
 law, who is also an old naval officer, told me that 
 he never before saw such a " feast of the winds." I 
 have therefore been favoured. 
 
 As I had serious apprehensions concerning the 
 fate of the Z£lee, I am quite consoled for the possible, 
 even probable loss of my black coat, waistcoat, and 
 trowsers. My letters for India were carefully enclosed 
 in parchment, and a month ago they were taken from 
 my trunks and placed in the highest drawer of a chest 
 of drawers which shuts well, and stands in the purser's 
 cabin. He will have taken care of them, at the same 
 time as his own papers. My barometers were in the 
 captain's cabin, which the two officers inhabited during 
 their campaign, because it was less exposed to the irrup- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 77 
 
 tions of the sea. Thus my mind is at rest in regard to 
 these instruments. The books I most value, I know to 
 be safe. My guns alone remained to be wetted, which 
 they no doubt have been, for they must have had a foot 
 deep of water over them, although stowed away between 
 decks. In proportion to my fears, these probable losses 
 are a considerable profit. 
 
 The old sky, as the sailors call it — the beautiful 
 blue sky, has reappeared for several days; the breeze is 
 gentle ; and the sun alone, of all things in nature, 
 commits excesses. But this great heat at Bourbon 
 is not unwholesome ; it is not even debilitating. On 
 Saturday I went ten leagues on foot into the mountains, 
 and four on a restive mule. I was caught in two 
 showers. I passed ten or a dozen rivulets or streams 
 without taking off my clothes, and I returned without 
 fatigue. I wished to go as far as Saint-Paul : I was 
 but half a league from it ; but my progress was arrested 
 by the torrent, which they told me had been fordable 
 since the preceding evening, and which I found fright- 
 ful. 
 
 I yield very quietly to the custom of this country, 
 which is to take three or four cups of coffee a day. I 
 only defend myself against the good cheer of an opulent 
 house, that of my host. Man in a state of society eats 
 too much : you, my dear friend, know my system on 
 this point. I am more and more attached to it, from 
 personal experience, as well as from the observation of 
 others. I am fortifying myself in a devout love of 
 
78 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 abstemiousness, which, I have no doubt, will cause 
 me to enjoy perfect health in India, amid hepatitis, 
 fevers, dropsies, and disorders without number, which 
 afflict the rich English, who commit excesses at table 
 seven hundred and twenty times a year. 
 
 The slaves here, who work like horses, and have 
 for the most part the appearance of health, with a 
 most certain reality of strength, eat nothing but rice and 
 coarsely ground maize boiled together in water. Some of 
 the masters add to their ration on a Sunday a small bit of 
 putrified cod. Now we whites, who expend no muscular 
 strength, eat five, perhaps ten times more nourishing 
 food than they do ; consequently we digest badly 
 what we eat: we are lean, or else loaded with an 
 undue quantity of fat. The negroes are all in good 
 condition. There is neither leanness nor obesity 
 among them. 
 
 Coffee, and highly spiced rice, as it is eaten here, 
 and as they prepare it also in India, do not heat me. 
 This new regimen agrees with my digestive system, no 
 less than with my head. All these parts of my person 
 enjoy a wise, moderate, and constitutional liberty. 
 
 Good-by,my friend. This is the hour of the day (half 
 past eight,) when the thermometer rises abruptly from 
 26° or 27° centigrade, up to 30° and 31°. I leave you, 
 because the servants are about to shut my windows, which 
 are all wide open. Then I have my little call to make 
 on M. de Melay, at the government house, in search 
 of news ; and then to breakfast. You, no doubt, are 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 79 
 
 warming yourself in this villanous month of February ; 
 you are at this moment buttoning up to get ready for 
 your journey to your office. I pity you; — and think 
 myself happy that I perspire, when I am dreaming of 
 the miseries of cold weather. 
 
 24th Feb., morning. 
 
 The Zelee is returned ; she will sail to-morrow ; and 
 I must go on board to-day. I have only time to take 
 leave of you. My books and barometers have suffered 
 no injury. 
 
 The Zelee has found nothing. Nevertheless, there 
 are still twenty-three vessels, concerning whose fate 
 great apprehensions are entertained. 
 
 Adieu, my friend, — I embrace my father and you. 
 
 TO MADAME VICTOR DE TRACY, PARIS*. 
 
 Saint Denis, Isle of Bourbon, 24th Feb. 1828. 
 
 My dear Madam, — I received here the kind note 
 which you wrote to me from Paray, a month after my 
 departure. Let me, I beg, hear frequently from you. 
 
 What diverse aspects, what varied forms of human 
 existence, do I not see while in search of plants and 
 
 * This letter, and all bearing the same address, were written by 
 Jacqnemont in English. Madame Victor de Tracy was kind enough 
 to translate them. 
 
 Not having the original English of our author at hand, we have 
 been compelled to translate Madame de Tracy's French back again 
 into English. — T. 
 
80 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 stones ? What food for thought, in the long intervals 
 of solitary life which I shall often have to go through, 
 and in which, from taste, I have already begun to 
 fancy myself. 
 
 What beautiful objects you would have to paint, 
 if your eyes saw what mine look upon ! One is never 
 tired of admiring the noble elegance and magnificence 
 of nature in the tropics. But, in my moments of sad- 
 ness, I regret the touching grace of the weeping birches 
 of Paray, scattered about the flowery heath. I cannot 
 recollect, without emotion, those long and narrow 
 meadows which penetrate, and are lost in the thick 
 foliage of the woods. Take care not to let your hus- 
 band ravage, as you called it, with his agriculture, all 
 your picturesque views, in order that my memory may 
 know each spot on my return, and that I may find 
 you both with the same beauties around you. 
 
 What pleases me most in my recollections of Europe, 
 is the figures in our landscapes. Here we have only 
 naked and brutalised negroes. I cannot get used to 
 them. 
 
 To-morrow, I shall no longer look upon these scenes 
 of wretchedness; to-morrow, I shall bid farewell to 
 views of slavery. But shall I not find them again in 
 India, though under another name? I know not. 
 Before two months are past I shall know, and will 
 tell you. 
 
 Adieu, — continue to be my friend. I am so far off 
 that it seems to me almost as if I were dead. But this 
 is no reason you should forget me. Adieu. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 81 
 
 TO M. VICTOR DE TRACY, PARIS. 
 
 Pondicherry, Sunday, 26th April, 1829. 
 
 My dear Friend, — I arrived here a fortnight ago ; to- 
 morrow, at day-break, I shall re-embark in the Zel6e, 
 for Calcutta, which I shall reach in a week. I will 
 write from thence at length. To-day, I have only 
 time to tell you of the excessive astonishment and 
 interest excited in me by every object I see in this old 
 world of Asia. Men are not wanting to me either, 
 and I have the pleasing satisfaction of convincing my- 
 self anew every day, that persons worthy of being loved 
 are every where to be found*. In a few interviews, of 
 an hour or two in all, I have become almost intimate 
 with the pro cur eur- general of this colony. I had never 
 seen him before, nor did I even know him by name ; but 
 the day after our arrival, at the installation of M. de 
 Melay, I heard him say, with the truest emotion, things 
 so noble and beautiful, that I went up to him without 
 any introduction, and without making myself known 
 except by the expression of my sentiments, which agreed 
 so well with his own ; and it is not without regret that, 
 on leaving this place, I shall separate from him. 
 This man's generosity rendered the line chalked out 
 
 * Jacquemont says elsewhere, " There exists between tender and 
 generous minds, of all countries, a kind of natural and holy free- 
 masonry, which leads them to discover and acknowledge each other 
 through the external differences of age, language, and nationality." 
 
 G 
 
82 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 for him by ministerial prudence and reserve, incompa- 
 tible with his principles ; and, though bereft of fortune, 
 I saw him sacrifice his office with an indifference 
 I might well admire. He returns to France, where he 
 will undoubtedly assume an eminent political station. 
 You will probably meet him ; his name is Moiroud.* 
 
 1 have had another piece of good fortune : I found 
 a college companion here, who has been useful to me. 
 He is chief engineer of bridges and roads in this little 
 country, of which he did me the honours. 
 
 Adieu, my dear friend. How many things we shall 
 have to talk of four years hence. Adieu, I love you, 
 and embrace you with my whole soul. 
 
 TO M. VICTOR DE TRACY, PARIS. 
 
 Calcutta, 1st September, 1829. 
 
 My dear friend, — I know not whether my letters 
 have been more fortunate in their carriage than yours ; 
 but I wrote to you from Teneriffe, the Island of 
 Bourbon, Pondicherry, and from hence a short time 
 after my arrival ; and since I left France, I have yet 
 
 * M. Moiroud, on his return to France, was attached to the 
 council of state as maitre de requites, and to the law faculty at 
 Paris as adjunct professor. In 1832, he terminated a life which 
 mental afflictions had rendered insupportable. 
 
LAHORE AN T D CASHMERE. 83 
 
 received but a single letter from you, written from 
 Paray, shortly after my departure from Brest. It 
 reached me at Bourbon in the month of February last, 
 during my prolonged stay at that island. Yet my 
 father, from whom, after a very long interval, I have 
 just heard, tells me that he has forwarded other letters 
 from you. I have every reason to believe that they 
 are at the bottom of the Ganges, with many others. 
 
 In acquainting you with my arrival here, I was still 
 struck with the disagreeable aud almost horrible im- 
 pression produced on me by my recent navigation in 
 the mouths of the Ganges. This river, at different 
 seasons of the year, is nothing but a sea of mud, raised 
 by furious winds, and intersected by rapid currents. 
 When the strength of the tide conspires with the 
 efforts of the wind, no anchor can hold, no cable 
 resist. After touching several times on banks, and 
 being unable to steer with certainty through the narrow 
 channels which are alone navigable in the midst of this 
 immense surface of water, we let fall our anchors, and 
 in less than half an hour they were lost. The hurricane 
 at Bourbon had deprived us of all our boats, and we 
 had no means of getting on shore, if our vessel, which 
 had grounded on a bank and was lashed by a furious 
 sea, went to pieces. Besides, what shore were we to 
 reach ? Saugur island : the lowest and most hideous 
 of this vast Delta — the classic region of tigers ! This 
 critical situation lasted a whole night, during which I 
 served as interpreter between the English pilot and 
 
 g 2 
 
84 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the officers. But what frequently occurs, happened 
 to us : we were only near remaining there ; so that, 
 after all, we did not remain any more than if we had 
 never encountered this danger. 
 
 I am now reconciled to the sacred river of the 
 Hindoos. I have been living for six weeks in a 
 delightful spot on its banks, crossing it twice a day to 
 visit the botanical garden, opposite to which I resided 
 with hosts whom I left this morning. 
 
 The flattering and kind reception, which I met with 
 on my arrival, continues. The honourable recom- 
 mendations I brought, have thrown all respectable 
 houses open to me. I chose those in which I thought 
 I should be most at liberty to pursue my studies 
 without interruption ; and such has been the foresight 
 of my friends, that there is not, in this country, a 
 single man I have seen with pleasure and profit, to 
 whom I had not letters of introduction from Europe. 
 
 People do not come here to live, and enjoy life j 
 they come — and this is the case in all states of society 
 here — in order to gain something to enjoy life else- 
 where. There is no such a thing as a man of leisure 
 at Calcutta. The governor-general has the most to 
 do ; next to him the chief justice ; and, after these, 
 the advocate-general, and so on. It is almost wholly 
 among this class of men that some are to be found, 
 whose taste for study can enable them to steal a few 
 moments of leisure amid the duties of their station. 
 All who are not men of highly gifted intellect soon 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 85 
 
 lose their energy, and yield to disgraceful indolence. 
 Immediately below the higher ranks, you find the most 
 vulgar and common rabble ; — yet, for a truly small 
 number of Europeans, there are journals without num- 
 ber, both political and literary ; there are learned 
 societies, or societies calling themselves such, of every 
 denomination — craniological, phrenological, horticul- 
 tural, literary, medical, Wernerian, and I know not 
 how many besides — whose members scarcely yield 
 either in science or appetite to similar institutions in 
 the United States. I could not hesitate between such 
 savans as these and very eminent men, devoted 
 to studies quite different from my own. Thus, as I 
 sent you word, my first host was Mr. Pearson, 
 advocate-general of Bengal, and the only lawyer who 
 ever came from England with a great reputation 
 already established. He is a man of at least your age, 
 full of sense and good humour, and a liberal, like our- 
 selves —which, in English, means a radical. I know not 
 what confidence I inspire these people with, but they 
 open their hearts to me on points about which they are 
 afraid to speak to each other after years of acquaintance. 
 They have the most favourable prepossessions with re- 
 gard to the reason, liberality, and independence existing 
 in the opinions of a Frenchman. In the country, 
 where I have been living six weeks with Sir Edward 
 Ryan, one of the judges, I was next door, or rather 
 next garden, neighbour to the Chief Justice, a man of 
 the highest talent in his difficult profession of English 
 
86 A JOURNEY IX INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Judge — a profession assuredly of the gravest cast, with 
 also the gravest appearance. Well ! he was the first 
 to inform me, that Lady Ryan was very strict ; and 
 that, notwithstanding the good humour and want of 
 strictness of the Knight himself, I might find Sunday 
 a very dull day with them. He therefore invited me 
 to take refuge with him on that day, at least to dine, 
 take a walk, and play a game at chess in the evening, 
 whilst his wife gave us some music. You may imagine, 
 my dear friend, that I learned many things, during 
 those charming evenings, from a man who has for the 
 last eight years held a judicial situation in India, 
 either at Madras or in Bengal. He wished me to see 
 a criminal trial of natives ; and I am indebted to him 
 for the honour, here deemed very great, of having sat 
 for two days on the King' a Bench with the supreme 
 court. 
 
 The office of crown-prosecutor is not considered 
 odious in England, as it is in France. My present host, 
 Mr. Pearson, who holds that office, is certainly, from the 
 nature of his duties, better informed than any one else, 
 concerning the character of the natives ; and from the 
 facts which he relates to me, and the opinions he ex- 
 presses, as well as from the decisions of Sir Charles 
 Grey, the Chief Justice, I have become acquainted with 
 a thousand interesting matters relating to the people of 
 this singular country, with which my own observation 
 alone could not have supplied me. In India, the 
 creature man is a very singular being. He, who having 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 
 
 decided on death, throws himelf before the sacred car 
 to be crushed by its wheels, jumps up at the moment 
 of being touched by them, and runs away, because a 
 European passing on horseback gallops towards him 
 whip in hand ! Here are to be seen united in the same 
 individual, the greatest contempt for death, the gre~" si 
 indifference, the greatest insensibility to physical pain, 
 and the mo :ve cowardice. Instances are fre- 
 
 queut of the most atrocious cruelty, combined with 
 habits of charity ; nothing is so contradictory, i 
 whimsical, so mad, as this people. 
 
 But the mm who, perhaps, does most honour to 
 Europe in Asia, is he who governs it. Lord W. Ben- 
 tinek. on the throne of the Ct gul, thinks ant- 
 
 like a Pennsylvanian Quaker. You may easily imagine 
 that there are people who talk loudly of the dissolution 
 oi the empire and of the world's end, when they behold 
 the temporary ruler of Asia riding on horseback, 
 plainly dressed, and without escort, or on his way into 
 the country with his umbrella under his arm. Like 
 . he has mixed in scenes of tumult and bloodshed; 
 and. like you, he has preserved pure and unsullied that 
 dower of humanity which the hab::- : life 
 
 so often wither, leaving in its sti . nothing but good- 
 nature. Having been tried also by the most corrupting 
 of professions, that of diplomatist, he has issued from 
 the ordeal with the upright mind, and the simple and 
 sincere language of a Franklin, couviuced that the. 
 no cleverness in app se than one is. I b 
 
88 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 been his host enfamille for a week in the country, and 
 shall always remember with pleasure and emotion the 
 long conversations I had with him in the evenings. 
 I seemed to be talking with a friend like yourself; and 
 when I considered the immense power of this excellent 
 man, I rejoiced for the sake of humanity. 
 
 Lady William is very amiable and very lively. I 
 had the pleasure of conversing with her in my own 
 language, and it was very great. I know not how it 
 was, but she discovered that, like all Frenchmen, I was 
 but a lukewarm Catholic, and not a very ardent 
 Christian. As she is devout, or tries to be so, she 
 endeavoured to convert me. For my part, I am not a 
 whit better than before ; and I fear, indeed, that she 
 is now a little less sure of her aim than she was at first. 
 This divergence has not been at the expense of the 
 kindness which she was disposed to show me. 
 
 Thus then, so far as agreeable society goes, I want 
 for nothing ; and although I had already experienced 
 English liberality towards foreigners, I met with more 
 here than I had dared to hope for. You will even find 
 that I have derived real and positive advantages from 
 these trifling successes. I had postponed, till my arrival 
 in Calcutta, several branches of study requisite for the 
 undertaking of my journey, and for which I expected to 
 find greater facilities here than at Paris. I have been 
 seconded with all the assistance possible : the walls of 
 my immense sitting-room are covered with maps of all 
 kinds, geographical and geological, and in my migra- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 8() 
 
 tions from town to the country and back again, every 
 thing has followed me. I have read, with pen in hand, 
 all that has been published at Calcutta, Madras, and 
 Bombay, having been often obliged to have recourse to 
 English compilations, in which interesting memoirs of 
 this country have been published. Thus, I have acquired 
 an exact knowledge of all that has been said about it, 
 with respect to what interests me more especially, and 
 have fixed the point from which I shall myself start in 
 commencing my researches. 
 
 In the midst of this mass of business, a pundit of 
 Benares came every day, in town, to pass an hour in 
 teaching me Hindoostanee. I had, during my voyage, 
 thoroughly studied Sir William Jones's excellent Per- 
 sian Grammar ; this has been an useful preparative to 
 the Hindoostanee, which, as you know, is nothing but a 
 sort of compromise between the language of the con- 
 querors of India and that of the conquered — a con- 
 temptible shapeless medley of Persian and Sanskrit. 
 I regret being obliged to devote so much time to 
 such a study ; but what should I do if I were com- 
 pelled to speak to people only through the medium 
 of an interpreter ? So I do not spare myself. It is a 
 difficult study. You, of course, when at Constan- 
 tinople, learned some little Turkish. You know the 
 detestable system of writing of the Mahometan nations 
 of Asia — a sort of short-hand j and so difficult to read, 
 that the natives themselves can never do it readily. 
 Then again, the whole vocabulary is entirely new to 
 
90 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 us, with the exception of some Sanskrit words which 
 we have obtained through the medium of the Latin, 
 the Greek, and the Gothic idiom of the Franks ; 
 add to these difficulties, that of hearing nasal sounds 
 which scarcely differ in anything from a balked sneeze, 
 and of forming gutturals taken second-hand from the 
 Arabs, which require throats of rusty iron, parched with 
 thirst, and you will have Hindoostanee. When, by hard 
 study, you have mastered these difficulties, you have 
 acquired after all, only a contemptible patois without 
 any literature — a language of the court and courtiers, 
 and of the guard-house, as its name imports (urdu 
 zaban, the language of camps), which will be neither 
 useful nor agreeable out of the country in which it 
 is spoken. 
 
 The Calcutta botanical garden is an immense and 
 magnificent establishment, in which are cultivated a 
 great number of the vegetables of British India, of 
 some neighbouring territories, and particularly those of 
 the Nepaul, a curious country, whose heights sending, 
 into the gulfs of Bengal and Cambaya, the waters 
 which drop from their eternal snows, nourish a vegeta- 
 tion very similar, in some points, to that of the Alps and 
 the Caucasus. A Danish botanist, of mediocre talents, 
 who passes here for the first in the world, is the director 
 of this establishment ; he has certainly the best income 
 of any savant in existence. Being on a two years' leave 
 of absence, he has left the garden under the care of a 
 member of the council, who has amicably installed me 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 91 
 
 in it, in the best possible manner for working well and 
 quickly. I have, in six weeks, been able to scrape 
 acquaintance with the whole vegetable host of India, 
 collected together in a small space. A very expensive 
 and very complete botanical library, annexed to the 
 superb habitation of the absent director, serves me as 
 head quarters. 
 
 In this beautiful spot, I gradually accustomed my- 
 self to the sun of this country. Undoubtedly it is 
 powerful, and certainly raises unwholesome exhalations 
 from a soil which is nothing but mud imperfectly dried, 
 and filled with the remains of insects and worms 
 without number ; but I believe the danger of expo- 
 sure to it is much exaggerated. Though I flatter my- 
 self I have been very prudent, I ought, according to 
 the Indians, to have been dead ere this. It is true 
 that, according to the physicians who have most expe- 
 rience of this climate, and whose great skill I willingly 
 allow, my constitution is wonderfully adapted to its 
 most prominent features. I arrived in the hot season ; 
 it ceased only with the deluge of rain which still lasts, 
 and, during the intervals of which, the temperature rises 
 exceedingly. It is the most unhealthy season, and 
 they who are not attacked with very well marked fits 
 of fever are for the most part languishing and debili- 
 tated. It is a universal custom to poison one's self with 
 mercury, as Louis XIV., and, of course, his whole court, 
 did with cassia and jalap. I have not had the slightest 
 febrile sensation. I sleep well at night, in weather 
 
Q2 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 which others, who ought to be accustomed to it, con- 
 demn as immoderately hot ; and at day-break, in the 
 cool and calm morning, I glide to my table and books, 
 or else into the country. I go out long before sun-rise, 
 when others are just beginning to fall asleep. This 
 happy state of health is certainly owing to some little 
 good management. My secret is abstemiousness : I re- 
 commend it to every body, and show its success ; but 
 they think the remedy worse than the evil, and every one 
 about me goes on taking his three meals, and religiously 
 abstains from all mixture of water with the strongest 
 wines of Spain and Portugal. Then, in the cool of the 
 evening, they mount on horseback, and young and old 
 gallop about for an hour like automatons, and for no 
 earthly purpose; they return home bathed in perspira- 
 tion ; and in order to prepare for an easy and com- 
 fortable night, sit down to table, where they remain a 
 couple of hours, and rise from it only to go to bed. 
 There is a great deal of stupidity at the bottom of this 
 exhibition of manliness which the English think them- 
 selves bound to make ; it forms a very ridiculous con- 
 trast with the cumbrous multitude of sumptuous articles 
 necessary for their comfort. 
 
 If I had the same wants and exigencies, I should 
 certainly have to give up my enterprise, being sure of 
 never combining the means of execution. Were I to 
 follow the example of the English, and take with me, 
 on my journey, a bed, a table, a couch, and a bottle- 
 case, I could scarcely expect to find means for my 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 93 
 
 equipment ; nor can I reconcile any vigorous labour 
 with an existence so encumbered with soi-disant ma- 
 terial conveniences, and soi-disant enjoyments, which 
 I find the most tiresome and disagreeable in the world. 
 To whatever simplicity (privation, these people would 
 call it) I reduce myself, I shall nevertheless require a 
 retinue which would appear tolerably splendid to us in 
 Europe. But the units of labour, intellect and strength, 
 have not the same value here as in our own country. 
 An ox weighs scarcely three hundred pounds, and drags 
 two hundred weight, but not very far, in one day ; each 
 domestic performs only a few hours of the most de- 
 testably executed service. The latter have, like all their 
 fellow-countrymen, that insurmountable strength which 
 is the attribute of weakness : I mean indolence, One 
 must yield before this obstacle, and, to obtain the 
 smallest action, must consent to maintain a troop of 
 these wretched creatures. 
 
 In my uncertainty, my dear friend, respecting the 
 steps you are taking in my behalf, I have refrained 
 from commencing any researches which might lead me 
 into expenses surpassing the only resources of which I 
 am certain — those I have in hand. This prudent re- 
 serve is unfortunately but too well founded, since up to 
 the 1st of April, this year, nothing had been decided on 
 in my favour. I have just written a long letter on this 
 subject to the administration of the Jardin des Plantes, 
 and moreover to the friends I have there, in order that 
 they may take into consideration the means of setting 
 
94 A JOUIINEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 me afloat in a permanent manner. If, contrary to all 
 my hopes, nothing has been done for me when you 
 receive this letter, may I beg, my friend, that you will 
 look around you for every thing that might tend to 
 the success of my application ; and may I also ask of 
 your friendship to do all that you may deem compatible 
 with your situation. You may say that it would be a 
 pity to lose the precious opportunity of which I may 
 be the instrument. Acquainted as I now am with all 
 the most influential men of this country, their kindness 
 and support will follow me, facilitate the means of seeing 
 and knowing, and greatly multiply my own means of 
 action, when the latter are sufficient to allow me to 
 begin. 
 
 What I have hitherto done through prudence and 
 necessity, I ought to have done under any circum- 
 stances. It was the proper beginning of my enterprise 
 if I would render it successful ; and before setting 
 forward across this vast country, it was proper for me 
 to gain some knowledge of men and things. The 
 slenderness of my means has hitherto done me no 
 prejudice, but I shall most certainly miscarry if it is 
 prolonged. 
 
 Do not fancy, my dear friend, that these vexatious 
 difficulties — that this anxiety about the future, assails 
 me unprepared, or affects me severely. No : when I left 
 Europe for these distant climes, I was prepared for 
 accidents, obstacles, and misfortunes : I knew that 
 such things were incidental to a traveller's life ; and 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 9«5 
 
 yet I embraced it, because I knew it to be also mingled 
 with pleasures, emotions, and enjoyments, which a 
 sedentary life does not admit of, and because I flat- 
 tered myself that, with courage and perseverance, 
 I might acquire here what would, on my return, place 
 me in an honourable station in the world. Now, my 
 mind, though sometimes painfully preoccupied, pre- 
 serves, nevertheless, its habitual liberty, which renders 
 work easy and light. I feel myself in full progress, and 
 with that feeling a man is never unhappy. 
 
 In looking after my interests, you may assert that, if 
 from a parsimony of the most ill judged description my 
 salary is not raised to 15,000 francs, I shall be obliged 
 to renounce the undertaking, and that all it has already 
 cost will be lost at the moment of reaping the fruit, 
 but without reaping any. 
 
 I must conclude this already very long letter, for 
 time presses, and I have not yet written to my family, 
 who I know entertain a just sense of my situation, 
 aware of the good and evil belonging to it, and con- 
 fiding in my perseverance. For the last three days, 
 being occupied in writing to Europe, and returning in 
 thought to all that is dear to me, this intercourse has 
 affected me. I must leave you, my dear and excellent 
 friend, to repress an emotion ready to burst forth. 
 But, believe me, never have I so strongly felt how dear 
 you are to me — never have I enjoyed so exquisitely the 
 pleasure of being loved. How little, when compared 
 to ours, is that friendship which unites the men of this 
 
96 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 country, who call each other friends ! I am speaking 
 of the English ; and I cannot but praise their kindness 
 
 it is extreme towards me. I sometimes tell those by 
 
 whom I am best known, and whom I esteem the most, 
 that, in banishing from their manners every lively ex- 
 pression of tenderness, they deprive themselves of one 
 of the greatest pleasures within their reach ; and that 
 many of them shut their hearts entirely against it. 
 I say this, my dear friend, to those who I know ought 
 to say yes, after a moment of pensive silence and sad 
 reflection. 
 
 I am often astonished how I can please men so 
 different from myself, whose thoughts rest on objects 
 so remote from those, which mine visit when I set them 
 at liberty. They would scarcely expect to find aught 
 but lead in the head of a man who goes breaking 
 stones on his road ; and saving a very small number 
 of exceptions, the most illustrious of which they 
 overlook, botany, with them, is only a puerile and ridi- 
 culous study, a nonsense, which only makes the people 
 who take to it more nonsensical. The revolution, which 
 has drawn men of science from their closets to mingle 
 in the world like those of France, has yet to take 
 place in England, where they are as far from it as they 
 formerly were among us. 1 am in high estimation for 
 having read some of Shakspeare's tragedies, some of 
 Byron's poetry, and some of Scott's novels $ for having 
 seen and admired some of Reynolds' pictures, and for 
 having heard of one Mozart and one Rossini, who wrote 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 97 
 
 very beautiful music. They think it strange that I should 
 question them concerning the commerce of this country, 
 its internal administration, and the mechanism of the 
 different public services which the local government 
 performs ; yet this desire of knowledge is very agree- 
 able to them, since it enables every one to talk of what 
 he knows best, and because I thus wage war, without 
 premeditation, against the insipid conversation of their 
 long dinners. They think me gay ; not perceiving that 
 I only excite their interest whilst I am gaining infor- 
 mation. The truth is, my dear friend, that, without 
 being melancholy, I am not a bit gayer than you have 
 ever seen me ; but this comparative seriousness is gaiety 
 to them, whose gravity is, to us, a dull and gloomy 
 silence. 
 
 Adieu. — What feelings, what ideas press upon each 
 other in me to reach you ; but I cannot give them utter- 
 ance : I will tell you all these things on a future day. 
 
 I have written to M. de Broglie to thank him for 
 his letter of introduction to Lord W. Bentinck ; ex- 
 press my gratitude to him when you have an oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 My father and Porphyre will tell you how my affairs 
 stand. If you wish to have the direct testimony of 
 one of the professors at the Jardin, I have a friend 
 there, who is very amiable and very clever ; you may 
 write to him without ceremony and concert measures 
 with him. 
 
 You will speak of me to your family, and apologise 
 VOL. i. h 
 
98 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 for my not writing, on account of the number and 
 variety of my occupations. 
 
 Madame Victor must have received a few lines from 
 Bourbon. Adieu, my friend. I love you, and embrace 
 you with my whole soul. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT THE ELDER, PARIS*. 
 
 Calcutta, September 3, 1829. 
 
 After remaining six months without letters, I have 
 just received some. Your No. 3, my dear father, came 
 first ; next day I received No. 1 ; as for No. 2, 
 which must enclose the letters of M. Victor, Dunoyer, 
 Merimee, &c. &c. &c, I would wager that it is at the 
 bottom of the Ganges, with a hundred Arab horses, 
 which a Madras ship recently shipwrecked on the 
 shoals was bringing hither — an accident which you 
 know was near occurring to myself, and which is much 
 less rare than I thought. They talked a great deal 
 of storms two months ago in the Bay of Bengal ; and 
 I have to fear that I have suffered other losses. 
 I hope my letters have had a more fortunate voyage 
 
 * Between the former letter to M. Jacquemont the elder and the 
 present, there ought to be one which never came to hand, in 
 which Jacquemont speaks of his arrival in Calcutta, and the manner 
 of his reception. Its contents, however, are reproduced in the letter 
 immediately following, and in that to M. Jacquemont senior, of 
 the 26th August, 1830. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 99 
 
 than yours. Not receiving any, I had no taste for 
 writing ; and not looking towards Europe, I absorbed 
 myself in the things of Asia. Since I wrote to you, 
 the kindness of the governor-general and Lady William 
 Bentinck has been unremitting. I spent a week with 
 them en famille in the country. After a few 
 visits, I found Lady William Bentinck, as I must have 
 told you in my first letter, a very amiable and distin- 
 guished person ; but she is religious, or rather endea- 
 vours to be so. There is a great discrepancy between 
 us, in this respect, as on some other points equally 
 
 strong; but the French are allowed not to believe . 
 
 In short, in spite of these little national failings of 
 mine, Lady William continues to treat me in the 
 most amiable manner, and I am always welcomed by 
 her when I appear at her residence. She is, as I told 
 you, the second person I saw in Calcutta, and her 
 husband the third. I was introduced to him by her 
 without more etiquette than if they had been here in 
 a private station. 
 
 I have this moment come from their house, for I 
 had left you to pay them a visit. It was a fortnight 
 since I had called, having lived six weeks in the 
 country. I was obliged to stay to tiffin (lunch), as it 
 was on the table ; and this leaves me little time to 
 write to you. 
 
 Lord William is an old soldier, who has a holy horror 
 of war, thinks and speaks straight forward, and, on 
 the throne of the Great Mogul, somewhat resembles 
 
 h 2 
 
100 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 a Pennsylvania!! quaker. You may easily imagine that 
 this character has seduced me. I know not whether 
 he is influenced by the sincere respect with which he 
 perceives that he has inspired me — but his kindness to 
 me is unbounded. 
 
 As at Barrackpore, when I was his guest there, 
 whenever I dine with him during his residence in 
 town, he voluntarily allows himself to be made prisoner 
 by me in a corner of the drawing-room, where we con- 
 verse the whole evening in a low voice. He talks to 
 me of India, I repay him in American coin ; and when 
 half-past ten strikes, the signal of a general good nighty 
 we seem to part mutually satisfied with each other. 
 
 He laughed much, when I told him what dilatoriness 
 I experienced last year, in London, from the Court of 
 Directors, when I applied for my passport ; and the 
 mistrust with which some old drivellers in that country 
 used to look on me. " Why," said he, " have I not two 
 hundred and fifty thousand men to march against you ?" 
 
 He is a liberal. They call that radical in English — 
 a term which sounds worse in the ears of good English 
 society than that of sans-culotte in ours. In this point 
 I agree with him, as with the excellent M. de la 
 Harpe, of whom he often reminds me. 
 
 Had I been without letters of introduction, the 
 flattering marks of distinction which I have received 
 from the governor-general would have served for an 
 introduction every where ; but my packet was so well 
 filled, that of all the men I have seen with pleasure and 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 101 
 
 advantage, there is not one to whom I did not bring 
 one or more letters. 
 
 Socially, my situation is the most agreeable I could 
 desire. In society, I find pleasure for my vanity, and 
 interest for my mind. I learn many things which 
 direct observation could not teach me, and I form 
 acquaintance with men of influence, whose support and 
 good offices may be materially useful to me. 
 
 Madame Lebreton will tell you of my last moves ; 
 you will know from her that I left my host, Mr. 
 Pearson, to go and live in the country opposite the 
 Botanic Garden, at Sir Edward Ryan's, one of the 
 judges. He is younger than Porphyre, as good as he, 
 and, notwithstanding his judgeship, a great lover of 
 science. I brushed up his memory, and made him ac- 
 quainted with modern improvements — and that, every 
 evening with my elbows on the table, and without loss 
 of time to myself. A solid and elegant boat took me 
 every morning across the Ganges to the garden, where 
 I remained at work all day, assisted by an admirable 
 botanical library. At ten in the evening, when all had 
 retired in the house, which Lady Ryan's bad health 
 rendered quiet, silent, and quite favourable for study, 
 I used to go en voisin and without ceremony to the 
 chief justice of India, Sir Charles Grey, to chat over a 
 game at chess, about India, where he has been a judge 
 eight years ; while his wife, the prettiest and most 
 graceful person in the world, gave us music ; and this 
 amiable family too will help to shorten my letter, for 
 
102 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 I am to dine with them. Sir Charles Grey is, perhaps, 
 the cleverest man in the country. His office is very 
 high ; he holds the second in rank in India. Our 
 hooked atoms caught together easily. He is extremely 
 gay, and what surprises me most, is always hearing 
 people speak of his icy gravity. The fact is, a French- 
 man has much greater facility in entering into an Eng- 
 lishman's friendship than another Englishman— they 
 are like bodies similarly electrified, which repel each 
 other. We are decidedly much more amiable than 
 they, much more affectionate ; and I see that all who are 
 worth anything are charmed with my manners. No 
 one but myself goes on Sunday to the Chief Justice's 
 to seek a refuge from the devotion of his countrymen. 
 It is true that in my presence this man dares to be 
 sincere, which he could scarcely do in that of his 
 fellow-countrymen, or friends of his own nation. 
 
 I have often heard Frederick say, that it required 
 stiffness to make one's self respected by the English. 
 That is true of the ordinary English, but I am quite 
 convinced that I please here only because my manners 
 are perfectly natural. I show myself such as you 
 know me to be ; it is only in a numerous and conse- 
 quently mixed company, that I drawl my speech and 
 make myself heavy, after their fashion. When I am 
 sure of my little auditory, I speak by the shortest cut, 
 and spare both them and myself the ennui of speechify- 
 ing, in which, however, I am wonderfully improved. 
 One with another, the people I see, and with whom 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 103 
 
 I live, have an income of from a hundred and fifty to 
 two hundred thousand francs, and they spend it. ' You 
 will ask how I manage among them ! It only re- 
 quires address. I am a traveller — which is an excuse 
 for not spending anything. I seldom hire a carriage ; 
 I am in excellent quarters, and have both water and 
 land carriage at my command. The Governor General 
 one day lent me his yacht and his steam-boat: now, 
 the hire of the boat alone would have cost me a thou- 
 sand francs ; moreover, I have no bravado — I do not 
 boast of being rich. Those I visit are not people to 
 esteem me the less on that account. They now know 
 me ; I have talked politics to some, metaphysics to 
 others, and to all on subjects interesting to them. I 
 am not to them a superficial drawing-room acquaint- 
 ance ; I am more and better than that. It is on esteem 
 and consideration that is founded the liberty I enjoy 
 among them, and which entirely overthrows all the 
 etiquette that separates from them those of their 
 countrymen who are not their intimate friends. My 
 character of foreigner serves me in this. 
 
 After all, my dear father, I dare say you imagine 
 your great boy has become a sort of dandy, quite the 
 pet from one end of Asia to the other, and perhaps 
 already ogling some heiress. No, indeed, far from it. 
 I will now tell you what I have been doing in other 
 respects. 
 
 Since my arrival, I have made the anticipated dis- 
 covery that six thousand francs a year was absurd. 
 
104 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 I wrote my conviction to the Jardi?i, begging those 
 gentlemen to consider the means of executing what 
 they expect of me. During my residence in town, I 
 wished to make the best use of my stay for the further- 
 ance of my object. The necessity of understanding 
 the language first presented itself. That low jargon, 
 the Hindoostanee, which will be of no use to me on 
 my return to Europe, is difficult : besides, it is not 
 the language of the people here. I cannot speak it to 
 my servants ; two of whom, at fifteen francs a month, are 
 stupid Bengalese, who fan me, carry my letters, brush, 
 clean, kc. kc. ; and the third, a Tamul of Madras, 
 speaks it but imperfectly, mixing it with his own and 
 with Bengalee ; so that it is only with my moonshee 
 or pundit from Benares that I can study and practise. 
 It would be dreadful to be dependent on a domestic 
 interpreter during my journey ; I already know what 
 would be the case, as I need my Tamul — called Samy 
 — to help me with the Bengalese. This man will 
 nevertheless be useful to me, because he is intelligent j 
 and as he calls himself a Christian, he can give me a 
 glass of water occasionally to prevent me from dying, 
 which the other true Hindoos would not do. Besides 
 the necessity of being acquainted with Hindoostanee, 
 I have found that of reading a good number of quartos 
 published here or in England, on this country, in 
 order to be well acquainted beforehand with all that has 
 been said about it, and thereby advance as far as possible 
 the point from which I shall start in my own researches ; 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 105 
 
 and I declare I have got through more quartos than 
 Frederick has been able to make out quadroon women, 
 during his eight years' residence in Hayti. Duodeci- 
 mos ? None ! Doubtless the rich have a better library 
 in this small form ; but they do not lend their books, 
 nor even suffer their friends to see them, much less 
 strangers. I have therefore had no intercourse except 
 with the quartos of the Asiatic Society, and of some 
 acquaintances. These works are very serious, and 
 mostly in double columns, small print. I do not get 
 on very fast, but I do not spare myself. 
 
 From a quantity of bad memoirs on geology, I have 
 been able to make out tolerably well where to lay the 
 blue, red, yellow, and green, on the map of India. By 
 confronting, correcting, and rectifying these suspicious 
 and incoherent accounts one by the other, I have 
 frequently been able to see the objects described, which 
 have been dragged out of the dust for me : and they 
 have taught me more than was learnt from them by the 
 persons who had collected and described them. I have 
 guided the pick-axe for a dozen hours without stopping, 
 waking my drowsy fanners twenty times. It was in the 
 evening, or I know not when, but always, I think, 
 without prejudice to my occupations, that I paid 
 or received visits. I returned them by a note of a 
 line or two, when it would have been inconvenient for 
 me to make them in person, and said that I was only at 
 leisure at dinner time, thus offering myself to be left 
 or taken ; and faith they took me. I have told you 
 
106 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 elsewhere how I had selected my places of study ; the 
 evenings, which were a relaxation, a pleasure to me, 
 were at the same time a new study. Those I spent 
 at Mr. Pearson's house were not the least agreeable, 
 nor the least instructive — that is, in India. 
 
 I thus studied both the language and the country. 
 I improved daily, preparing vigorously for the future, 
 and in more than one way ; for my ingenious economy 
 (in spite of my three servants — an admirable proof of 
 it) did not permit me to spend five hundred francs a 
 month — far from it. So that up to this day I have 
 not broken in upon my credit for six thousand francs, 
 which I might have received on the first of January 
 this year ; and my banker will owe me twelve thou- 
 sand francs on the 1st of January, 1830. If I had 
 been desirous of associating the smallest practical re- 
 searches in natural history with these studies (the sea- 
 son prevented them in Bengal), they would have made 
 me lose an enormous quantity of time in these very 
 studies ; and, however small the scale on which I 
 might have carried on such researches, I should have 
 required an establishment which could not have been 
 kept up with five hundred francs a month. 
 
 I stated all this to the Museum, with the why and 
 the how. Thereupon Sir Edward Ryan came and 
 told me that he should be very happy if I would 
 become his guest ; he mentioned the proximity of 
 the Botanic Garden, the convenience of his boat to take 
 me there at all hours, the silence and seclusion of his 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 107 
 
 house, &c. &c. I remained at Mr. Pearson's until I had 
 finished the business in which I was then occupied, 
 and I afterwards went to the knight's, at the distance 
 of five miles, on the river side. I there did my utmost, 
 going to town only occasionally to dine with the Go- 
 vernor General, and twice to witness a criminal trial 
 of natives, a truly memorable circumstance, as I had 
 the honour of being seated with the three judges on 
 the King's Bench, — an act of extreme politeness on 
 the part of the Chief Justice, which has caused me to 
 be taken for a kind of judge myself by the rabble of 
 Calcutta, who are constant in their attendance at the 
 court, and gains me salaams wherever I go. I brought 
 to Sir Edward Ryan's, at Garden Reach, some other 
 books which I had to get through ; and while inuring 
 myself, during my residence with him, to what was 
 most pernicious in the climate of India, my literary were 
 wonderfully combined with my botanical studies, which 
 I carried on vigorously at the Company's garden ; 
 making in six weeks an honourable acquaintance with 
 the multam sine nomine plebem of Indian vegetation, 
 collected together into a small space, and sparing my- 
 self a great deal of useless trouble in my future expe- 
 ditions. Very frequently I did not breakfast till noon ; 
 and in the midst of a frightful luxury, whilst others 
 drank nothing but hock at a louis a bottle, I made 
 many meals on rice and eau sucree, rendering my 
 hours for eating subordinate to my studies. 
 
 Night approaches, my dear father, and I must leave 
 
108 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 you. Perhaps when I rise in the morning I shall learn 
 that a new delay of the ship which is to bring you this, 
 leaves me still some hours to write to you : I desire it 
 more than I hope for it. I have written, within five 
 days, a hundred and twenty pages of letters. 
 
 There will soon be another opportunity of sending to 
 France direct, and I shall avail myself of it. You will 
 learn from my letters to Madam Lebreton, Victor de 
 Tracy, and Dunoyer, many things which I have not had 
 time to tell you. Ask them to communicate what they 
 think will interest you. Rely on my courage and per- 
 severance. My prudence has been known to you ever 
 since I first left you on distant journeys. My health 
 is excellent. 
 
 I embrace Porphyre very tenderly. He loves me 
 well, and I return it. Adieu, my dear friends ; adieu, 
 we must part. My heart is swelling. But I return 
 again to you to tell you to be at ease, and happy on 
 my account ; I am full of strength, vigour, and re- 
 sources. 
 
 Money matters will be arranged ; and when the 
 news reaches me of the increase of my means, they will 
 also be increased by my prudent sparings, and I shall 
 be in every respect admirably prepared for setting 
 them in action. 
 
 The delays which have hitherto taken place have not 
 cramped me in the least. Under any circumstances 
 I should have done that which prudence led me to 
 begin. I have no uneasiness with regard to the future ; 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 109 
 
 and besides, I expected that there would be some in a 
 traveller's life. There will be misery and privations ; 
 I reckon upon all that, and when these evils come they 
 will not take me unawares. But there are, on the 
 other hand, lively pleasures, and deep emotions which 
 will never be effaced, and the remembrance of which 
 will form the charm of my life. Adieu, for it is very 
 late. I leave you for pleasure ; to dine in a palace, in 
 the middle of a beautiful garden, with a pleasant, ami- 
 able, learned, and clever man, very kind to me, and a 
 pretty woman, the only one who speaks French besides 
 Lady William Bentinck : I mean Sir Charles and Lady 
 Grey. I shall be welcomed and almost caressed a la 
 Francaise. 
 
 But the scene of it will be two leagues from this, 
 and I have but half an hour. Adieu ! 
 
 TO M. FREDERIC JACQUEMONT, SAINT DOMINGO. 
 
 Calcutta, November 5, 1829. 
 
 If I have a good memory, my dear Frederic, I have 
 not written to you since I left Rio Janeiro. I am mis- 
 taken, for my journal reminds me that I wrote from 
 Bourbon. You will have heard of me through my father 
 and Porphyre. Let me, however, continue my history 
 in a few words. Like people who are not in a hurry, 
 we came from Bourbon to Pondicherry in forty days 
 
110 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 without accident. At Pondichery I continued the 
 guest of the new governor with whom I had formed a 
 friendship on our voyage, although ten days before our 
 arrival we engaged solemnly by oath never more to play 
 at backgammon together : and when I was well rested 
 and refitted inside and out by the good cheer of this 
 " roi d' Yvetot," and the comforts of his fine and 
 extensive mansion, I came here in the Zelee with the 
 governor of Chandernagore, who had been acting pro- 
 visionally at Pondichery until M. de Melay arrived. 
 At Pondichery I found our old school-fellow Rabour- 
 din, engineer of bridges and roads in the colony. We 
 saw a good deal of each other, and I think with mutual 
 pleasure. We talked a great deal of you. You know 
 how well I was recommended here : no European, I 
 think, ever presented himself with so respectable a 
 mass of introductions. 
 
 After losing, at the mouth of the Ganges, all the 
 anchors we had left, and being, during a whole night, 
 near running aground, and perhaps perishing, we 
 moored at last before what they call the City of Palaces, 
 which is only the city of large houses. They kept me 
 in the first house I entered * ; it belonged to the advo- 
 cate-general of this presidency, one of the three or four 
 Europeans who make most money, and spend most in 
 this country (four or five hundred thousand francs 
 
 * The detailed account of his arrival in Calcutta will be found in 
 the letter of the 26th of August, 1830, in which he repeats it to his 
 father, who had not received his first letter. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. Ill 
 
 a year), and the most distinguished for his profound 
 knowledge in his profession, and out of it by his wit 
 and learning ; he is a radical besides, and a good and 
 pleasing man. I could not have made a better hit. 
 The second person I saw was Lady William Ben- 
 tinck. Half an hour afterwards she introduced me, 
 without etiquette or ceremony, to her husband, and 
 I was obliged to stay tiffin (a slight meal at half-past 
 one) with them, and then promise to return and take 
 a family dinner. The next day, in a hired carriage, 
 I paid, in the town, which is immense, and in the beau- 
 tiful country-houses near it, some fifteen visits at least, 
 to judges, members of council, great people, physicians, 
 and merchants, some of whom are very rich. The first 
 days were thus spent in gaining a footing, getting 
 acquainted with faces, names, and the people them- 
 selves ; then, when I had discovered and settled the 
 use of which each might be to me, or the pleasure he 
 might afford me, I set myself to work ; that is, I 
 borrowed maps, engravings, manuscripts, books, &c. 
 Notwithstanding the extreme heat (it was May, the 
 hottest month in the year), I began to work vigor- 
 ously at the tedious task of searching, taking notes, 
 and learning, morning and evening, what has been 
 done, in order if possible to go farther. Observe,. 
 I beg, that there is not a young cadet, much less 
 a young writer, attached to the company, who does 
 not drive his cabriolet, and that I allowed myself 
 
112 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 that expensive luxury but very seldom. A modest 
 palanquin, which is the ne plus ultra of the modest 
 in this country, was my sole equipage, when my 
 host's carriage was engaged. Truly, I do not think 
 I have a mind better constituted than any one else, but 
 my vanity has not once suffered on account of my 
 poverty, and I am poor, very poor. What more could 
 I desire than I obtained — attentions, kindness, and flat- 
 tering marks of distinction ? Nothing. My manners, 
 which I have left natural, and have not made stiff, as it 
 is perhaps expedient to do with the English of the 
 common class, has had the good fortune to please. 
 I have spoken of all things to the best of my ability 
 and without affectation. Some, perhaps, have liked me 
 on that account ; all have shown me attention ; none 
 have offended me. Very seldom, I think, has a 
 Frenchman had such extensive and universally agree- 
 able intercourse with the English. I forgot that 
 I knew the language very little : — I spoke like a 
 Frenchman. They were infinitely pleased with my 
 want of pretension, my genuine simplicity, and my un- 
 affected manners. My academic dignity from London 
 has been of no use to me, any more than my official 
 title from Paris : and no modesty can prevent me from 
 saying, that it is on my own personal account that every 
 one has been kind and hospitable. Wherever I went, I 
 tried to pay in ready money, by giving some interest and 
 a little diversity to the tiresome monotony of English 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 113 
 
 wherever 1 went ; talking, in fact, when I thought the 
 folks fit to taste that pleasure so little known among 
 the English. 
 
 The character of Lord William Bentinck inspires 
 me with a profound respect ; which he no doubt per- 
 ceives. He is an old soldier, abhorring war ; a 
 patriot without reserve, though son of an English 
 duke ; and, although Grand Mogul for the time being, 
 he is an honest man after my own heart, plain and 
 open ; in short, he won my regard ! And as no 
 people are so amiable as those who love us, Lord 
 William showed me great kindness. I have passed 
 more than one evening with him talking politics in a 
 retired corner of his lady's drawing room, as I do with 
 two or three friends at Paris. I was happy to see so 
 much power in such pure hands. 
 
 Three weeks after my arrival, I was drawn from the 
 studies in which I was already deeply engaged, by an 
 invitation from my lord and my lady to go with them 
 into the country. They have a palace on the banks of 
 the Ganges, five leagues from hence. Round it, in an 
 admirable park, are scattered, as if to add dignity to 
 the landscape, several large cottages containing a suite 
 of elegant apartments. I remained here a week with 
 a friend, whom I owe to Lord William, a Spanish 
 refugee (Colonel Hezeta), a man of probity " quand 
 m£me" and unfortunate. He has taken refuge here 
 under the protection of his general, whose friend he is ; 
 for he formerly served in Spain under Lord William. 
 
 vol. i. r 
 
114 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 His character is somewhat like that of Dunoyer, with 
 some physical resemblance. There, for a week was 
 I overwhelmed with attentions. There was no Lady 
 William Bentinck for any one but myself. She would 
 have me mount an elephant for the first time, with 
 her ; and then for a whole week she had no other com- 
 panion in her walks but myself. I spent several long 
 days with her tete-d-tete, talking about God — she for, 
 I against ; of Mozart, Rossini, painting, Madame de 
 Stael ; of happiness and misery ; and of love, in reference 
 to both — of all things, in short, which require, if not 
 intimacy, at least a great deal of confidence and 
 reciprocal esteem, especially on the part of a woman — 
 English too, religious and strict, with a young man, 
 a bachelor, and a Frenchman. We never conversed 
 on insignificant matters. Lady William Bentinck, who 
 has lived a good deal on the continent, particularly at 
 Paris, experienced anew the pleasure of talking with a 
 Frenchman ; and as she is a very intellectual woman, 
 she took great delight in a style of conversation in 
 which she excels. This is truly all very strange, and 
 it sometimes makes me think that I am tolerably 
 original. Things of this sort used sometimes to happen 
 to Yorick, and yet I look at myself and find no resem- 
 blance between me and that sentimental hero. 
 
 The rainy season commenced while I was at Bar- 
 rackpore (at the Governor General's seat), and the 
 temperature was a little moderated. I continued my 
 labours in town j having returned to my host's, the 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 115 
 
 attorney-general Mr. Pearson ; and I soon yielded to 
 the invitation of one of the two judges (150,000 francs 
 a year, and a retiring pension for life of 36,000 francs 
 after ten years' service), who lives a long league from 
 the city, but below it, also on the river side, opposite to 
 the most magnificent botanical garden in the world. I 
 remained six weeks at his house, crossing the river 
 every morning to have a little botany : being lord and 
 master of this garden, the superintendent of which (a 
 tolerably good Danish botanist with 7^,000 francs a 
 year, lodged in a superb house, &c.) is now in England. 
 I was settled in the magnificent library which the Com- 
 pany have purchased for him ; and there, assisted by the 
 multiplied means of labour, I studied the plants of 
 India which I gathered in the garden. I have disco- 
 vered that I possess a talent of which I was not aware, 
 that of drawing ! Astonished at my success with plants, 
 I tried the human figure, and here my surprise was 
 still greater. You shall see all this some day. Each 
 head cost me ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. I 
 shall bring back with me some hundreds. The friend 
 at whose house I resided, at Garden-reach, notwith- 
 standing the gravity and importance of his office, is a 
 young man of thirty-six, married at twenty ; he has ten 
 children in England. His name is Sir Edward Ryan. 
 I wish you to become acquainted with people to whom 
 I am indebted for so much kindness. He has some 
 knowledge of the physical and natural sciences. I 
 treated him as a man of thirty-six, and not as one of 
 
 i 2 
 
116 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, THIBET, 
 
 his grave pursuits, and we are become sufficiently inti- 
 mate to live very agreeably together. Next door to 
 him resides the chief justice of India (200,000 francs a 
 year, and 52,000 francs for life after ten years' service) 
 a stout man of forty-five, who is considered the gravest 
 in all India, where he holds the second rank, and 
 whom I found to be the pleasantest man in the world. 
 He, like Mr. Pearson in his profession, and like him 
 out of it, has the longest and best furnished head in the 
 country. I caused a revolution at his house, by intro- 
 ducing the custom of chance visits in the evening after 
 dinner, for the sake of conversation, or a game at chess, 
 while his wife, a handsome, clever, and amiable lady, 
 amused us with music. Nothing: is more whimsical 
 than my connexion with them. I was made much of 
 and caressed by them in trio, and always distinguished 
 in the most flattering manner on the days of having com- 
 pany. Sir Charles Grey, that pearl of judges, is con- 
 sulted by the Governor General on the politics of the 
 country, although his functions are purely judicial. He 
 views India from a higher point than any other man ; I 
 have gained a great deal by frequenting his house. He 
 has dared to give me coffee on the chess-table, and I have 
 dared to ask his lady to sing some Italian airs which I 
 have heard a hundred times given by her in the finest 
 style. It was at the hour when the whole English popu- 
 lation of Calcutta was either asleep in bed or on a sofa, 
 that we thus pleasantly wiled away a couple of hours. 
 Till seven in the evening I worked like a devil, and so 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 1 17 
 
 did he. On returning from the garden dirty and wet, 
 I frequently found a horse bridled and saddled waiting 
 for me, and before I washed and shaved, &c, I had half 
 an hour's, or three quarters of an hour's gallop ; every 
 day visiting some new place, and taking a close view of 
 the life of those singular beings, the Indians. It was 
 a life well filled with labour, physical enjoyment, noble 
 pleasures, and corporeal activity. It suited my health 
 extremely well. I there learned to walk in the sun with- 
 out absolutely expiring ; but I dined moderately and 
 drank only claret, whilst the most abstemious took an 
 ample portion of Sherry, Burgundy, Claret, Port, and 
 Champagne ; — and that daily. I found Lady Grey so 
 beautiful, although she is really not so, that it was very 
 well done on the part of Mr. Pearson, to recal me, that 
 I might accompany him and his family to finish the rainy 
 season and the vacation at another seat of his near Bar- 
 rackpore. I took with me a Persian and Hindoostanee 
 master, whom I made to earn, in reality, the hundred 
 francs a month which he cost me. He has enabled me, 
 for two hundred francs, to speak tolerably, to under- 
 stand in the same degree, and to write (and to read 
 some little of the current writing of) that most widely 
 disseminated language the Hindoostanee, which is a 
 mixture of Sanscrit, Persian, and Arabic. During 
 this last residence in the country, I paid a visit to 
 the governor of Chandernagore, an old retired sailor, 
 an excellent man, with whom I came from Pondicherry 
 
118 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 in the Zelee ; I was but three leagues from Chander- 
 nagore. 
 
 Nothing would have been wanting to my satisfaction, 
 which would have been complete, but for those con- 
 founded money-matters. I was in continual hopes of 
 receiving the news that the negociation set on foot at 
 the time of my departure, was concluded, and that I 
 should have nine thousand francs a year more. With 
 the slender resources actually at my disposal, I did not 
 dare to press forward in this immense country. I have 
 been obliged to write, to remonstrate, and to insist ; 
 but all this to Paris, and it is only after a lapse of six 
 months that I can hope for an answer. However, my 
 severe economy has enabled me to live hitherto on 
 the funds I brought from France, and I am about 
 to commence the coming year with the two years' 
 allowance, that is, with twelve thousand, perhaps four- 
 teen thousand. Whatever unusual moderation 1 may 
 adopt in travelling, this is not sufficient to go very far, 
 nor for a long period, if I have the foresight to add the 
 expense of returning back again; and I have been 
 compelled by this untoward circumstance to modify 
 my original project. If I were to proceed straight to 
 Bombay now, I should arrive there with too little 
 money to carry on my researches in that quarter with 
 any effect. I therefore economise my resources, and 
 reconciling pecuniary prudence with the wants of effec- 
 tive exploration, as much as they can be brought 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 119 
 
 to agree, am going to set out from hence across 
 the country to Benares, thence to Agra and Delhi, 
 making some circuits, in order to see certain rocks, 
 and get to the highest mountains in the world. I 
 shall ascend them in April, and spend the summer 
 there. Thence, according to the turn which my 
 pecuniary affairs may have taken in the interim, I shall 
 make a start upon Bombay the following winter — or — 
 or — truly, if no amelioration is to be expected in this 
 matter, I shall remain in the mountains as long as they 
 continue habitable for a poor devil like me. 
 
 In another week, I shall begin this journey of six 
 hundred leagues to the north-west. A bamboo cart, 
 drawn by oxen, will carry my luggage. A bullock 
 will be laden with the smallest tent in India. Your 
 humble servant, devoted to white horses, will ride an 
 old steed of that colour, which will cost him only a 
 thousand francs (a good horse costs from .3000 to 
 3500 francs), at the head of his six servants ; one 
 carrying a gun, another a skin of water, a third the 
 kitchen and pantry, another with the horse's breakfast, 
 &c, without counting the people with the oxen. 
 
 An English captain of infantry would have five and 
 twenty instead of six ; namely — in addition to those 
 I have — one for his pipe, one for the chaise-perctfe, 
 without which no Englishman in India travels, seven 
 or eight to pitch his tent— which would be very large, 
 very heavy, and very comfortable — three or four cooks, 
 a washerman, and a sweeper, &c, then a constant relay 
 
120 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 of twelve men to carry his palanquin, in which he may 
 stretch himself when he is tired of riding on horseback 
 Your poor Victor, with the miserable plainness of his 
 ambulatory establishment, is going to do something 
 new; but you know, my dear Frederick, that he has 
 a pride of his own, and, if his poverty allows him, 
 notwithstanding, to employ himself upon plants, stones, 
 and animals, he will bear it easily. Besides, he travels 
 with letters from the Governor-General of India ; 
 and this is some little satisfaction, occasionally very 
 useful, in his situation, and not possessed by many colo- 
 nels at 52,000 francs, and civilians at 60,000, who 
 formed the crowd where he was, and still will be, distin- 
 guished. I say, will be, for precisely at the same time 
 as I do, Lord and Lady William Bentinck, a large part 
 of their establishment, and several of the high officers of 
 the government, are to set out by nearly the same route, 
 for the extreme north-western frontier, nearly eighty 
 leagues north of Delhi, to pass the summer, in a climate 
 similar to that of Switzerland, and producing the same 
 fruits. They intend visiting the various parts of their 
 empire, in their progress. Lord William has exactly a 
 thousand times more people than I, having six thousand 
 servants, of all kinds ; he is escorted, besides, by a regi- 
 ment of infantry, one of cavalry, and the company of the 
 body-guard. I shall see him in the month of April, 
 in a. wooden house, which he has had built, six hundred 
 feet above the level of the sea. I myself shall be a little 
 higher still, ten thousand feet beyond any European 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 121 
 
 establishment ; but in very peaceful regions. You will 
 ask, no doubt, how a man who is so favoured a friend 
 of the Great Mogul's as I am, can be reduced to travel 
 at the head of six beggars on an arrant jade, without 
 palanquin, or chaise-percee ? Well then ; it is because 
 the present Great Mogul has introduced very rigorous, 
 and, in this country, very unpopular measures of 
 economy ; and a sinecure, which was possible under 
 other governments, is no longer so. If, moreover, 
 I had some temporary mission from the Indian govern- 
 ment, while I raised my income to .'30,000 francs, for 
 a few months, I should descend prodigiously from 
 my social position. I should enter the ranks and be 
 stationed at the bottom ; whereas, in my native poverty, 
 I am something apart ; not classed according to money, 
 and apt to class myself according to my own personal 
 good and amiable qualities. By the vulgar method, 
 that of splendid carriages, grand dinners, and extra- 
 vagant houses, I should require at least a hundred and 
 fifty thousand francs per annum to maintain the posi- 
 tion which I occupy with my 6000 francs, and should 
 probably remain beneath it. 
 
 Let us now talk of dangers. I have obtained 
 statistical accounts of the army, which inform me that 
 the average deaths, one year with another, are one 
 officer in thirty-one and a half in the Madras army, and 
 one in twenty-eight in that of Bengal. It is no great 
 matter, as you perceive. It is true, they do not lead 
 the life of hardship which I am about to do, and they 
 
122 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 do not go in the sun, &c. ; but, as a set-off, they drink 
 a bottle or two of beer and one of wine every day, 
 not to mention grog ; and I shall drink nothing but 
 water mixed with a little drop of European or native 
 brandy. I possess one of the best syringes in India ; 
 but I conceal it, as my moral reputation would suffer. 
 It is for want of lavemens, that the English for the 
 most part die. I have, moreover, an ample provision 
 of quinine against intermittent fevers, and all that is 
 necessary against cholera, which is very rare where 
 I am going. The tigers seldom say any thing to those 
 who do not speak to them ; — bears the same. The most 
 formidable animal is the elephant, but he is excessively 
 scarce in the countries through which I shall pass. After 
 all, I am resolved never to speak to these animals 
 except to whisper in their ear, and never to fire but 
 when sure of hitting. When on horseback, I shall 
 always have a brace of pistols at hand ; and my syce, 
 or groom, who follows me, running on foot for six 
 hundred leagues, at the rate of six, seven, or eight 
 leagues a day, and my grass cutter, are always at iny 
 heels like shadows — one with my carbine, the other 
 with my gun. All this makes five bales, weighing 
 together a quarter of a hundred. Some robbers or 
 brigands have certainly appeared in that direction, but 
 they have the stupidity to rob only their brethren, 
 the natives, whom they kill, without mercy, for a 
 few rupees ; but I have never been able to discover 
 a single instance of a European being killed by them. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 123 
 
 The people here are dreadful cowards, and the English 
 impatient. In this respect, I have been obliged to 
 adopt their disagreeable manner. The domestic service 
 is so divided, and each servant does so little, except 
 the special object of his engagement, that an almost 
 military exactness is required of him, by means of 
 severity equally military; which is indeed natural 
 enough. I have one man who has nothing else to 
 do but bring me water. I shall want him on my 
 journey, because, although there are two men attached 
 to my cavalry, (the aforesaid jade) she would die of 
 thirst if it were not for the water-carrier. The man 
 who cuts the grass for her food, and he who dresses 
 and saddles her, cannot draw water at a tank. True, 
 I give my waterer, who also gives me drink, only ten 
 francs a month, but when I find this man, who has 
 almost nothing in the world to do, negligent in his 
 office, you may imagine what a kick I am inclined to 
 bestow upon him : and so of the rest. Would you 
 believe that I have but two plates, yet I must have a 
 man to wash them on my journey? So if they are not 
 clean, woe to him ! By an unusual artifice, I have 
 accumulated on a single head the attributes of cook and 
 waiter at table. At table ! As if I were going to have 
 a table! An English ensign, when on a march, has 
 one in his tent, as well as chairs : for my part I shall eat 
 kneeling or standing. 
 
 Hitherto I have received letters from our family 
 pretty regularly. My father assures me, and the 
 
124 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 rest confirm it, that he is perfectly well in mind and 
 body. He feels a confidence in me, which I also 
 place in him. This is a happy feeling on both sides. 
 Adieu, my dear Frederick, adieu ; no doubt for a long 
 period. Kind regards to all about you — if you are 
 still in your island, the remembrance of which some- 
 times affects me. I do not know what I am soon 
 to see, but it is only beyond the tropic that I 
 expect to find scenes of grandeur in India. They 
 will consist of inaccessible peaks, eternal snows, masses 
 of oaks and pines — nothing equinoctial. Since I left 
 Haiti, I have seen great things in the tropics : Rio 
 Janeiro, which is admirable; and Bourbon, which is only 
 an enormous mountain, crowned with a volcano. But 
 with the verdant hills of Marquisant ; with the noble 
 rampart of palm-tree forests, w T hich rises over them, 
 and separates the two sides ; with the cocoa-nut tree, 
 whose summit hung over the court of your modest 
 dwelling — are associated recollections of the heart, 
 which will make me always consider Saint Domingo 
 the finest part of the equatorial world. I left there the 
 first fruits of my admiration. Since then, when I see 
 things worthy of being admired, I seem to admire them 
 coldly. I have not yet been touched or affected by 
 them ! Adieu, my dear friend : the whole diameter 
 of the earth divides us, but my heart is with you. 
 20th. I set out instantly. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 1 25 
 
 TO M. PORPHYRE JACQUEMONT, PARIS. 
 
 Calcutta, Sunday, November Sth, 1829. 
 
 My dear Porphyre. I have spent the rainy season, 
 fifteen miles north of Calcutta, at Mr. Pearson's 
 country house, principally occupied with the study of 
 Hindoostanee, which I speak, understand, and write 
 tolerably well. I availed myself of a few rainless 
 days, to pay a visit to the microscopic governor of 
 Chandernagore, with whom I came on board the Zelee 
 from Pondicherry, of which he was the acting governor, 
 until the arrival of M. de Melay. He is a very 
 obliging man, and no one could be kinder to me. 
 
 I have accustomed myself to walking, getting wet, 
 and going in the sun without dying on the spot, 
 taking with me my moonshee, or master, from whom 
 I have gained more information in the presence of 
 things and people than before a writing table. The 
 Hindoostanee, you know, is a rude medley of Persian, 
 Arabic, and Sanscrit. In the parts of India where 
 Sanscrit was formerly the vulgar tongue, it still pre- 
 vails in the Hindoostanee now spoken there : in those, 
 on the contrary, which are geographically in the 
 neighbourhood of Arabia and Persia, the Hindoo- 
 stanee is scarcely any thing but very corrupted Persian. 
 I have preferred this kind of corruption, in order that 
 I might be intelligible, both to the people of India and 
 to those of Persia, in case of necessity. 
 
 The intelligence on money matters which I have sue- 
 
126 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 cessively received, since my arrival in Bengal, have given 
 me much food for reflection during my studious retire- 
 ment at Titaghur. I have in imagination supplied the 
 money for different journeys, without any oriental 
 pomp, as you may easily imagine, and I have in reality 
 been obliged to stay where I was. 
 
 Meanwhile, the rains are becoming less frequent. 
 The fine season, winter, is approaching ; it is necessary 
 to avail myself of it, and make up my mind to some- 
 thing. I have resolved on the only project which can 
 be executed with the funds at my disposal. 
 
 In a few days, I shall set out for Benares ; hence, 
 without delay, I shall go on to Delhi, and from Delhi 
 to the frontiers of the empire, among the highest 
 mountains in the world. 
 
 I shall arrive there in April or May, and shall hire, 
 in a neighbourhood which may appear good for form- 
 ing collections, the house, hut, cabin, or perhaps cot- 
 tage, of some mountaineer, in a spot elevated, no doubt, 
 ten or twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea ; 
 and there I shall stay till winter. 
 
 I shall then descend with all that I may have col- 
 lected during the summer ; and, according to the credit 
 I may have at Calcutta, shall proceed to Bombay, or 
 remain in the mountains a little lower down, to ransack 
 another valley next season, if I think I shall find suffi- 
 cient there to make it worth my while. 
 
 I shall thus have come to India, crossed the line 
 twice, to live in a smoky hut among eternal snows. If, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 127 
 
 as I hope, I find something new in this place, I shall 
 not complain of my abode. These wilds have been 
 travelled over by a good many English, and I have 
 reason to believe that their Flora is sufficiently well 
 known, although, no doubt, they have left something 
 to be done on a close inspection. By most, the pre- 
 ference has been given to geology ; but they had all 
 learned geology from books and in India, and I have 
 no faith in their decisions. 
 
 Lastly, my friend, if what I am about to do is not 
 the best that can be done in India, the fault is not 
 mine, and I shall enter upon my project with this 
 feeling of satisfaction : that of all possibles, if there 
 should happen to be another possible, this is the 
 best. 
 
 Take your map and follow me. 
 
 Mounted on a white horse (I am predestined to have 
 white horses), pistols in good order, &c. &c, I shall 
 open the march, followed immediately by two poor 
 devils, who will cost me twenty-four or thirty francs a 
 month ; one of whom, called syce, is properly the 
 groom ; and the other, gassy ara> or grass-cutter, is 
 laden with my horses' food. Each will carry one of my 
 guns loaded with ball or shot, according to circum- 
 stances. When I gallop they will run ; this is the 
 custom. 
 
 In divers groups round a rude car made of bamboos, 
 and drawn by two oxen, on which my baggage will 
 slowly advance, will walk the grand-master of my ward ■ 
 
128 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 robe, sirdah beer ah, a ketmadgar, as waiter at table, 
 and (by an ingenious combination) at the same time 
 cook, a mochaltchi or plate-washer (nota bene, I have 
 two plates) and a beetclieti or water-carrier. 
 
 Besides the driver of the car, another will drive, as far 
 as Benares, an ox of burthen, carrying the smallest 
 tent in India. 
 
 I shall travel six, seven, or eight leagues a day ; 
 living upon rice dressed in the native fashion, fowls, and 
 milk, and drinking water mixed with French brandy 
 as long as I have any ; never any bread. I shall sleep 
 in my tent on a mat, or in a light cot. 
 
 In thirty-five or forty days, I shall be at Benares : it 
 is two hundred leagues from hence, passing through 
 Bardwan, Rogonatpore, and Sasseram. 
 
 At Benares, I shall refresh myself and my people, 
 at some judge's or receiver-general's, and shall hire 
 camels to go to Delhi by the right bank of the Jumna, 
 leaving it a little to see an interesting country, the 
 Bundlecund, passing by Murzapore, Callinger, and Agra. 
 This will be going on excellently. The camels, they 
 say, are admirable ; they are hired at nine rupees 
 (twenty-three francs) a month ; at seven, when more 
 than three are taken. There is no trouble about their 
 fodder, nor that of the people who drive them. It is 
 the same, however, with all kinds of servants, who are 
 paid absolutely nothing more than their wages ; they 
 get on as they can afterwards. A camel will carry 
 three or four hundred weight. As I shall then have 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 129 
 
 a stronger animal to carry my tent, I will have a 
 better one, and the whole will be cheaper than the 
 oxen and car from hence to Benares. But, on this 
 first part of my route, there are no camels ; and besides, 
 there are houses built and supported by government, 
 but who support only the roof and four walls, in which 
 I shall often sleep on my ridiculous little tent which 
 will serve only for a mattrass. I shall be better on 
 than under it. From Delhi to the foot of the moun- 
 tains, passing through a part of the territory of the 
 Sikhs, I shall go on with the camels ; then in the 
 mountains with mules and oxen ; and at last, at the 
 end of my journey, on men's shoulders. 
 
 The road which I shall follow is very safe ; there is 
 no particularly unwholesome place to pass. Tigers and 
 bears, whose existence I cannot absolutely deny, though 
 much inclined to do so, are not common, and they sel- 
 dom say anything to people who say nothing to them. 
 If they speak first, you know that, at all events, I have 
 five balls ready to give them an answer ; and I believe 
 that, as I am determined not to fire except within 
 range, meeting them will not be dangerous. 
 
 If, however, unforeseen circumstances should make 
 me desire any other protection than that of my own 
 resolution, I might have an escort. Here is the pass- 
 port which I yesterday received for that purpose. My 
 father will translate it to you. 
 
 " Monsieur Victor Jacquemont, a native of France, 
 engaged in scientific pursuits, being about to travel 
 
 vol. i. ' K 
 
130 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 in Hindostan, with the permission of the honourable 
 the Court of Directors, and of the supreme govern- 
 ment of India, it is the desire of the Governor Genera! 
 in council, that every necessary assistance and protec- 
 tion shall be afforded to him by the officers and 
 authorities of the British nation ; and farther, that he 
 shall receive from them any attention they may have 
 it in their power to offer." 
 
 This is better than the " prions de laisser passer 
 et circuler Ubrement," &c. &c. 
 
 But in addition to this general recommendation to 
 people to whom I shall have no particular letters of in- 
 troduction, Lady William Bentinck is procuring me a 
 great number of the latter kind, and I shall have some 
 from herself. My London packet, of which I did not 
 exhaust one half at Calcutta, is nothing to what I 
 shall carry from hence. To-morrow I shall arrange 
 with my banker, how, while on the road, I am to 
 draw upon him : and this will be settled satisfactorily. 
 It will be only to-morrow that I shall break in upon 
 my credit account for 1829, to pay for my horse. I 
 have almost reached the end of the year without 
 touching it. 
 
 Thank Colonel Lafosse for the introduction he gave 
 me to his friend. Colonel Fagan and myself are like 
 two unfortunate lovers. A singular succession of little 
 chances has broken off twenty appointments to meet. 
 We have seen each other but seldom — though like peo- 
 ple who know they have no time to lose, and will soon 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 131 
 
 be separated. A widower overwhelmed with business — 
 for he is a major-general in the army — and ill, he 
 lives by himself, goes nowhere, and receives no visits. 
 Nevertheless at whatever hour I call, I am admitted : 
 we converse about European affairs, and he informs me 
 of those of this country. In spite of his being an Irish- 
 man by birth, and an Englishman by nation, I call 
 him a Frenchman like myself, and more a Frenchman 
 than many born in Paris. 
 
 I have the agreeable conviction, that the long use 
 which I have made of Mr. Pearson's hospitality, has 
 not been indiscreet. He pays me a thousand attentions. 
 When the French ships arrived a short time ago, he 
 had people running backwards and forwards two days 
 in search of a Perigord pie ; and this morning at 
 breakfast he made me violate my Asiatic sobriety, by the 
 surprise of a pate de c allies truffees, which is so 
 delicious, that we shall make it last as short a time as 
 possible. In becoming as familiar as it is possible to be 
 with an Englishman, I have constantly received from 
 him the same flattering attentions with which he greeted 
 me the first day. I am now a companion for him in 
 life ; I am, properly speaking, his only society, as he is 
 mine, when I dine at home. In matters of idle stories, 
 theoretical politics and literary taste, we agree ad- 
 mirably ; and he appears to take much pleasure in our 
 hour's chat after dinner, which is very profitable to me 
 as he is a man of great information. 
 
 A small part of his knowledge and talents as an advo- 
 
 k <2 
 
13*2 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 cate, brings him in 400,000 francs a year ; 160,000 of 
 which he spends nobly. His office of Attorney General 
 only brings him in 100,000. 
 
 I could not possibly have been better billeted. What 
 would have become of me if I had not spent twenty 
 days in London ? I well remember that I did not spare 
 myself there. Adieu for to-day, my friend, for I 
 scarcely spare myself any more now, leaving you to 
 try a new horse, which has just been offered to me — 
 a young Persian horse, saddled and bridled, and for 
 250 rupees (650 francs) — although I had this morning 
 a heavy fall with the white jade in question, which has 
 made my chest very painful. Adieu. 
 
 Monday, 9th. 
 
 I make you present at my departure, writing to you 
 in the midst of my preparations. I have cut the con- 
 nexion with my white horse, to which I owe a grudge 
 for the harm he has done me ; and it is on my new 
 acquaintance of yesterday evening, approved of by a 
 person of knowledge in those matters, that I shall start. 
 It is a little bay-horse in which nothing is wanting, and 
 this gives me a guarantee, that he will take me into 
 the upper provinces, the circumstance of his having 
 already been there once, as he was born there. His 
 paces are good, and he gallops well when required. 
 I have, moreover, along with the horse, the groom, 
 a native of the upper provinces, speaking excellent 
 Hindoostanee, and who understands the morale and 
 physique of the beast, having taken care of him for 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 133 
 
 a year ; a cheerful vigorous fellow, glad to return with 
 me to his own country. I have formed an escort 
 as I could wish, of people accustomed to wait on 
 officers, and to be harshly treated by them ; and I am 
 already so much modified by the contagion of example, 
 that I will suffer no relaxation of discipline. A man 
 is degraded, and brutalised, by living among such 
 debased beings. I now understand and excuse 
 Frederick's harshness — I was going to say violence, 
 and his great readiness in planting a kick on the 
 hinder part of one of God's images. I already feel a 
 similar inclination. 
 
 Your reminding me of another time and another 
 place, has come very seasonably to repel far from 
 me all idea of suffering in the long excursion which 
 I am about to make. I am governed by the feeling 
 most suitable to my situation. I consider myself 
 entirely as a soldier in the field, taking the good 
 where I find it, and enjoying it the more from the 
 anticipation of the contrast, and soon lying down gaily 
 on a mat in heat or cold — sometimes in rain, and 
 sometimes necessarily too without dinner, although 
 I have two servants for my cuisine only. After all,, 
 my caravan, the most wretched that ever traversed 
 India, will be magnificent in comparison with your 
 equipage on your return from Minsk. I remember, 
 my dear Porphyre, your letters of that period, as well as 
 if they had been read to me yesterday. It is on your 
 particular case (which was then that of a million of 
 
J34< A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Frenchmen,) that I have formed my ideas of war and a 
 military life ; and I am, no more than yourself, appalled 
 by the complaints which we have received from some of 
 our warriors in Greece. 
 
 I shall recollect, in my worst days, those you 
 formerly passed frozen, famished, and scarcely twenty 
 years old ; and I shall never think myself miserable. 
 
 The English have habits of opulence and numberless 
 artificial wants, which would necessarily make them the 
 same in the different situations in which I am about to 
 be placed. I do not speak through envy j no, I despise 
 this ignoble dependence on external things from the 
 bottom of my heart. For my own part, I am sure that 
 I shall, on the contrary, sometimes find a charm in the 
 rather antiquated and biblical simplicity of my caravan. 
 
 Of course, in the states under the government or 
 protection of the English, or merely in alliance with 
 them, I preserve my European costume ; it is sufficient 
 to make a man, ever so little white, a Sahib or lord. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the upper provinces, it is convenient 
 in winter to add a shawl and girdle to the European 
 costume. The fashionables, of course, seize the oppor- 
 tunity of circulating the rupees, and envelope them- 
 selves in shawls. I shall think myself sufficiently 
 magnificent, with a thick and very warm silk stuff, over 
 a nankeen dressing gown. The whole, on the aforesaid 
 bay horse, surmounted by a pale face, with spectacles 
 and a large straw hat covered with black taffety, would 
 afford Merimee a good subject for a picture. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 135 
 
 My banker, a correspondent of M. Delessert, is the 
 most obliging man in the world ; he has given me the 
 best possible information on the questions of finance 
 which I have put to him. I may draw upon him from 
 nearly all points of my route, and thus future con- 
 tingencies are provided against. On being informed 
 of my proceedings, he will immediately let me know 
 the increase of credit which he will be able to allow 
 me. 
 
 I have told you nothing about my health — here is 
 the bulletin. I have not had the slightest touch of 
 fever. When the excessive heat here prevented every 
 one around me from sleeping, I have slept as I used 
 to do in winter at home. I have but little appetite, and 
 eat little. I am very subject to colds in the head, 
 which I shall probably avoid by wearing a turban ; but 
 here the thing is impossible ; we shall see by-and-by. 
 When I am in my hut, or under my tent, without 
 having any hosts to respect, I may perhaps adopt it. 
 Our father will be pleased to observe that the cold 
 extends to the nasal fossa? and frontal sinuses, but 
 never lower. My old disposition to sore throats, seems 
 entirely gone. 
 
 The hygrometer is, like me, in every country — at 
 the point of extreme dryness ; but there are means, 
 which ingenious art and they are used with dis- 
 cretion. It is, I am persuaded, from not using lavemens 
 that many English die in this country. Their medical 
 men cannot bring them to it. 
 
136 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Good day, my friend : I leave you to dine tete-a-tete 
 at the quiet little table of my amiable invalid, Colonel 
 Fagan. 
 
 Lord William has just lent me the French papers, 
 which he has received from Bordeaux, up to the 17th 
 of July, and I read them rapidly and with interest. 
 It will be the last print I shall touch of my native 
 land. In six days, farewell to the things of Europe. 
 But, adieu. They make wine and brandy on the 
 frontiers of Thibet, and I shall eat grapes next 
 autumn ; meanwhile, I shall only have plantains and 
 bad peaches. 
 
 Barrackpore, November 2\st, Saturday. 
 
 To a ship-owner, my dear Porphyre, I may say 
 without impropriety, that yesterday evening I weighed 
 anchor. You know how many sources of delay there 
 are, in collecting all the things necessary for a depar- 
 ture. But yesterday at three o'clock, seeing my cars 
 loaded in the street, and surrounded by my little 
 army, tolerably complete, I gave them the order for 
 departure. You sailors would have objected that it was 
 Friday ; but what could I do ? If I had waited, some of 
 my people would have lost their fathers or brothers in 
 the night, and been obliged to remain to-day to bury 
 or roast them according to the Hindoo custom. In 
 short, I should have been still detained, and how long ? 
 God knows. At night-fall, I mounted my horse, and 
 joined my troop on the road outside the city, and 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 437 
 
 pushed them on five coss. I have ten men with me ; 
 I think there are some good ones among them. More- 
 over, my cook's father follows me en amateur to 
 return home. This fellow will end by costing me four 
 rupees a month, for I cannot do without a tchaokedar 
 or night-guard j and I shall be forced to confer this 
 dignity on him, with a pike, or a sabre and buckler, 
 according to which may be the most economical. The 
 pike will cost half a rupee, and I fear the other will 
 exceed the other half. My attendants cost me about 
 fifty rupees per month, and the two cars from 
 hence to Benares, eighty. 
 
 The engineers being essentially wigmakers*, one 
 of them in this quarter who presides over the materiel 
 of the arsenals, has given me a pike, I think at the 
 honourable company's expense, under the pretence 
 that it was not new, because it had been used for an 
 instant in order to show it ; and for a hundred and 
 ten rupees (the price of the second class, old repairable 
 tents) he caused to be delivered to me a handsome 
 little mountain tent, which, in my conscience, I con- 
 sider quite new. 
 
 In taking leave of me yesterday, as I was mounting 
 my horse, Mr. Pearson told me, that he looked upon 
 me as a member of his own family ; and that if any 
 
 * In the artillery, the superior officers and managers who apply 
 to their own personal use objects and materials belonging to the 
 Government arsenals, are called by this name. 
 
138 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 unforeseen event should bring me back to Calcutta, I 
 must have no other home but his house. 
 
 I am full of strength and resignation, happy that 
 I am en route, and that I owe it to my prudence^ 
 Adieu, my friend, adieu ; I love you with all my heart. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT, THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Calcutta, November 10th, 1829. 
 
 For the friends of local character, my dear and 
 excellent father, there is a tolerably Asiatic appearance 
 in this letter. Look at the edge of the Chinese and 
 prodigiously economical paper, and tell me if that is not 
 local character in earnest*. I have, at last, the plea- 
 sure of replying to a letter written in answer to the first 
 of mine, which went from this side of the Cape of 
 Good Hope. You were then afraid that my successful 
 debut among our countrymen of Bourbon, would 
 not be maintained among persons of a different nation. 
 But long ere this you probably know, without under- 
 standing it any more than I do myself, that the Eng- 
 lish in India have received me with a crescendo of 
 flattering attentions and noble hospitality. To people 
 
 * This letter, like several others, is written on Chinese paper with 
 rose-coloured edges. Jacquemont calls it economical, on account of 
 its small size, which admits of considerable abbreviation in purely 
 complimentary letters. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 13Q 
 
 whom I find agreeable, I translate my French thoughts 
 literally ; this is something new and uncommon to 
 them, which excites and often spurs them, to reply. 
 In public, I deliver little sententious, well-rounded 
 speeches ; and as I am far from speaking English cor- 
 rectly, there are frequent gallicisms in my language, 
 which take my truisms out of the class to which they 
 really belong, and sometimes elevate them to the dig- 
 nity of new and profound truths. The oral part of 
 libations being suppressed in this country, I have had 
 no opportunity of improving myself in that species of 
 eloquence in which I made so successful a debut last 
 year in London. 
 
 You are going to scold me ; but I must confess to 
 you, that I have not spoken to three young ladies. 
 They are, in every respect, the most insignificant in 
 the world. Besides, I have always found them silly in 
 every country. 
 
 It is long since I have had four cups of coffee, such 
 as I had at Bourbon. Under this name, by an 
 enormous abuse of language, the English inject into 
 their stomachs the same number of cups of hot water 
 and milk, dirtied a little with powdered charcoal. It 
 is considered to be Mocha; But I accommodate myself 
 wonderfully to these changes of regimen, not being the 
 worse, I think, for not having real coffee. 
 
 My letter to Porphyre will inform you of the jour- 
 ney I am about to commence*. With my two years' 
 
 * See the preceding letter. 
 
140 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 income to be expended in one, I think, taking all things 
 into consideration, I may undertake that to the moun- 
 tains, but no other. I shall wait there, and work 
 hard, until the horizon, as the newspapers say, grows 
 clearer, before I trace my further progress. 
 
 I shall write to you from Benares, Delhi, and Semla, 
 where I expect to meet Lord William Bentinck in the 
 mountains ; but, as my letters will have to be jolted 
 across India, they will, no doubt, reach you very irregu- 
 larly ; and afterwards, being secluded far from Europeans 
 in the solitudes of the Himalaya, I shall be necessarily 
 several months without writing to you. Put then in 
 practice your just theories of confidence. After all, 
 people are not glass to break, nor butter to melt in the 
 sun : only one officer in twenty-eight dies annually in 
 the Bengal army ; and one, in thirty-one and a half, in 
 that of Madras, and they do all they can to die. What 
 then is the chance against me ? One to sixty, perhaps ? 
 Would it not be the same at Paris ? 
 
 If you hear that Runjeet-Sing has invaded the 
 Company's frontiers, congratulate me on the oppor- 
 tunity I shall have of seeing an Asiatic campaign en 
 passant ; or if the Himalaya should sink to the level 
 of the plains of Bengal, (which is not more probable 
 than an invasion by Runjeet-Sing) remember the hur- 
 ricane at Bourbon ; and congratulate me on the sections 
 of strata, junctions of rocks, &c. &c, which this acci- 
 dent would present to my view. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 411 
 
 Friday, 10 o'clock, Evening — Calcutta, Nov. I'Sth, 1829. 
 
 I went out on horseback at four o'clock this morn- 
 ing, and did not return till eight : I rode no less than 
 twenty miles. These are the last days of my stay here, 
 and I must not lose an instant. 
 
 Before nine I was on my way to Garden Reach, 
 where I was to occupy the morning in paying visits of 
 leave-taking, and to dine in the evening with the chief 
 justice, Sir Charles Grey. I breakfasted with Sir 
 Charles Metcalf, one of the two members of council : 
 it was he who so obligingly placed the Botanical 
 Garden at my disposal, during my stay at Sir Edward 
 Ryan's. To-morrow he will send me a letter to his 
 brother, the collector, and a magistrate at Delhi, where 
 he was himself resident for a considerable period ; 
 nothing could be more seasonable. 
 
 Those of his neighbours to whom I was indebted 
 for some attentions and dinners, were soon despatched. 
 I longed to arrived at Lady Ryan's, who had done 
 more than show me attentions. I had not seen 
 her for six weeks ; and we met again like old friends. 
 However, I was obliged to cross the Ganges, to take 
 leave of the Botanical Garden, and complete some 
 arrangements there. I found the gardener ill, and 
 unable to assist me in this business, which I could 
 not do without him. Another day's delay ! I shall 
 be obliged to return on Monday, accompanied by the 
 chief of the native gardeners, a tall Brahmin with a 
 very handsome countenance, and very intelligent. I 
 
142 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 employed the time which the unlucky illness of the 
 Englishman left at my disposal, in going over this 
 immense and magnificent establishment in every 
 direction. This time I had no need of an interpreter 
 with the Brahmin. He appeared much surprised at 
 my recent progress in Hindoostanee. 
 
 Having crossed the river and returned to Sir E. 
 Ryan's, to make a third change of dress, as black as 
 possible, the remains of the wreck of La Zelee, which 
 still does honour to Porphyre's tailor, I went to Sir 
 Charles Grey's. We dined a trois, in a very un-English 
 manner. The English of this character, and I can say 
 the same of my host in town, never completely accustom 
 themselves to the insipidity of their national mode of 
 living. My departure and journey formed the sole 
 subject of a most agreeable conversation. To such 
 people I jested about the smallness of my tent, and the 
 projected patriarchal simplicity of my fare during my 
 long pilgrimage ; upon which Sir Charles Grey, who 
 spends three hundred thousand francs a year, said that 
 I could not do better ; and that were he not a judge 
 and married, he would willingly accompany me on my 
 unusual, and perhaps hard conditions, but picturesque 
 and proper for study. As Englishwomen follow the 
 fortunes of their husbands more than ours do, Lady 
 Grey regretted that she could not be of the party. 
 
 Now, you know, my dear father, that I have always 
 been very much disposed to consider Lady Grey hand- 
 some, graceful, and amiable. I setting the thing agoing, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 143 
 
 we began to be affected, and sought the means of depriv- 
 ing my departure of this melancholy solemnity. It was 
 then settled, that if Lord William Bentinck should, as 
 is very probable, be prevented from making his journey 
 into the mountains in this year, Sir Charles Grey will 
 avail himself of the preparations made for him, and 
 proceed in his steam vessel as far, and as quickly as pos- 
 sible, in order to arrive at Semla before the heats, where 
 he will inhabit the only comfortable house of the can- 
 tonment, that which has just been built on purpose for 
 the Governor-general. 
 
 This is not unlike building castles in the air ; but at 
 table what can we do better ? and why not ? The chief 
 justice is only useful, he is not necessary. He will be 
 blamed a little for giving himself a year's holiday, with- 
 out any appearance of pretext but his own good pleasure ; 
 but no one can prevent him : his high rank, which is 
 immediately after that of the Governor-general, renders 
 him in that situation, on the bench, much more inde- 
 pendent than the Governor-general on his revocable 
 throne. Besides, the immense respect in which he is 
 held on account of his great talents and activity, 
 allows him to do what no one else could venture upon. 
 In that case, J shall sleep in a good bed a couple of 
 nights at least at Semla. 
 
 I reckoned upon finishing this evening quietly and 
 alone, as we had begun it. But Lady Grey had pro- 
 mised to be present at some amateur theatricals in 
 town, and we all three went together. The performance 
 was, as might be expected, very tedious ; and we passed 
 
144 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the time in chatting, as we should have done in her 
 drawing-room. She was very beautiful that evening ; 
 and, thinking of the fools who formed the crowd 
 around us, I had the weakness to rejoice at her beauty. 
 In the morning these people gallop about on magnificent 
 Arabs, while I trot almost in my dressing-gown, without 
 boots or whip, on my strong but nimble Persian pony. 
 For this they despise me a little, assuredly; but in the 
 evening you will see them make their entree with some 
 feathered owl on their arm ; and it is then I have my 
 revenge, escorting the beautiful Lady Grey. Without 
 the happy chance of these aristocratical friendships, the 
 place would not have been tenable by me ; and, thanks 
 to it, no one could have been more overwhelmed with 
 attention and distinction. Good night. My dear father! 
 Conclude from this chapter, if you will, that lam, per- 
 haps, a too great admirer of the foretold lady, and 
 that it is high time for me to depart with the occa- 
 sions of meeting her often*. 
 
 Barrackpore, 2\st November, 1829. 
 
 The time is past, those days are gone. Had I 
 waited till evening, I could write you fastuously 
 from my camp of— Poltagate. 
 
 I left Calcutta yesterday evening with my oxen and 
 people. There were some laggers behind, among the rest 
 unfortunately the cook ; but the case was anticipated, 
 
 * This and the following- paragraph are the author's own English 
 — T. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 145 
 
 and I faced the appetite I had gained, in riding five 
 coss, (five short leagues,) with two biscuits and a glass 
 of sub-alcoholised water. It was useless to pitch the 
 tent, as there was a government bungalow at hand. 
 
 What a fine thing a European inn is ! I have fur- 
 nished an apartment with my camp bed; my shaving 
 apparatus, to which is annexed the medical department, 
 the whole in an herbalising box ; guns and pistols, in 
 a comer behind my head. I gave the word — vigilance, 
 responsibility, prison ; and ordered our departure the 
 next day at four o'clock. 
 
 At half past four I was on my march. Every thing 
 goes on better than I expected. The laggers have 
 come up. I have just enjoyed the agreeable sight 
 of my cook ; and my Persian pony, which has not 
 made its appearance, is rather in the front than the 
 rear. In that case, I shall find him by-and-by on the 
 bank of the river, which I shall cross, in order to 
 pitch my tent near Chandernagore, where I shall dine 
 to-morrow with our governor. I shall leave this letter 
 and several others there. 
 
 So here I am on my route. This evening my edu- 
 cation, as an Indian traveller, will be complete when I 
 go to bed (that is to say, when I throw myself, without 
 taking off my clothes, on a cane cot under my little 
 tent, and with a pilau in my stomach) ; added to this, it 
 is fine, mild, cloudy weather ; dressed as I am in linen, 
 it is perfection. At night, I wrap myself up in as 
 many blankets as an Egyptian mummy. 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 A JOURNEY EN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 They have offered me at this place — a military post 
 of the presidency — in consequence of having received 
 particular orders from the governor general, a guard of 
 seapoys without my requesting it. As my groom and 
 my cook's aide-de-camp, a fellow I hope to make some- 
 thing of, as a stuffer of animals, &c, walk before me 
 each with a gun, as I have always pistols in my 
 holsters, and as all the robbers on the high roads of 
 Bengal could be put to flight with a rush, I declined 
 the useless honour, notwithstanding the good appear- 
 ance it would impart to my entrance into Chan- 
 dernagore to-morrow. I am very well. Adieu, my 
 dear father, adieu in earnest this time. I shall write 
 in five weeks from Benares. 
 
 I embrace you with all my heart. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT. THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Thursday, December 24th, 1829. Camp of Huinguilisse, 
 on the Banks of the Sone. Lat. 24° 55' N. Lon. 84' 10° 
 E.from Greenwich ; 340 Mile* X- W.from Calcutta, 
 and 90 Miles E. S. E.from Benares. 
 
 This time, my dear father, it is not from a little 
 corner of Europe, transported beyond the seas, that I 
 write to you ; it is from India. I speak no more 
 English ; I eat no bread nor do I sleep in a house. 
 What a difference between this strange life and my 
 existence at Calcutta among the refinements of all kinds 
 
I.AH0KE AND CASHMERE. 147 
 
 of European opulence, grafted on Asiatic luxury ! It is 
 scarcely more than a month since I turned Arab, and 
 it already seems that I could have been born no where 
 but under a tent. Borrow Arrowsmith's Atlas, or a 
 map by Major Rennel ; and start with me from Cal- 
 cutta on the evening of the 21st of November. 
 
 I informed you from Barrackpore, where I stopped 
 the next morning, of the total absence of events on my 
 first day's march. On the second day, I arrived at 
 Chandernagore, after crossing the Hoogly. I found 
 my knife and fork placed and my bed permanently 
 made at our good governor's, the same who formerly 
 made war on M. Duvancel, with his thirty-two seapoys. 
 [N. B. they had no cartridges). He is thirty years 
 older than I am ; but at the moment of leaving Europe, 
 I felt myself drawn towards him by the mass of opinions 
 and feelings in which men of the same country partake, 
 without nevertheless having any proper or individual 
 resemblance. However, I stood firm against all his 
 entreaties, and stayed with him only one night, to afford 
 rest to my men and cattle from the hurry and disorder 
 of my departure. On the 20th, I sent them only as 
 far as Hoogly, five miles to the north of Chander- 
 nagore, on the banks of the river of the same name. 
 All the laggers had joined, and those whom zeal had 
 led the first day beyond my first halt, had been over- 
 taken the day after on the banks of the river. 
 
 At Hoogly I found my baggage arranged round a 
 pretty bungalow, my bed made, and first pilau ready in 
 
 i. 2 
 
148 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 an unfurnished, but very clean room. I was about to 
 make an assault on my first mountain of rice, when 
 a djemadhar, a sort of native usher, a servant of 
 some rank, was despatched to me from a neighbouring 
 house — that of the collector. I found that he wished 
 to know who I was, and I sent him Lord W. Bentinck's 
 passport. Immediately there was a second message, an 
 invitation to dine and sleep ; I refused, on pretence of 
 having a long beard. On this, the collector's steward 
 was despatched to me with half a dozen cooks, tables, 
 chairs, saucepans, spits, &c, to assist mine (as the col- 
 lector supposed) in preparing my dinner. In return for 
 this, I thought I could do no less than pay him a visit ; 
 and having only a garden to cross, I went and thanked 
 my obliging neighbour, accepting of his kind offers only 
 a chair and a table. In the evening he sent me a 
 guard to watch, during the night, round my little do- 
 main, and a tchouprassy, a kind of armed messenger, 
 very useful to a traveller, like the defunct janissaries in 
 Turkey. This man, who brought me a very polite note, 
 had orders to accompany me as far as Burdwan, forty- 
 five miles to the north west. 
 
 This was a notable addition to my caravan, at the 
 head of which I arrived in this city on Thursday 
 morning without accident. It is the seat of a civil 
 station. There are eight Englishmen here, who 
 judge, tax, and in one word govern, a million four 
 hundred thousand Indians, including a Rajah, Avho 
 is upon paper the richest private individual in India. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 149 
 
 I had a letter for the poorest of these eight English- 
 men, the engineer officer superintending the roads. 
 My reception here was even kinder, if possible, than 
 at Calcutta. To tell you why, or how, is really im- 
 possible. Captain Vetch is a Scotchman, religious, 
 &c. Moreover he is old enough to be my father ; his 
 wife, much younger than himself, is a rigid presby- 
 terian. Are these, I ask you, a happy prelude to 
 sympathy ? Nevertheless, they have since written to 
 me con amore ; you would be touched if you saw their 
 letter. Being introduced by my host to the seven 
 other Europeans, a grand dinner was organised with- 
 out delay for the next day, at the house of the colonel 
 of the provincial regiment. I owed my people a day's 
 rest, and I wanted some myself to adjust my parapher- 
 nalia, prior to entering the jungle. Captain Vetch 
 having mentioned to me the propriety of a guard, in 
 those districts unfrequented by Europeans, I demanded 
 one from the magistrate, and sent my passport to 
 him. It was immediately returned with five seapoys 
 in full uniform, cartridges in their cartouches, &c, 
 who are placed under my orders, as far as the first 
 military station, Hazarubaug, eighty leagues from 
 Burdwan. 
 
 Since I left Burdwan, I have travelled with a military 
 escort, and shall have this guarantee around me as 
 long as I am in India : Lord William did not tell me 
 the magic effect that his firman would produce. My 
 
150 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 little guard, which I can increase according to circum- 
 stances, adds little to my personal safety here, which 
 would be nearly perfect without it : but with it, I 
 am certain of not being robbed. When I start in 
 the morning with some of my men, and two of my 
 seapoys, I am sure that my cars will arrive behind, and 
 that my servants will not plunder them and run away. 
 No obstacle will stop them : if they sink in a bog, or 
 are stranded in the bed of a torrent — if the oxen stop 
 at the foot of a mountain, without being able to get 
 over it, my serjeant with his red dress will know how 
 to find hands to help them along. Where should I 
 now be without my guard ? Undoubtedly, drowned in 
 the mud of some river near Burdwan. For a month 
 past I have tasted of the sweets of absolute power ; it 
 is certainly a very convenient thing. Of course, I make 
 the most temperate use of it ; and you know that under 
 a Marcus Aurelius, this most simple of all forms of 
 government is, at the same time, the best. 
 
 When my baggage arrives at the place I have marked 
 out for my encampment, my generalissimo, with the most 
 formidable and stiffest air in the world, comes to say 
 that all is in good order ; he then urges on the little 
 operation of pitching the tent. At night he comes to 
 receive his orders for the morrow, and to inform me 
 that he has posted a sentinel at my canvas door. Pistols 
 and guns sleep in their holsters and cases, unless the 
 vicinity is very fertile in tigers ; in which case I have 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 151 
 
 always something ready at hand to make, at least, a 
 great deal of noise. You know how Porphyre has 
 provided for that. 
 
 But let us resume our map. From Burdwan, I 
 proceeded for seven days to the north west on the 
 left bank of the Dammhoudseurr, called also Dum- 
 moodah, Doonna, &c, by geographers (it may, how- 
 ever, be the exact pronunciation of its name in other 
 parts of its course), passing through Manniore and Dig- 
 nagur. It was there that I first encountered jungles, 
 and I confess I was very much disappointed. I had ima- 
 gined a thick impenetrable forest, offering all the 
 richness of form and colour to be found in tropical 
 vegetation, bristling with thorny trees, interlaced with 
 sarmentous shrubs, and climbing plants, mounting 
 to the tops of the highest trees, and falling grace- 
 fully back, like cascades of flowers. At Rio Janeiro 
 and Saint Domingo I had seen scattered features 
 of this picture ; but here I found myself amongst 
 woods still more monotonous than those of Europe, 
 with some stunted underwood ; and instead of the 
 roaring of tigers in the distance, the noise of the 
 woodman's axe. 
 
 I have since viewed scenes less remote from 
 those which my imagination had pictured. I have 
 proceeded a hundred leagues along a road, traversed 
 by no path, bordered, shut in, walled on either 
 side by the forest or desert plains through which 
 it has been opened. I have penetrated into these 
 
15 L 2 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 solitudes along the dried-up beds of torrents. As for 
 tigers, I must believe in their existence ; for I saw 
 and touched one, which was killed at Hazarubaug six 
 hours after my passage on the road, and the next day a 
 leopard of the same growth ; then again, my English 
 host at the mines of Runnigunge, on the banks of the 
 Dummoodah, has eighteen scars on his face, made by 
 the scratch of one of them. But, incredulous by nature, 
 I shall believe more in them, when I see but the 
 shadow of a living one's tail. You will see, that after 
 travelling in India like no one else, I shall return to 
 see tigers at the Jardin des Plantes. Do not, how- 
 ever, be afraid that my incredulity will expose me 
 to any danger, in this world at least : I am always 
 on my guard, and never go on foot without a gun; 
 nor alone on my exploring expeditions. 
 
 A recommendation from the proprietor of the mines 
 of Runnigunge (banks of the Dummoodah, twelve 
 leagues east of Rogonatpore) to the subaltern agent, 
 who superintends the works, made me master of his 
 house. After sleeping seven nights on a mat, I found 
 the sensation of sheets on my naked skin in bed very 
 pleasant. I remained at Runnigunge thirty-six hours ; 
 thirteen up to my knees in mud and cold water, a 
 hundred feet under ground, with my hammer, compass, 
 chemical tests, and measure at hand. It is the only 
 coal mine that has been worked in India, and I spared 
 no pains to make myself geologically and commercially 
 acquainted with it. The thirteenth part of the hard- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 153 
 
 ships, or miseries of this examination, would, no doubt, 
 have given me a desperate cold at Calcutta ; but I 
 know, and you know, by the experience of half a score 
 of years, that my constitution is singularly modified in 
 travelling ; becoming strengthened, and easily getting 
 over a variety of things which would be serious ob- 
 stacles, were they to present themselves in the midst of 
 a quiet and regular life. At Calcutta, I was continually 
 taking cold, from a change of temperature of five or six 
 degrees : now, at three o'clock, the thermometer is at 
 S7 in my tent, which is not sheltered from the sun 
 by any tree ; to-morrow, at three or four o'clock in 
 the morning, the cold will come, as it does every day, 
 to pull me by the legs under three blankets, and the 
 temperature will have fallen forty degrees: and yet 
 I do not take cold. 
 
 From Runnegunge to Rogonatpore, where I re- 
 joined what they call the new military road, I travelled 
 two days and a half through the sands of the Dum- 
 moodah ; a terrible business for my oxen, though assisted 
 by fifty people more or less benevolent, who were re- 
 quested to shove the wheels. Then the desolation of 
 desolation ! — beyond the river no road. You mnaf I 
 in the midst of thickets, and sometimes seize the oppor- 
 tunity offered by a ravine. Bless the seapoys ! it was 
 arm, leg, and head-breaking work, for both beasts and 
 people : it is a miracle that my lantern alone perished. 
 The children of some poor villagers lost in the midst 
 of t. >:> had never seen a European : they paid 
 
134 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET. 
 
 me back the annoyance, which I must have caused 
 some twenty years ago, to some poor devils of Turks 
 whom I followed in the s: b and stared at, like 
 other little blackguards of my own age. 
 
 From Rogonatpore, although the engineers have 
 displayed but little ability, the road is nevertheless 
 always good for a horseman ; and mv oxen and cars, 
 tried as they had been, rolled on gloriously. Relays 
 porters are stationed along this line, to carry 
 travellers who go post in palanquins ; I have met two 
 within the last sixteen days. There are also bungalows 
 to receive them, as well as those who travel, like me, 
 by marches. They are about the distance from each 
 other that the oxen, camels, elephants, or servants on 
 foot, can go in a day : five, six, seven, and eight leagues, 
 according to the difficulties of the road. In these bun- 
 galows there are two very neat apartments, two bed- 
 steads, two tables, and six chairs : in fact, two families 
 might, at a push, find accommodation in them. Three 
 servants attached by the administration of the post- 
 office to each, are particularly useful to those who travel 
 by palanquin alone. I found that at Rogonatpore, 
 occupied by a collector, on a journey with his wife 
 and young child. He has an elephant, eight cars like 
 mine, two cabriolets, and a particular car for his child, 
 two palanquins, six saddle and carriage-horses ; sixty 
 or eighty porters to carry him from one bungalow to 
 another, independently of at least sixty household 
 servants. He dresses, changes his dress, and dresses 
 
Lahore and cashmere. loo 
 
 again, breakfasts, tiffs, dines, and in the evening 
 takes tea exactly as at Calcutta, without abating an 
 atom ; glass and china are packed and unpacked from 
 morning till night ; glittering plate, clean linen four 
 - a day. ice. ice. 
 I appeared in the midst of this magnificence with a 
 ten days' beard and a foot of mud below my knee, 
 politely requesting half of the house to which I had a 
 right, and of which he had disposed entirely, not ex- 
 pecting any visit. The table which was laid, appa- 
 rently for half a dozen persons, was immediately 
 removed on my declining to sit down, and carried into 
 the other room. I waited in my own, with a heap of 
 stones and plants, till my pilau arrived. Having de- 
 spatched a note to my unknown, offering him a bed in 
 my room, for himself or a:. — .r.eman of his party, 
 
 :ame to thank me, telling me that he was alone 
 with his wife, and remained some time conversing, 
 extremely puzzled by the difference of my dress and 
 my language. I amused myself by increasing his per- 
 
 :ity, talking about all the great people of Calcutta, 
 like one perfectly acquainted with them, and of the 
 most general topics of conversation, politics, and litera- 
 Afterwards, fiuding him a good-natured fellow, 
 I told him who I was; ered into a commu: 
 
 of arrangements. Like me, he was goin^r ares 
 
 each day, from one bungalow to another, and I annc 
 him extremely by arriving every evening at the same 
 qua: in the day-time he famished me. 
 
156 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 his people not leaving a glass of milk within two 
 leagues ; and in the evening I came to deprive him of 
 half his lodgings. He offered to stop a day, and to 
 travel after me. I preferred going a double stage, 
 and getting on before him ; thus gaining time, without 
 causing any loss of it to him. So, after keeping com- 
 pany two days, which I required to know the style in 
 which these gentlemen travel, I left him behind me; 
 and, though he followed me very closely, I have not 
 heard the sound of his voice since. 
 
 But finding afterwards that my tent was better 
 lighted in the evening with a wax candle, and much 
 more cheerful than the bungalow ; and that I was 
 much more comfortable under it with my people lying 
 round me, and my horse at the door, than within four 
 naked walls as cold as my canvas, I have returned to the 
 desert fashion, and encamp, and shall continue to do so 
 in spite of all the bungalows, serais, and caravanserais 
 in India. Besides, on this road, the only one on which 
 they are decent, being reserved for Europeans, their 
 use is not gratuitous, far from it. The company ask 
 two rupees (five francs) a day ; and you cannot give 
 less than a rupee to the servants. It is not an objec- 
 tion, not even the subject of remark, to the Eng- 
 lish, who are all munificently paid : but ten pounds, 
 more or less, from Calcutta to Benares, is a matter 
 of some consequence to me : the sum is nearly half of 
 what the whole journey will cost me. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 157 
 
 Evening. 
 
 In the evening, proceeding from Rogonatpore in a 
 west north-west direction, I re-entered the forests, 
 which are somewhat thinner about that place, and 
 again crossed the Dummoodah, near Gomeah. For 
 a week I travelled over a table land, at an elevation of 
 four or five hundred metres— of several points of which 
 I have taken the level — constantly ascending and de- 
 scending, crossing several large torrents every day, and 
 encamping at night in the vicinity of a few huts. 
 
 Hazarubaug, which is scarcely more than a village, 
 is a little political residence. The English establish- 
 ment consists of a resident — who is colonel of the pro- 
 vincial regiment — a subaltern and a medical officer. 
 Having a letter for the latter I remained twenty-four 
 hours at this house. A note, with the usual compli- 
 ments, seconded by my passport, was immediately sent 
 to the resident, and returned with a fresh escort to 
 release that from Burdwan, and an invitation to dinner. 
 The two houses being contiguous, I paid a visit during 
 the day, which was repaid before dinner-time. My 
 Amphitryon was the remains of a very elegant, clever, 
 and amiable man, ruined, but not brutified by drink. 
 
 Starting from Hazarubaug on the 17th, after a day's 
 rest, of which my attendants stood in great need, I am 
 now on my way to Benares, where I shall arrive on the 
 31st of December, or 1st of January, after travelling 
 a hundred leagues without stopping a single day. 
 I must count them : the mountains are at such a 
 
158 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 distance I nearly four hundred leagues farther ! the 
 hot winds at their foot are so terrible ! sometimes they 
 begin to blow at the beginning of March, but usually 
 in April. You have read Bernier's Journey into Cash- 
 mere, with the Padishah Aurung-Zeb. You recol- 
 lect the recital of his sufferings in the plains of 
 Lahore when he encountered the shifting of the spring 
 monsoon? I must leave Delhi on the 1st of March 
 at the latest : it is unfortunate that I could not leave 
 Calcutta ten days earlier. But you have seen my 
 perplexities, and the embarrassments which stopped 
 and detained me there till 20th November. 
 
 The circuit I made, in order to inspect the coal- 
 mines of the Burdwan district, makes the distance 
 which I have passed over amount to two hundred 
 leagues. J have travelled more than half on foot, the 
 rest on horseback. I set out at four, five, or six o'clock 
 in the morning, according to the phases of the moon 
 and the nature of the country. At noon, two, three, 
 and sometimes not till four in the evening, I arrive at 
 the end of my day's journey, the whole of which, like 
 a native, I pass in the sun. Before mounting, I eat by 
 moonlight a plate of rice and milk well sugared and 
 cooked over night ; I put a biscuit in my pocket, 
 and, with this ballast, I accept as a windfall, but with- 
 out at all depending upon them, all the cups of milk 
 which my cook, sent forward with a seapoy, succeeds in 
 procuring on the road. I dine when I am ready, and 
 when dinner is ready at the same time ; if not, it waits, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 159 
 
 no matter what the hour is. The uniformity of my 
 food fortunately compensates for the irregularity of the 
 hours of my meals : I invariably eat a chicken cooked 
 with a pound of rice, plenty of ghee or native butter, 
 detestably rancid, but to which I have got wonderfully 
 used ; and some spices according to the fashion of the 
 country, but very sparingly used. This is the dinner of 
 a musselmaun with an income of twelve hundred francs. 
 J drink two large glasses of water with a few drops of 
 brandy, sometimes only pure water. The whole, 
 including the illegal profits of the khansama (for 
 my maitre d' hotel is my only cook), costs fifty francs 
 a month, half of which is stolen. I was forgetting 
 very unreasonably, for I am this moment drinking a 
 large cup of it, that in the evening I sometimes take 
 tea. In cold weather, I find it very pleasant ; or useful 
 to keep me awake, when I have worked a great deal, 
 and have an inclination to fall asleep. 
 
 After all, whatever may have been said of the laziness, 
 stupidity, and mendacity of the servants of this coun- 
 try, their service is very convenient and very cheap. 
 For twelve francs a month, I have a groom, who has 
 my horse saddled and bridled at the hour of the morn- 
 ing ordered the previous evening for our departure. 
 This man follows me like my shadow ; when I gallop, 
 he runs ; it is the custom. If I dismount, he is at hand 
 to lead my horse by the bridle, or to wait according to 
 my order ; now, I mount and dismount from ten to fifty 
 times in the course of the day. The other servant 
 
160 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 attached to the horse, the gassyara, goes on before, 
 and I find him at the place marked out for evening 
 halt, with a bundle of grass, leaves, or roots, which 
 he gathers as fodder for the animal. In carrying the 
 wages of these two men to my cavalry estimates, its 
 maintenance costs me forty or forty-five francs a month. 
 The collections of all kinds, which I go on making 
 on the road, require care, in which I must be seconded 
 by several servants ; but this species of service is not 
 included in any of the preceding. So when I told my 
 water-carrier to put his water-skin into one of the cars 
 in the day-time, and walk near me with my portfolio 
 under his arm to dry plants, he said that it was not 
 his business, and that too in a very impertinent tone. 
 I did not hesitate to give him a hearty kick imme- 
 diately, otherwise another would have told me that it 
 was not his place to carry my gun, another refused to 
 carry my hammer, and so on. I take good care not to 
 order any thing forbidden by their religious laws ; with 
 this exception, I exact imperiously, in addition to his 
 own special occupation, every service that each can 
 render. I hope that the majority will have time to 
 grow accustomed to this little revolution before we 
 arrive at Benares, and that I shall have but few vacan- 
 cies to supply in that city. I was afraid, on leaving 
 Calcutta, that I should soon be forsaken on the road by 
 persons paid in advance ; but not one has thought of 
 doing so. Henceforth, with my escort, they will not 
 dare. Moreover, at this moment I am in their debt. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. l'.il 
 
 I harden myself against cold as well as heat. I 
 
 have, it is true, covered my whole body with flannel, 
 but over it I wear only linen or cotton as in sum- 
 mer at Calcutta. Tired of constantly pulling off my 
 stockings to cross torrents, I do not put them on, 
 except at night to sleep in. Over my day-clothes I 
 put on also at night, when I go to bed, a second flannel 
 waistcoat, very thick and very ample, which I keep on 
 in the morning on the march, till the sun renders it 
 oppressive : but the wind is sometimes so piercing, that 
 I do not throw it off. My Pondicherry hat, made of 
 date leaves, and covered with black silk, is more bril- 
 liant than ever. In the morning I pull it like a cap 
 over my ears, and find it very warm. It takes every 
 shape that I wish; it is an admirable invention of mine, 
 light, water-proof, firm, fee. 
 
 December 25th, the other Bank of the Sone. 
 
 It is a sea of sand of not less than a league in breadth, 
 and my cars have taken four hours to cross it. To 
 animate this desert, Providence kept in reserve two 
 elephants and thirty camels, which it made to defile 
 past my caravan. I shall, by a forced march, push on 
 this evening as far as Sasseram, an ancient Indian 
 city. 
 
 There is not a tree to shelter me. I am writing to 
 you under a broiling sun, and just now I found the 
 water in the river frozen. I avail myself of the moment 
 that my horse is at his breakfast. It is a meal which 
 
 VOL. i. m 
 
162 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 he seldom makes, having to submit to the chances 
 which decide the hours of his master. He can, how- 
 ever, bear fasting very well in the day-time, and cold 
 at night ; and as he does not seem to have got out of con- 
 dition during the last five weeks, there is no reason why 
 he should not carry me to the world's end. The rogue 
 justifies tolerably well the character of viciousness 
 enjoyed by those of his colour, a sorrel, if there ever 
 was one. Sometimes he throws me, when I am stupid 
 enough to dispute with a beast without reason. In 
 falling, I promise myself for the future to imitate 
 Figaro, who always gave way to fools, instead of con- 
 tending with them ; and then, when the opportunity 
 offers, I forget my plans of moderation and want him 
 to pass what frightens him ; hence there is a conflict, 
 with kicking, and twenty other mischievous tricks, 
 of which your horseman, Porphyre, will give you the 
 nomenclature. However, we always arrange the matter 
 amicably, as follows : one day he gives way, the next 
 I yield to the inclination which draws me. In spite 
 of these rebellions, which are, however, rare, I go on 
 reading, sleeping, and studying my plants with a mag- 
 nifying glass all the time I am on horseback, and 
 congratulate myself on my purchase. 
 
 My Hindostanee vocabulary increases daily. Far 
 from preventing my people from speaking near me, I 
 invite them to do so, in order to break-in my ear to the 
 inflexions, so different from those of the European lan- 
 guages to every one who has an ear. I converse with 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. l6S 
 
 them and the soldiers of my escort ; I seek to penetrate 
 their existence, their feelings, their ideas. I am 
 becoming impregnated with India, instead of dipping 
 the tip of my finger in, as many of the English do, 
 who pretend to study it. In this respect my escort 
 will always be very useful to me ; the people of my little 
 caravan, both servants and soldiers, are not the least 
 interesting subjects of observation which I meet with 
 on the road. The English encourage the higher castes 
 to the military service. Among my five men from 
 Hazarubaug, I have two Brahmins, and the others are 
 Rajpoots ; my Burdwan serjeant was also a Brahmin. 
 
 I have given up all thoughts of comprehending any 
 thing of the Hindoo theogony ; I am persuaded that it 
 always has been unintelligible nonsense to the Europeans 
 who have pretended to explain it, Bernier, Sir William 
 Jones, &c. The arranging of the castes appeared to 
 me impossible. I tried, with my little skill in classify- 
 ing as a naturalist, and I convinced myself that there 
 is no exact coincidence between those of one part of 
 India, and those which bear the same name in others. 
 It is impossible to establish among them what we 
 botanists call a critical synonymy. On my return to 
 Europe, I shall endeavour to acquaint myself better 
 with what will be accessible to me on this topic, without 
 knowing Sanscrit. You have surely seen Mr. Wilson's 
 Hindoo Theatre ; it will be a novelty to me. I saw 
 the book every day at Calcutta, and the author very 
 frequently, and have only yet had leisure to read his 
 
 m 2 
 
164 A JOURNEY IX IXDTA, TTBET, 
 
 excellent preface. Wilson has Mr. D'Arcet's place at 
 the Mint, and several others, all sinecures, and very 
 well paid. He is the best pensioned certainly of 
 literary men ; he is besides the first Sanscrit scholar in 
 the world, and moreover a man of mind and taste. 
 He resembles Frederic the Great of Prussia pro- 
 digiously. 
 
 My solitude is far from being irksome. I am quite 
 certain that I shall pass my six months' seclusion in the 
 mountains, without melaucholy: I shall not see a single 
 European. Thoughts full of sweetness and tenderness 
 fill the moments of my life which are unoccupied by 
 study. Certain periods of the past seem like dreams. 
 I sometimes cannot believe that I am he that has done 
 this, that has been there, &c. &c. For a moment I 
 doubt my identity, and am near suspecting, in this coun- 
 try of the transmigration of souls, that some one else's 
 has turned mine out of doors. The source of enthu- 
 siasm is exhausted, and when the cold keeps me awake 
 under my bed-clothes, I contemplate the world, not as 
 an actor, but as a critical and disinterested spectator of 
 its different scenes. I no longer perceive past things, 
 I only recal them, and so judge what was formerly in 
 me, as well as what is without. 
 
 The admiration of the beauties of nature has its 
 virginity ; but it is soon sullied by enjoyment. Saint 
 Domingo will always be to me the beau ideal of equi- 
 noctial nature. I cannot recollect without emotion the 
 first scenes of the tropic, which chance presented tome. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 
 
 lfr 
 
 Perhaps this profound impression depended on the 
 disposition of my mind ; and, if I were permitted to 
 see them again, I might not find their beauties so 
 touching. I have written so to Frederick. It is also 
 for his sake that I love the corner of the world which 
 he inhabits. 
 
 M. de Humboldt has been happy in his description 
 of this first impression made by scenes near the equator : 
 a natural philosopher ought to be more sensible when 
 the study of nature's details does not close his eyes 
 to its whole. You will conclude justly from this soli- 
 loquy that I do not blacken my paper with poetical 
 prose. I write a great deal in all tones, and without 
 effort, according to my humour, the state of my sto- 
 mach, and the quality of my pen. No one is all sub- 
 lime, all dignified, all cheerful and smiling. After a 
 geological description, will come a confidential page, 
 which none but myself ought to re-peruse. I should be 
 afraid of telling falsehoods if I wrote otherwise. Adieu, 
 my dear father, till I reach the holy city. Tell my 
 friends that the recollection of them follows me, and 
 charms many moments of my solitary life ; but I 
 have not time to write to them all the sentiments of 
 tenderness which my heart contains. I do not tell 
 you to be at ease concerning me, because I flatter my- 
 self that the eloquence of the two hundred leagues, 
 which I have travelled so fortunately, will render a 
 request of that kind on my part needless. Adieu ! may 
 you enjoy as good health as I do ; and Porphyre also 
 
A J Of": 
 
 1 •• > I could send yc i sunshine, of 
 ■ much in the day-time, for a litt".. 
 the wanntk pean houses in the morning. Con- 
 
 sult If. Abb en passant, on the possibility of the 
 
 _ 
 
 December 31 189 
 
 .is last day I arrived at the holy city. 
 
 I brought an introduction from Lord TA\ Bentinck, one 
 from my friend at Burdwan for a very rich rajah, whom 
 I shall see to-morrow, and two from the major-general 
 of the army, the friend of Colonel de Lafosse, and also 
 mine, the most amiable of men, for two of I lent 
 
 officers. The first m me kept me and 
 
 n possession of his house, and after breakf:^: I 
 found an elephant at my door to take me on my v. 
 
 o the director of the mint, whom I first went to 
 see on my moving mountain, a man whom I knew by 
 
 wittiest in India, would not let 
 me go alone, but said he would introduce me to each. 
 The elephant was sent home, where his back will 
 remain exclusively at my service during my short stay 
 here, and I went my round of visits with the spirited 
 mint-master in his carriage. He was expecting me 
 as his guest, and had provided for my reception ; letters 
 ■ and Porphyre, a letter from Taschereau, one 
 from M. Victor, introducing me to Dr. * * *, another 
 
 . Madame Le Breton, a long one from W 
 Pea: ie from Metcalfe, kc, the 
 
 whole directed I I the post- by the obliging 
 
HORE ASD CASHMERE. 
 
 governor of Chandernagore, who had picked then up, 
 some at Poodicherzy, others at Calcutta, and had for- 
 warded them under official cower, postage free, to 
 await me here. I hate read the whole over and over 
 again. Add to this, that I had ridden fire leagues on 
 r. r>e:-i-:k -.: l.j:.:. :: im-^ i: :i: i :> ;.:- '-j , _z.r-. 
 I hare traversed it on foot, admirably latum ed with a 
 most beautiful Prorenee May morning. I knm 
 what to begin with. I smiled at reading yonr 
 respecting my reception in this country. Xo: we 
 should not do in France for any stiangm what is 
 d:ne ir: : :.: zir. T:.t l:ii:z ; :- : ^:: in::ris..l 
 at Calcutta into a river, which is now growing into a 
 sea. Half the letters which I leave on the road bring 
 rue :. .:: ::l:> '.:.-. r/jzil^r. I ?l__ _ -_l.: _.:::: .^:_t. 
 to keep pace with this geometrical progression. The 
 bid :^:r :: :;.^ r. _:_:=* :« :_= :Y_: .:" :>.= 
 
 I wi'd re: ... . ". . 
 
 this place: I kave you for the day. Yesterday I 
 sz-ved :f - brird ■::' ± z:r.\±z'--'i ~: -::. ; I rr-Srz:: !rd 
 Robinson Crusoe, and used to dine in my tent scarcely 
 more magnmcently than he did. To-day, I put on 
 black silk stockings, as if I were going to a hall in 
 Paris or London. I am going to dine with a 
 
 T:.r:: !_dir> ■■■..'. ':-.- '.:-a<~L :l :br I ...:.?_-_ :_r^:;L ;:' 
 
 months ago. They are not vulgar nabobs, a 
 
 character which o longer, except on the stage 
 
168 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 of the London minor theatres. In the evening I shall 
 enjoy an elegant and solid conversation : every means 
 will be combined, to show me as much as possible of 
 the wonders of the city in the short time I shall stay 
 there. Trust to my star. There is certainly in this 
 continuation of success, something besides good luck : 
 it is a series of happy chances, which have by their 
 repetition, ceased to be chances. But above all, the 
 miracle is, my not having suffered in the estimation of 
 others on account of my poverty ! 
 
 January 1st, 1830. 
 
 If a thousand of my countrymen were to come into 
 this country, with double or triple what. I brought, 
 they could not probably succeed in showing themselves 
 any where. My host here, an infantry captain, exercising 
 the functions of sub-intendant, has a hundred and fifty 
 thousand francs a year ; and all, you know, is on the 
 same scale. By a peculiar favour, I have obtained a 
 dispensation from riches ; and my relative poverty has, 
 on the contrary, been only a source of enjoyment to 
 my self-love. Some of the most intimate of my ac- 
 quaintance are not ignorant of it, and they accommo- 
 date themselves accordingly, the best way they can. 
 I was seldom obliged to hire a carriage to go to dine 
 at the Chief Justice's of India ; when I was not next 
 door to him, at Garden Reach, he asked my hour and 
 came to fetch me. The fools who saw these atten- 
 tions gave me credit, no doubt, for some mysterious 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 169 
 
 virtues, more worthy of esteem than the vulgar posses- 
 sion of a cabriolet, and took it upon trust. 
 
 Portionless girls, who have not succeeded in getting 
 married in England, arrive here in cargoes, for sale, 
 on honourable terms, I mean, to the young civil and 
 military officers, who, along with their commission and 
 the assurance of a fortune sufficient for two, receive 
 orders to go and be rich all alone in some village, a 
 couple of hundred leagues from Calcutta, and govern a 
 territory equal to several French departments. Those, 
 whose places are very lucrative, select a wife from the 
 society of Calcutta as they would a girl in the street : 
 it is well understood, that the small number of families 
 forming the circle in which I moved, are an exception 
 to the rule. For a man like me it is matrimonially 
 the worst of countries. 
 
 There are still enormous incomes in India, but 
 immense fortunes are hardly made there now. The 
 daughters of those who grow rich are educated in such 
 habits of luxury, that they are only marriageable to col- 
 lectors, or others of the same rank. Then the English, 
 who are the most matrimonial people in the world, 
 have children by dozens, and no fortune could resist a 
 division by so Christian a divisor. Lastly, the young 
 ladies of the most polished, and at the same time, most 
 opulent classes that I have had occasion to meet, are 
 still more insignificant than those of any other country. 
 They are as afraid of the little, very little, reason of a 
 married woman of five and twenty, as of the polar ice. 
 
170 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 It is not, however, because they are cheerful, but the 
 few serious ideas which marriage always forces into the 
 most empty head, frighten the absolute insignificance 
 of those whose wit has yet to come. 
 
 Miss Pearson is the only person I have known 
 worthy of the consideration of a man of sense. The 
 poor girl, whom I left very ill at my departure from 
 Calcutta, writes me that she is dying. I must 
 direct to England the letter which I wrote to her on 
 my journey. The physicians are sending her there 
 without delay : her mother accompanies her. I am 
 afraid my letter will arrive too late. But whatever may 
 happen, and if chance brings us again together under 
 the same roof, we shall never be to each other different 
 from what we are at present. Although possessed of 
 intelligence above her twenty years, and of a very 
 serious turn of mind, she did not seem to perceive that 
 I was a young man ; and sometimes she would talk to 
 me of matters of feeling, as she would have done to 
 some old friend of her father's, or her own. 
 
 It gives me pain, my dear father, to overturn your 
 castles in the air. But, were I to suffer you to go on 
 building, without disturbance, you would end by 
 believing in them, as in the famous system raised on 
 the ruins of all others (style of the Real Essences) 
 and would look with displeasure at me on my return, 
 were I not followed by the family of king Priam. 
 
 How your letters have charmed me! they have 
 effaced the surprise and ill humour, which the news 
 
LAHORE >ND CASHMERE. 171 
 
 of the ministry of La Bourdonnaye, Mangin, and Co. 
 caused me on my arrival in the holy city. I can- 
 not answer those nine pages, which are worth fifty, 
 for my letter would be endless. Your tenderness for 
 me raises illusions which I cannot share, but with 
 which I am much affected. Your reliance upon my 
 firmness is a great happiness to me. Whatever evil 
 may happen to me, you will know that I am pro- 
 vided with defensive arms, which is in me a whimsical 
 principle of internal satisfaction, and simplicity of 
 taste, belonging not to my age nor to my educa- 
 tion ; a sort ; of savage pride which will console me 
 in bad times, should any happen. There are a 
 thousand degrees of misfortune above the possibility 
 of which I shall henceforth be placed. 
 
 I did not neglect writing to almost every body, 
 during the last days of my stay in Calcutta. I must 
 now give up that correspondence, in which all that 
 I ought to reserve for myself would evaporate. Adieu, 
 my dear father ; my next letter will be from Delhi 
 in two months. I embrace you, Porphyre, and the 
 eternally absent Frederick, with all my heart : it is all 
 that I can do now. 
 
 TO MADEMOISELLE ZOE NOIZET DE SAINT 
 PAUL-ARRAS. 
 
 Camp of Moneah, Monday, December 28th, 1829. 
 
 Do not look in the map, my dear Zoe, for the place 
 
 whence your cousin is now writing to you. It is 
 
17^ A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 nothing but a clump of trees near a miserable hamlet. 
 I, who have a tent to lie under, can do without their 
 shelter, which is however very necessary for my people 
 who sleep around in the open air. Although scarcely 
 beyond the 25th degree of latitude, the clearness of 
 the sky, and the north wind which precipitates upon 
 the plains of India the icy air of the summits of the 
 Himalaya, make the nights very cold : and although 
 under a double roof of cloth, more warmly clad than 
 in the day time, and wrapped in a triple blanket, 
 I often wake quite chilled. Yet at noon, the tem- 
 perature often rises to 86°. 
 
 I have travelled two hundred leagues in forty days, 
 without perceiving that I am in want of any thing. At 
 four o'clock in the morning, I eat half a pound of rice, 
 boiled with sugar in milk ; I drink milk on my road, 
 when my servants succeed in procuring it. I some- 
 times see a hundred cows put in requisition for a single 
 glass ; and my cook's zeal would set fire to the village 
 to warm it, if I did not prefer it cold. I encamp at 
 two, three, four, or five in the evening ; I then 
 invariably dine on a hen, pullet, or cock, some bird or 
 other, in short, made into pilau, with a pound of rice ; 
 I drink one or two large glasses of water, often very 
 bad, and throw myself on my rush cot when sleep 
 closes my eyes before my paper. 
 
 Having left Bengal, the country in which the rivers 
 can find no slope to run into the sea, and their waters 
 stagnate and fill the atmosphere with noxious vapours, 
 I no longer mistrust the sun, and expose myself to 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 173 
 
 it like the natives. I journey more on foot than on 
 horseback, and being turned out of my road by a thou- 
 sand objects, I travel every day double the distance that 
 my heavy baggage does. In these reconnoiterings, I am 
 neither unarmed nor alone. I have made of four of 
 my men, who are more active than the rest, a van- 
 guard, which follows me like my shadow. Mean- 
 while, I every day feel myself full of new strength. 
 No Englishman ever thought of living as I do, 
 and it is for this reason that those are dead who 
 attempted to expose themselves to the same physical 
 influences. They laugh at my milk, my eau sucree, 
 my two meals separated by a mean interval of thir- 
 teen hours, and my abstinence from spirituous liquors : 
 they would cross themselves (were they not heretics, 
 and call the holy sign of the cross superstitious) if 
 they knew that, notwithstanding all my abstinence, 
 I am often obliged, in order to avoid gastro-enteritis 
 to — (Well ! how shall I say it.) In short, you under- 
 stand, I am not, like them, afflicted with hydrophobia ; 
 and I, in my turn, laugh when they are buried, pickled 
 in champagne, or preserved in brandy and mercury, 
 which their doctors give them by the half pound. 
 
 At Benares, where I shall arrive in three days, 
 I shall substitute half a dozen camels for my cars, and 
 my caravan will be a little more picturesque for them. 
 I nevertheless assure you, that it is so even now. 
 What gives it rather a European, but infinitely re- 
 spectable appearance, is the red coats of a little 
 
174 A JOURNEY IX INDIA, TIB! 
 
 poys, which I renew every sixty or eighty 
 leagues, and shall keep near me as long as I am in 
 India, It makes me absolute master of the places 
 through which I pass, adds a great deal if not to my 
 safety, at least to my feeling of security. My gene- 
 ralissimo is a serjeant of the highest distinction, who 
 lis himself like a post into the position of the 
 soldier without arms at whatever distance he catches 
 sight of me, and leads all my people in military 
 fashion. He is a Brahmin, if you please ; as was 
 likewise the one I had before. A sentinel, relieved 
 every two hours, guards my little camp at night, and 
 sometimes wakes me with a shot at some suspicious- 
 looking rover. In the hundred leagues of forest which 
 I have just traversed, notwithstanding this guard out- 
 side at night, I had always at hand something to make 
 a great deal of noise in the tigers' ears, in case of a 
 visit from them ; but I saw none. 
 
 Carrying on, at the same time, several kinds of 
 .rch — applying myself in the midst of the studies 
 and mechanical cares which they exact, to perfect 
 myself in the language of the country, the only one 
 which I speak at present — charged with a corre- 
 spondence with several of my new Bengal friends — my 
 long solitary days run away very rapidly. My being 
 shut out from all communication with Europeans does 
 not bear hard upon me. You know that from Benares 
 I shall cross Bundlecund (a mountainous province 
 between the Xerbudda and the Jumna) to Agra, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 17-5 
 
 Delhi, and thence to the Himalaya mountains, to pass 
 five or six months of the summer in some place, almost 
 as much above the level of the sea as the summit of 
 Mont Blanc, where I shall remain the whole time 
 without seeing a man of my own colour. By the 
 short experiment I have just made since I left Cal- 
 cutta, to turn myself into an Arab, I know that this 
 long and studious seclusion, entirely separated from 
 the men and affairs of Europe, will not be painful 
 to me. 
 
 How different, my dear cousin, from the life I led 
 at Calcutta, where I spent the leisure which study left 
 me, in noble and serious pleasures — the most exquisite 
 of European civilisation. I have talked politics, with 
 my democratic opinions ; I have talked of religion, when 
 I have been provoked to it, with my scepticism and 
 incredulity ; I have talked of all things, in short, ac- 
 cording to the truth of my heart, and the errors of my 
 judgment. I had the happiness to please all that I 
 met of those people whose distinction made me desire 
 their esteem and good w 
 
 Xow, in the desert. I cannot Fecal those davs 
 without emotion. Whatever may happen to me in this 
 country, there are men in it in whose friendship I 
 am sure not to die ; it follows and protects me power- 
 fully in my long pilgrimage. The major-general of 
 the army, a man from whom I parted with a swelling 
 heart and tearful eve, and who felt for me the same 
 
17C A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 sympathy which drew me towards him, has given me 
 numerous letters of introduction (twenty-four) for such 
 of his friends or brother officers as may be stationed on 
 my proposed route. Every one at Calcutta contributed 
 to increase my packet : Lord W. Bentinck made the 
 magnificent addition to it of nine private letters. He 
 gave me beforehand a passport in an unusual form, but 
 so protecting, so friendly, that it undoubtedly rendered 
 his personal recommendations useless, and I experience 
 considerable embarrassment in showing it : for it is a 
 formal summons made by the governor-general, to all 
 officers in India, civil and military, to afford me the 
 best quarters on my arrival at their residence. They 
 would not have done as much for any Englishman. 
 It was the same in London. There is certainly 
 some national pride in this profusion of kindness to a 
 foreigner, but it is of a noble kind ; I enjoy it as an 
 individual and a Frenchman. 
 
 The amiable man with whom I had the advantage to 
 share the tedium of the sea for six months, sends me 
 word from his Indian kingdom of Yvetot, that he shall 
 not fail to treat to his best wine every Englishman that 
 knocks at his door in Pondicherry ; and that on my 
 count. At the great distance at which I am from the 
 southern extremity of India, it is agreeable to find on 
 the map a little corner of friendly land. 
 
 Adieu, my dear Zo£ ! While writing to you, sleep 
 does not come to close my eyes ; but it is eleven 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 177 
 
 o'clock at night, and I have given orders for our depar- 
 ture at four : I must therefore wind up for this day. If 
 you expected from me a piquant traveller's letter, you 
 will be disappointed ; for I have not told you a word 
 of the men, nor of the monuments, nor of the scenes of 
 nature, in the countries through which I am passing. 
 But I have talked to you of things nearer to me ; and 
 I flatter myself that your friendship will see a proof 
 of mine, in the artless confessions of my self-love. 
 It is a weakness which I do not mind confessing to 
 you ; but confide it only to those who you know love 
 me as much as you do. 
 
 I am, besides, too much occupied by divers pursuits 
 and too positive researches, to see in a very prominent 
 light the picturesque interest of objects. It is not that 
 the minute and critical examination of the productions 
 and phoenomena of nature closes my eyes against their 
 collective pictorial effect ; but the source of the charm, 
 and of the rapture, which I heretofore experienced on 
 beholding their beauties, is dried up. It is hence- 
 forth with my mind, and with my taste, that I compla- 
 cently contemplate a landscape or a graceful group. 
 Yet, in the spring, I shall see the loftiest mountains 
 in the world ; I shall pass a summer, half a year, 
 amid their scenes of eternal snow and ice. Perhaps 
 their desolate grandeur will find my sensibility too 
 excitable. It will be a recovery of a melancholy 
 faculty, but still less sad than insensibility. 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Adieu, Zo6 ! I do not know when I shall write to 
 you, and fear I shall be able to do so but seldom ; 
 but I shall often think of you, on my Persian steed ; 
 it is the most oriental thing that I can do for you. 
 
 TO M. VICTOR DE TRACY, PARIS. 
 
 Camp at Sunniput, betiveen Delhi and Pannipnt, 
 March, 1830. 
 
 Your letter of the 29th June, 1829, after a journey 
 in India, before which mine will always turn pale, 
 reached me some days since at Delhi. You will 
 easily imagine, my dear friend, the pleasure which it 
 gave me, when I tell you that for two months and a 
 half I have had no news from Europe. At Benares, 
 a few lines of yours were brought to me from Cal- 
 cutta by a young physician, to whom I was com- 
 pelled to give a most negative reply as to the advan- 
 tages held out to him for the practice of his profes- 
 sion in that city. There is but one Frenchman at 
 Calcutta, and he is in excellent health. That is not the 
 place for Doctor * * *. As for the English, who in 
 general have very bad health, he will not suit them. 
 They require a doctor of their own nation, by whom 
 they may be sure of being understood, and who is not 
 afraid of killing them, according to the fashion of 
 science in this country, with calomel, opium, &c. &c. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 179 
 
 I have not seen any European newspapers of later 
 date than the beginning of September ; so that I 
 know quite well the change of ministry, a theme on 
 which others would perhaps compose some tolerably 
 gloomy variations ; but which appears to me to be more 
 ridiculous than dangerous. I recollect a time when 
 these gentry might have risked a coup detat y but now- 
 a-days they have more interest than any one in the 
 observation of the law, and will not dare to place 
 themselves beyond it by raising themselves above it. 
 The drawing-room spirit which prevails in the chamber 
 and among the leading members, never allowed me to 
 conceive a doubt of your success at the tribune, 
 provided you were not recalled from it too soon, as 
 happened to you the first time. The feelings to 
 which you addressed yourself exist in the hearts of all 
 well-born men ; good sense is a thing too which 
 nature has made common ; and by speaking as you 
 do, to principles of emotion and action, you cannot 
 fail to exercise an influence which will be always on 
 the increase. The liberal public did not at all like 
 the remonstrances of its best friends ; it did not at all 
 understand being found fault with, nor even contra- 
 dicted ; and whoever deserved to gain its confidence 
 and gratitude, received only an affront, after being pre- 
 viously imprisoned for it. Look you ! Would Courier 
 have been more fortunate ? I doubt it. Nevertheless, 
 your success makes, in the style of your capable and 
 honourable friends, a precedent, or, in French, an ante- 
 
 n 2 
 
ISO A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 cedent, subversive of the worship of popularity, which 
 is not one of the least ignoble forms of servility. You 
 will open the door to others ; that is what we want — 
 new men ! What good can be done with such old 
 
 able sinners as Baron , and others of the 
 
 same school, at present our friends ? I see them from 
 hence esteem you (I hope so for their sakes), but 
 smile at your want of parliamentary tactics ; and when 
 you are rewarded with public favour, grow vexed, and 
 complain that you spoil the trade, by proving that it 
 does not require so much finesse to succeed. Tell me, 
 my dear friend, is it not so ? I cannot forbear laugh- 
 ing at this idea, without respect for Mahomet, in the 
 mosque which serves as my lodging to-day. Tell me 
 what the people of Moulins and the neighbourhood 
 say of you. They who have seen you at work, 
 making war, without metaphor, on the furze, marshes, 
 intermittent fevers, rot in sheep, &c, in a word, on 
 the causes of moral evil and physical evil, do they not 
 unanimously appreciate you? If, when you answer 
 these lines, you add to the chronicle which I ask of 
 you, the number of your sheep at Paray, that of your 
 ploughs, the surface, and quality of your own sown 
 land, the misty charm of distance will cause me to 
 think these things about you and our country deli- 
 cious. 
 
 As for me, I dare not tell you any thing of this coun- 
 try ; during the four months since I left Calcutta, with 
 a tent and ten bullocks, I have travelled nearly fourteen 
 
LAHORE 1XD CASHMERE- 181 
 
 hundred miles (six hundred leagues); and on this long 
 journey so many new objects hare presented them- 
 serves to my notice, my mind and imagination hare 
 been exercised on so many different subjects, that, far 
 fear of writing you a volume, I cannot begin. It may 
 be sufficient for you to know that I hate experienced 
 nothing but satisfaction. In the ▼icMwrndes of a rather 
 adventurous life, one certainly the most picturesque 
 that can be lived in India, I hare had good days and 
 no bad ones. The numerous and powerful acquaint- 
 ances which I formed at Calcutta, some of which 
 ripened into friendship, make of me, in these **««fmt 
 provinces, a man of the country, and one of the best in- 
 formed. Welcomed, though an entire stranger, b ecause 
 I always bring the most honourable recommendations, 
 I am soon after caressed for my own sake, because I am 
 furnished with articles of exchange for every one. I 
 gain a great deal of information in my sojourning in 
 EuropeanUed places, by making the judge talk of the 
 z::ri* ; :::::: ;:. : -.': - ..:/.... ::i5 : :' Km : : :•> r_£ M_ :>-•_!- 
 mauns subject to him : the collector of the taxes, of the 
 very varied system of territorial property, and of the 
 natural products : each, in met, on the subject with which 
 he is best acquainted. If I meet with a good Persian 
 scholar, a man of critical sagacity, I seek to rectify, 
 from his knowledge, the little I have drawn front 
 suspicious national sour. 
 
 The variety of my studies, and also of my exerei> 
 sometimes on horseback, oftener on loot, 
 
182 A JOURNEY IN INDfA, TIBET, 
 
 on an elephant, or in a litter, allows me to feel no 
 fatigue whatever. I have never enjoyed more steady 
 health; my Brahminic diet contends with the fatal 
 influence of the climate. 
 
 After St. Domingo and Rio Janeiro, the magni- 
 ficence of nature in Bengal possesses a fatiguing mono- 
 tony. The immense mountainous forests of Behar, 
 which I afterwards crossed between the Dummoodah 
 and the Ganges, have more variety ; but the magnifi- 
 cence of the tropics has already disappeared. I dis- 
 cern no trace of it in the mountains of Boggilcund 
 and Bundlecund, through which I travelled with much 
 fatigue in the month of January. The plains of this 
 latter province, and the Doah, or immense Delta, which 
 divides the Ganges from the Jumna, have no marked 
 character. But repassing the Jumna before Agra, and 
 proceeding afterwards north-north-west towards the 
 desert which borders the left bank of the Indus, the 
 configuration of the country, and the vegetation by 
 which it is covered, strongly determine its aspect. 
 It is almost Persia : salt or saltpetre in a sandy soil, 
 dust in the atmosphere, stunted and thorny vegetation, 
 &c. Without departing from the route marked out for 
 me by my researches in natural history, I have seen 
 the most celebrated cities of India : Sasseram, Benares, 
 Mirzapore, Callinger, Kulpy, Agra, Mutra, Bindra- 
 bund, and Delhi. Benares and Delhi are the two 
 great Hindoo and Mussulmaun capitals ; and I was 
 shown through both with the greatest politeness, by 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 183 
 
 well-informed men. In order that I might see all that 
 could be shown me at Delhi, the political resident 
 made known to the imperial shadow, which the English 
 Government pensions magnificently, his desire to pre- 
 sent me to his Majesty ; and the old emperor held a 
 durbar last Wednesday for the ceremony. You, my 
 dear friend, have no doubt been the victim of this 
 honorific masquerade at Constantinople, and know what 
 virtue it requires not to laugh at one's own face, if one 
 has the ill luck to encounter it in a looking-glass. 
 However, I was created sahib Bahadur, or lord 
 victorious in war ; which I consider equal to baron. 
 For a hundred louis, I might have been the star of light, 
 or the light of the age, or the abyss of science, &c. 
 
 The small retinue of Mohammed Akber Rhazi have 
 a small share of their master's pension of four mil- 
 lions, and live on boiled rice and superb titles. 
 
 To-morrow I shall pitch my tent at Panniput, the 
 field in which the fate of India has been so many times 
 altered. Thence I shall enter the country of the inde- 
 pendent Seikhs, and proceed to Kithul, where I shall 
 be joined by several obliging persons, who intend 
 getting up a grand lion hunt for me. This is what I 
 could never see with my galloway, my eight servants, 
 my little escort, and my bullocks ; but the camp of my 
 amiable huntsman, which I take with me, with my own 
 establishment, which is lost in it, consists of a dozen 
 strong Arab horses, four elephants, which are to be 
 joined by seven others, a multitude of camels, and a 
 
184 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 hundred domestics and horsemen. From Kithul they 
 will conduct me to the foot of the mountains at the 
 spot where the Ganges falls into the plains. The 
 chief of this not insignificant expedition is almost viceroy 
 of these provinces, under the title of Assistant to the 
 Resident of Delhi ; he is therefore a most desirable 
 companion for me. The English are so rich that 
 no obstacle can stop them. I shall find them every 
 where on the first and second stories of the mountains. 
 They have gone as far as the other declivity of the 
 Himalaya, and have built two houses there, one of 
 which I count upon occupying for three or four months. 
 On my road I shall have an opportunity of making 
 some fine geological investigations in the thickness of 
 the central chain of the Himalaya, opened by the river 
 Sutledge. An abode of several months in the lofty 
 valley of this river, on the other declivity of the moun- 
 tains, on a site elevated about ten thousand feet above 
 the sea, ought to offer for my collections of natural 
 history objects, if not varied, at least very new. I shall 
 push my excursions as far as the Chinese frontier. 
 Eleven years ago, one of my Calcutta friends, an engi- 
 neer officer, went thus far on a geographical expedition, 
 and since several other inquisitive people have followed 
 his steps. But I think I shall be the first of my profes- 
 sion to make this journey. Mr. Moorcroft's notes on 
 the Natural History of the Lake Mansarower are so 
 vague, that they are of no value to science, which will 
 henceforth have greater pretensions. My dear friend, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 185 
 
 I promise myself many results from this journey in the 
 Himalaya. The cold, which I do not bear well, has, 
 no doubt, plenty of sufferings in store for me ; but I 
 have no mercy on my body, inasmuch as the fatigues to 
 which I expose it cannot radically alter the state of my 
 health. I write a great deal, and yet I find that I do 
 not write enough ; but time fails me, though I do not 
 lose any. Since leaving Benares, I have come to an 
 admirable arrangement with my horse ; he suffers me 
 to read on his back during the whole journey, provided 
 I do not thwart him in his whims. The Classicists in 
 horsemanship would hiss me outrageously if they saw 
 me. The magnificent English, who, in respect to 
 horses, are extremely tenacious, consider this pace 
 very negligent ; but as they know the value of time, 
 especially to a traveller of my description, my charac- 
 ter as a gentleman does not suffer by it. 
 
 19^, Camp at Haberi. 
 
 In order to rest, after going fourteen leagues with- 
 out stopping since the morning, and a laborious day 
 in my tent, with a temperature of 90°, I have just 
 allowed myself, now when I can breathe, the pleasure 
 of re-perusing your letter. My dear friend, I have 
 often thought what you tell me, that it is not so very 
 difficult to speak to men, from the pulpit or the 
 tribune. When the first awkwardness of a novel situa- 
 tion is dispelled, — is not the latter, on the contrary, 
 calculated to inspire talent ? There is a certain lite- 
 
186 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 rary perfection, which is out of season in those two 
 places ; it is that which the audience cannot fail to 
 remark and admire. Such speeches are heard and 
 judged exactly as a composition, as a literary exercise ; 
 an enormous blunder in those who make them ! The 
 English preachers whom I have heard, good or bad, 
 pronounce the th so admirably, that they have all the 
 effect to me of teachers of English giving a lesson. 
 The purest delivery is not the best, if it is not the 
 most expressive. Good night : at this moment you are 
 no doubt reading the budget at your fire-side in your 
 little room. My friend, we shall meet there again. 
 
 Closed in the Seikh country at Kitkul, without a 
 minute to spare to add a word. 
 
 March 22nd. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Delhi, March 10th, 1830. 
 
 My dear father, — Leaving Benares on the 6th of 
 January, I followed the left bank of the Ganges, till I 
 came opposite to Mirzapore, where I crossed the river ; 
 and provided with purvannas, (firmans, or local pass- 
 ports) by the magistrate of Mirzapore, (to whom Lord 
 William Bentinck had recommended me,) for the inde- 
 pendent rajahs of Boggilcund and Bundlecund, I 
 struck off from the direct road to the Himalaya 
 mountains, and entered those provinces in which I 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 187 
 
 knew I should find much mineralogical and geological 
 interest. I went on to Rewah (W.S.W. from Benares), 
 where I received a polite message from the rajah ; 
 thence to Punnah, a place celebrated for its diamond 
 mines ; and after wandering about on the lofty platform 
 of Bundlecund for fifteen days, I again descended with 
 considerable trouble above Adjygur, the residence 
 of another rajah. There I was obliged to give my 
 people and cattle some rest, as they were exhausted by 
 their long march across the mountains. A happy 
 chance caused me to find objects full of interest during 
 my short compulsory stay there. Again entering the 
 plains at Callinger, it no longer happened to me to be 
 separated from my baggage, and to bivouac fasting 
 among curious savages, as I was obliged to do several 
 times in the mountains ; my little tent has always fol- 
 lowed since the 1st of February. At Bandah, a civil 
 and military station, chief town of English Bundle- 
 cund, I refreshed my retinue, sent back my escort to 
 Mirzapore, and, being equipped anew, resumed the road 
 to the upper provinces, after only twenty-four hours' halt. 
 I went to Hammerpore, at the conflux of the Betwa 
 and the Jumna, thence to Kalpy, on the right bank of 
 the latter river, which I here crossed to enter the 
 Doab, a territory situated between the two rivers 
 (Do ab, duo aqua, in Sanscrit) Jumna and Ganges. 
 
 The winter had ended on the 1st of February at 
 Banda ; the nights had ceased to be cool, the days 
 grew very hot. I continued, however, to travel in the 
 
188 A JOUKNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 day-time, confiding in my regimen, which I had gradu- 
 ally brought to the simplicity of that of the natives. 
 Some violent thunder storms disconcerted me a little 
 in the Doab. Porphyre knows what rain is, when there 
 is no house to afford shelter. At different distances, 
 an old mosque or a Hindoo temple served as a refuge; 
 but more frequently I only had a tree for shelter, 
 and sometimes stripped of its foliage. 
 
 1 arrived at Agra on Saturday, the 21st of February. 
 It was the first great Mussulmaun city I had seen ; it 
 is full of memorials of the recent grandeur of the 
 family of Timor. I remained there three days, which 
 were days of rest to my people, who stood in great 
 need of- it, and of extreme fatigue to me ; besides the 
 care I bestowed on my collections, I tired three horses 
 a day. English hospitality is in general admirable. 
 Men overwhelmed with business have been my guides 
 round the different places I have visited ; not only 
 did they lend me their elephants, their carriages, their 
 horses, but they always accompanied me. There are 
 several of them to whom I am truly attached, and the 
 recollection of whom will always be very gratifying to 
 me. The numerous and admirable introductions with 
 which I am provided by Lord William Bentinck for his 
 civil proconsuls, by the quarter-master-general of the 
 army, Colonel Fagan, for his brother officers and 
 friends, to whom those of my letters which I have 
 hitherto had occasion to employ have been delivered, 
 have procured me the most flattering reception ; and 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 1 8{) 
 
 I must have had very bad luck indeed, not to be con- 
 vinced in the evening that it was for my own sake 
 T was thus welcomed. I feel and think in my own way, 
 and express myself with naivete in a language which 
 I am always told is correct, but which is sometimes 
 unusual, strange, and often picturesque. This manner 
 immediately forces English stiffness to unbend. I make 
 (bonnes gens) Frenchmen of all the English with 
 whom I stay twenty-four hours. 
 
 Mutra and Bendrabund are two large Hindoo 
 cities, insulated in the midst of an entirely Mussulmaun 
 country. I saw them both on my way from Agra. 
 
 Delhi ! Delhi is the most hospitable part of India. 
 Do you know what had well nigh happened to- me this 
 morning ? I was near being made the light of the 
 world, or the wisdom of the state, or the ornament of 
 the country, &c. j but fortunately I got off with the 
 fear only. The explanation is as follows : you will laugh. 
 The Great Mogul, Shah Mohammed Acbar Rhize 
 Badshah, to whom the political resident had addressed 
 a petition to present me to his majesty, very gra- 
 ciously held a durbar (a court) in order to receive me. 
 Being conducted to the audience by the resident, with 
 tolerable pomp, a regiment of infantry, a strong 
 escort of cavalry, an army of domestics and ushers, the 
 whole completed by a troop of richly caparisoned ele- 
 phants, I presented my respects to the emperor, who 
 was pleased to confer on me a khelat or dress of honour, 
 which was put on with great ceremony, under the 
 
190 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 inspection of the prime minister ; and, accoutred like 
 Taddeo in Kaimakan, (if you recollect the Italiana in 
 Algieri,) I re-appeared at court. The emperor then 
 (mark, if you please, that he is descended in a direct 
 line from Timour or Tamerlane) with his imperial hands 
 fastened a couple of jewelled ornaments to my hat (a 
 white one), previously disguised into a turban by his 
 vizier ; I kept my countenance excellently well during 
 this imperial farce, seeing there are no looking-glasses 
 in the throne room, and that I could only see in my 
 masquerade my long legs in black pantaloons appearing 
 from under my Turkish dressing-gown. The emperor 
 inquired if there was a king in France, and if English 
 was spoken there. He had never seen a Frenchman, 
 except General Perron, formerly his guard, when he was 
 made prisoner by the Mahrattas ; and he appeared to pay 
 infinite attention to the droll figure I cut, with my five 
 feet eight inches * of stature without much thickness, 
 my long hair, spectacles, and my oriental costume over 
 my black dress. In half an hour he dismissed his 
 court, and I retired in procession with the resident. 
 The drums beat in the fields, as I passed before the 
 troops with my dressing-gown of worked muslin. Why 
 were you not present to enjoy the honours conferred 
 upon your progeny ? 
 
 Of course I found Shah Mohammed Acbar Rhize 
 Badshah, a venerable old man, and the most adorable of 
 
 * About six feet two inches, English measure. — Tr. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 191 
 
 princes. But, jesting apart, he has a fine face, a fine white 
 beard, and the expression of a man who has been long- 
 unhappy. The English have left him all the honours of 
 the throne, and console him with an annual pension of 
 four million francs for the loss of power. Do not tell this 
 to my friends, the local character gentry, and you will 
 see them discover at the carnival in 1833 or 34, that my 
 oriental disguise is very badly imitated ; then I will tell 
 them what their so called badly imitated dress really 
 is. The resident translated Victor Jacquemont, tra- 
 velling naturalist, &c, &c, Mister Jakmont, saheb 
 bahadur ; which signifies, M. Jacquemont, lord vic- 
 torious in war : it was thus the grand master of the 
 ceremonies proclaimed me. 
 
 This lord victorious in battles is occupied here in 
 any thing but war. He is poisoning with arsenic and 
 mercury the collections which he has formed during 
 the five or six hundred leagues which he has just 
 travelled, and packing them up in order to leave them 
 here during his journey to the Himalaya. There 
 is no want of variety of situations in my wan- 
 dering life. Here I never go out either in a car- 
 riage, a palanquin, or on an elephant, without a 
 brilliant escort of cavalry. This is my host's polite- 
 ness. I am the sole inhabitant of a sumptuous house, 
 surrounded by magnificent gardens. If I dine out, it 
 is with the general, or another great lord ; and I do 
 not decline. Nevertheless, it is probable that I shall 
 spend three months of the summer in a smoky hut, 
 
192 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 horribly dirty, on the other side of the Himalaya ; and 
 God knows how I shall get there from hence, for it is 
 very high and very far. Whatever may occur, reflect 
 that in my past vicissitudes from Calcutta to Delhi, I 
 have not had the slightest indisposition, and (a prosaic 
 circumstance of the first order) I have had the admi- 
 rable talent of remaining within my estimate of 
 expenses. 
 
 Next Saturday the 13th, I shall resume my solitary 
 and perambulatory life. I shall go and encamp fifty 
 leagues from hence to the north-west, in the country of 
 the Seikhs, near a city called Kitkul. The first assistant 
 to the resident will arrive at my camp on the 20th, 
 with an immense escort of men, horses, and elephants ; 
 and, joining our unequal fortunes, we shall march 
 together to the place where the Ganges escapes from 
 the mountains. The object of my future companion is 
 to hunt wild hogs and tigers. In order to procure 
 this pleasure, he is going to spend 10,000 francs in a 
 month or six weeks ; but he has sixty thousand a year. 
 He is a bachelor about my own age, and destined by his 
 talents to rise to a high station in the country. I shall 
 have one of the best informed companions concerning 
 the things of this country, and the opportunity of 
 seeing and sharing in sports which will naturally turn 
 to the advantage of my collection. Mr. Trevelyan 
 pretends to be infinitely flattered at my allowing him 
 to be my companion. This people will make a coxcomb 
 of me, if you do not think that I am become one 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 193 
 
 already : nevertheless, I do not fall upon them trea- 
 cherously ; I do not tell them that I am rich or noble ; 
 I do not put on my cravat better than at Paris ; my 
 coat is not in the fashion, and, after nearly two years of 
 existence, eight months' navigation, and a fortnight's 
 submersion after the hurricane at Bourbon, is toler- 
 ably rusty. In spite of that, there is no distinction 
 which they do not lavish upon me. 
 
 Do not be afraid of the Seikhs ; they are crafty 
 thieves, but I am not suffered to go among them, 
 without a strong escort. When Mr. Trevelyan unites 
 his little army with mine, we shall travel like con- 
 querors. As for the danger of lion and tiger hunts, I 
 have often put this question: — How many English 
 gentlemen have been eaten, while hunting, since 
 the time of Mr. Hastings ? Answer : — Not one. 
 
 Panniput, March 17th. 
 
 I am writing to you to-day from the field of battle, 
 where the fate of India has been so often decided. 
 
 You will perhaps laugh at this celebrity, which is 
 new to you, Panniput, or Lilliput, is, perhaps, all 
 the same to you ; but you must change, my dear father, 
 on that point, and become a little of an Indian for my 
 sake. Is not D'Eckstein * at hand to instruct you ? I 
 
 • * Le Catholique, a monthly publication, edited at that time by 
 the Baron d'Eckstein, often contained articles on the literature and 
 religion of the Hindoos. 
 
 VOL. I. O 
 
194 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 would give you a less sublime introduction to the 
 history of this country ; but I know only Mill, and his 
 five enormous volumes would justly frighten you. 
 Well — come — you believe in me, if you do not believe 
 me. 
 
 The Delhians, with whom you ought to be in love, 
 have conducted me two days' march from their homes. 
 I followed their fashion with a good grace : that is to 
 say, I showed myself as indifferent as they were, to the 
 mishaps of my head and my limbs, while hunting wild 
 boars with them. Fortunately, I met with no fall, 
 which happened solely because they gave me the best 
 Arab out of our whole cavalry. Falls from a horse 
 come immediately after chronic hepatitis and cholera 
 morbus, in the scale of causes of death in this country. 
 A few broken legs, and shattered shoulders, are so 
 much a matter of course in Indian huntings that 
 none is ever undertaken without a surgeon. As for 
 hunting lions and tigers, it is (for gentlemen mean) 
 a most harmless amusement, since the game is never 
 sought on horseback, but only on an elephant. Each 
 hunter is perched, like a witness in an English court 
 of justice, in a strong and lofty box, fastened upon the 
 animal's back. He has a little park of artillery near 
 him : namely, a couple of carbines and a brace of 
 pistols. It sometimes happens, but very seldom, that 
 the tiger, when brought to bay, leaps on the elephant's 
 head, but that does not concern us ; it is the affair of 
 the conductor (mahout), who is paid twenty-five francs 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 195 
 
 a month, to run the risk of such accidents. In case 
 of death, the latter has at least the satisfaction of a 
 complete revenge, for the elephant does not play the 
 clarionet unconcernedly with his trunk, when he feels 
 he has a tiger for his head dress ; he does his best, 
 and the hunter assists him, with a ball point blank. 
 The mahout is, you see, a sort of responsible editor. 
 Another poor devil is behind you, whose duty it is 
 to carry a parasol over your head. His condition is 
 still worse than that of the mahout ; when the ele- 
 phant is frightened, and flies from the tiger, which 
 charges him and springs on his back, the true employ- 
 ment of this man is to be eaten in the gentleman's 
 place. India is the Utopia of social order for the 
 aristocracy : in Europe the poor carry the rich upon 
 their shoulders, but it is only metaphorically ; here, 
 it is without figure. Instead of workers and con- 
 sumers, or governed and governors — the subtle dis- 
 tinction of European politics — in India there are only 
 the carried and the carrying, which is much clearer. 
 
 In this key I should never finish. I return then to 
 myself. On the eve of my departure from Delhi, the 
 12th, I received a packet, returned from Loodheeana 
 on the banks of the Sutledge to Runjeet Sing's out- 
 posts. It contained a letter from Porphyre (29th 
 July, 1829), a note from you too short to be counted 
 any thing, and a letter from Victor de Tracy. The 
 whole had come to the good governor of Chander- 
 nagore, who spares no pains to seize my property 
 
 o 2 
 
196 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 wherever he finds it. He will forward this to you 
 through the same channel, and also another, written 
 yesterday, to the Jardin des PI antes. 
 
 A Catholic bishop resides at Agra. Although I did 
 not even know his name, I was so much in fashion, 
 that I did not hesitate to send him a very polite note 
 in Italian, to request the favour of seeing him. Con- 
 founded by the superlatively Italian politeness of his 
 reply, I hastened to his palace. This episcopal palace 
 is a small mosque in ruins, which the government has 
 given up to him. He there lives in great poverty. I 
 found him dining at noon with excellent appetite 
 and a very slender dinner ; ruddy, active, jovial, fat, he 
 had the finest face and most splendid gray beard I ever 
 saw. The English, who cannot believe that so poor 
 a priest can be a bishop, content themselves with call- 
 ing him padri, a mangled Portuguese word, which 
 is applied in Hindoostanee to every kind of Christian 
 and Mussulman priest ; and the Monsignore by which 
 I called him, seemed to delight him the more as I 
 had an English companion with me. The good 
 prelate, without pride or embarrassment, pressed us 
 much to share his dinner ; and as we refused, we were 
 forced at least to take wine with him. He confessed 
 that his wine was good for nothing, and told us that 
 the wine of his native village in Tuscany cost fifty 
 times less, and was a hundred times better. I asked 
 him the extent of his diocese — the number of his 
 flock. La caldaja, said he, e molto grande ; ma — 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 197 
 
 la came, motto poca. As, in speaking this, he pur- 
 sued with his iron fork, the remains of a poor fricassee, 
 lost in an immense pewter plate, I found in his reply 
 an d-propos, which his Italian pantomime rendered the 
 more expressive, and which made me burst into a fit 
 of laughter. The Englishman, who, by the bye was, a 
 Scotchman and a saint, asked me, JVhat is it f seeing 
 the bishop laugh as heartily as I did at the joke. 
 I explained it to him. He did not laugh at all, but 
 on going out, observed to me that it was especially 
 unbecoming in a priest, to speak so of Christian souls. 
 I have no more chance of meeting Sir Charles Grey 
 in the mountains this summer. He has just been 
 travelling for two months in a palanquin, in the 
 provinces in which I now am, and has seen that 
 part of the mountains which the snow does cover ; 
 this will be all he can do. Lady Grey, in the mean- 
 while, has remained in tedious solitude at Calcutta, 
 where she has not, like her husband, the pastime of 
 judging people. I found I had been announced by 
 Sir Charles Grey at Agra, Mutra, and Delhi ; he thus 
 served as my quarter-master general. The Calcutta 
 newspapers, which Lord William Bentinck leaves as 
 free as those in England, have libelled the chief justice 
 terribly for this little gratification of his curiosity. I 
 felt so disposed to become too great an admirer of 
 
 Lady G , that it was perhaps better that our fine 
 
 projects of November last should be reduced to this 
 journey of the knight's. 
 
198 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 About the 1st of April I shall be at Hurdwar, 
 a small town situated on the banks of the Ganges, 
 as it issues from the mountain. It is the epoch of a 
 celebrated fair, held every year, where I shall see 
 Chinese, Tibetians, Tartars, Cashmerians, Usbecks, 
 Afghans, Persians, &c. I shall buy warm clothing 
 there, for myself and servants. I shall see three or 
 four people I want ; and, as an object of curiosity, 
 the old Begum Sumro, who made war more than sixty 
 years ago on the Mahrattas with the best cavalry of 
 the period in India. It is not very well known whence 
 she comes ; however, she is generally considered to have 
 been a slave, brought either from Persia or Georgia. I 
 shall not have to regret not having seen her princi- 
 pality of Serdahna, whither I should not have gone 
 but on her account. The resident of Delhi gave me 
 letters to her. She was married some sixty years ago 
 to an Italian adventurer in the service of Shah-Allum, 
 and has since passed, I know not why, for a Christian 
 and a Catholic. Would she not be a fine match for 
 me, if I was to inherit her sovereignty ? I will think 
 about it on my way to Hurdwar. 
 
 I shall enter the Himalaya by the valley of Dhoon, 
 above Hurdwar and Sharunpore. Dehra is the chief 
 town. A Major Young reigns there, with the title 
 of Assistant to the Resident of Delhi, and Commander 
 of the Mountain Militia. Thence I shall go to Sub- 
 hatoo, a similar place, the capital of a like establish- 
 ment ; whither I shall also carry numerous letters to 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 199 
 
 its chief, two of which are letters of credit. From 
 Subhatoo, I shall go on to Kotgur, on the second 
 platform of the Himalaya, near the Sutledge ; and 
 thence, either by a hanging path, above the preci- 
 pitous banks of that river, or by a gorge, across the 
 eternal snows of the central chain, I shall cross this 
 chain and enter a little "country called Kanawer, politi- 
 cally independent of China ; but which, from its geo- 
 graphical position to the north of the Himalaya and its 
 climate, belongs to Tibet. Its productions must be 
 nearly the same as those of Tibet, and for the most 
 part unknown, if not very varied, which its hyperbo- 
 rean winter renders improbable. Captain Herbert, 
 who discovered the way to this country in 1819, is 
 the only man of information who has visited it. He 
 travelled through it merely as a geographer, with a 
 repeating circle and a chronometer. Since then, some 
 inquisitive people have been there empty handed, and 
 have built two houses, one of which I hope to occupy. 
 If any first comers have anticipated me this year, I 
 shall build myself a hut or a shed, or agree with a 
 villager to hire his. Such, my dear father, I suppose 
 will be my abode for four months. I shall live at 
 the height of nine or ten thousand feet above the 
 level of the sea, in a country where the summers are 
 like those of Hungary, and the winters like those 
 of Lapland. The nights, however, will always be 
 cold : eternal snows will shut in every part of my 
 horizon. The principality of Kanawer is indepen- 
 
200 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 dent of the English ; but I shall enjoy the same 
 security in these mountains as at Delhi or Calcutta. 
 The last English authority resides at Kotgur. All my 
 letters will be addressed to me there, and the 
 Commandant of Kotgur will forward them to me at 
 Kanawer by express. 
 
 Meanwhile, before I go to freeze at such a height, 
 the spring is come to broil me in the plains. It is 
 very fortunate for me that I take with me to Kithual 
 the camp belonging to my Delhi friends. They have 
 immense double, quadruple tents, which I have pitched 
 in advance of me on the road, so as to find a shelter 
 when I arrive at my quarters at ten or eleven in the 
 morning. I must leave off (it is ten o'clock) to lie 
 down under mine, that in which I am writing to you ; 
 it will be struck in an instant, taken to pieces, rolled 
 up, packed on camels, and will take the van at mid- 
 night ; and as I do not set out till four in the morning, 
 I shall find it pitched to-morrow on my arrival. Good 
 night ; it blows hard. Oh, what fine things houses 
 are ! If you did but know how disagreeable it is to be 
 caught in one's bed like a net, in a tent overturned by 
 the wind ! Adieu. 
 
 Closed at Kithul, in the Seikh territory. 
 
 March 2'2nd. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 201 
 
 TO M. PORPHYRE JACQUEMOXT, PARIS. 
 
 Camp of Cursali, at the head of the Valley of the Jumna, near 
 its source, 2615 metres above Calcutta- — May loth, 1830. 
 
 It is a very long time since I wrote to you, my 
 good friend ; yet I cannot give credit to my journal, 
 which, after " Chandernagore, the 2lst of November, 
 1829, a long letter to Porphyre, No. 2," is silent 
 about you. If I really have not written to you since, I 
 have often thought of you ; you have so often accom- 
 panied me in my solitude, that I am completely under 
 the illusion of being the most faithful of correspondents. 
 The last letter to our father, No. 10, written at Delhi, 
 travelled with me as far as Kithul, in the country of 
 the independent Seikhs, to the north-west of the English 
 possessions, till the 22nd of March, the day on which 
 it took the road to Delhi, and thence to Calcutta, 
 commencing its long and adventurous journey in the 
 cartouche of a Seikh cavalier, sent forward purposely 
 en estafette. 
 
 The day after, I mounted my horse at sunrise, with 
 the amiable people to whose good fortune my very 
 slender one was allied for a fortnight, and for three 
 days we galloped enough to kill our horses. Of course, 
 my faithful Persian galloway, notwithstanding his 
 modish appearance, came in fresher than my com- 
 panions' superb Arabs, each of which cost five or six 
 thousand francs. We found another set of tents; and, 
 
202 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 before our encampment, the Rajah of Patiala's seven- 
 teen elephants, and four hundred horses, drawn up 
 in battle array. An elegant and simple breakfast 
 served up on our arrival, without abating a single 
 useless fork, was quickly despatched ; and immediately 
 after we each mounted our elephant. They were polite 
 enough to give me the rajah's, with its royal seat of 
 velvet and tinsel. We placed ourselves in the centre 
 of the chain formed by the multitude of these animals, 
 most of them without riders, or carrying the ministers 
 (wakils) of the neighbouring rajahs deputed to our 
 young friend the sub-resident of Delhi. Our cavalry 
 deployed on the wings of this imposing line ; and 
 with the rajah's two drums placed in front beating the 
 royal march, we entered the desert. 
 
 It consists of vast, sandy, salt plains, covered with 
 thorny shrubs, interspersed with large trees here and 
 there, or else grassy steppes. There are no obstacles 
 for elephants : they laboriously tear down the trees 
 which they cannot pass, and the branches which would 
 strike the hunter on their back. Being stopped by the 
 forest, our cavalry was sometimes obliged to fall back, 
 and passed afterwards through the large gap which we 
 had opened ; where it could act freely, it formed on each 
 side into a semi-circle, which beat the surrounding space 
 at a great distance, and drove all the game in the plain 
 in front of the elephants. Among us six, we killed 
 hares and partridges by hundreds. A hyena and many 
 wild hogs passing under our fire, were wounded as the 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 203 
 
 hunters say ; for they escaped from our horsemen, 
 who went in pursuit of them. We saw troops of 
 antelopes and nylghaus, but without being able to get 
 within gun-shot of them. Lions, not the shadow of one ; 
 but we hoped for the next day, and returned at night- 
 fall to our encampment. I was in raptures with the 
 strangeness of this novel scene. I saw more of the 
 East that day, than during the whole year I had been 
 in India. 
 
 On our return, we went to the bath and toilet j 
 the bath was a skin of cold water, which a servant 
 spouts with force over your chest and shoulders ; the 
 toilet was the lightest cotton garments ; and then 
 dinner in an immense tent, lighted up like a ball 
 room. The bottles fell before us, as the hares and par- 
 tridges had done in the day-time. I, the only unworthy 
 one, was present at both fetes ; nevertheless I did my 
 best. Water was excluded, the weak-headed and timid 
 drank claret instead — it does not reckon as wine ; cham- 
 pagne even is considered only as an agreeable mean 
 proportion between water and wine ; this latter name 
 is reserved for the wines of Spain and Portugal. The 
 solid part of the dinner equalled the liquid in elegance 
 and perfection. And in order that nothing might be 
 wanting in the soiree, which lasted till midnight, at 
 the dessert some Persian comedians entered, whose 
 extravagant burlesque obliged us to quit the table and 
 throw ourselves flat on our backs on the carpet, in 
 order to laugh with less danger. These being dis- 
 
204 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 missed, the dancing girls entered; they sing and dance 
 alternately : nothing is more monotonous than their 
 dance, except their singing. This latter is not without 
 art, and they say that the loud tones, which pierce at 
 intervals through a feeble plaintive murmur, which is 
 scarcely heard, please, in a peculiar manner, those who 
 have forgotten the melody and measure of European 
 music. I am not yet Indian enough for that ; but their 
 dancing is already to me the most graceful and seducing 
 in the world. The entrechats and the pirouettes of 
 the Opera appear to me like the gambols of the South 
 Sea savages and the stupid stamping of the negroes ; 
 it is in the north of Hindoostan, however, that these 
 nautch-girls are the most celebrated. 
 
 Next morning, at five o'clock, the maitre d'hotel 
 woke me as on the preceding day, with a large, clear, 
 smoking cup of Mocha coffee, made on purpose for 
 their French friend. Ballasted with their cup of tea, 
 my English friends were already mounted. We 
 gal lopped forward ten leagues, and found, as on the day 
 before, all things and all the people ready on our 
 arrival. During the night, our elephants had brought 
 the set of tents, kitchen apparatus, &c. &c. Our 
 whole camp marched during the cool of the day ; and, 
 having rested and taken refreshment, we found after 
 breakfast the same order of battle as the day before. 
 We hunted the whole day in the same manner, began 
 again on the next, and thus continued for a week. 
 At last, after we had beaten all the covers in the 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 205 
 
 country, exhausted and ruined the few villages scattered 
 over it, and worn out the Seikh cavalry, we returned 
 home, taking with us only a troop of cavalry and the 
 elephants which were to serve in the tiger-hunt, at the 
 base of the mountains. The joyous and magnificent com- 
 pany accompanied me as far as Sharunpore, a small town 
 in which the Government maintains a wretched botanical 
 garden. The director of this garden, who is also the 
 physician of the station, was very useful to me. At his 
 house I made my new preparations for travelling, leav- 
 ing my heavy baggage and my collections, formed since 
 my departure from Delhi, under his care ; and taking only 
 what was strictly necessary, I bade farewell to the plains 
 on the 12th of April, two days after the shifting of the 
 monsoon, and the commencement of the south-west 
 winds, which have a temperature of 95° in the day-time, 
 and 92 ' and 93 ' at night. I shall go up as far as Dehra 
 in the Dhoon, with cars and bullocks'; which I shall 
 there dismiss. I sent back my poor poney to Sha- 
 runpore for my botanist's stable (the English have five 
 or six excellent and polite names for our unique and 
 ignoble bidet, which I cannot resolve to apply to my 
 horse any longer). In his place, I provided myself 
 with a long and strong bamboo, and after having care- 
 fully visited the first platform of the mountains, whilst, 
 in my camp, basket-makers, harness-makers, and workmen 
 of all kinds were making preparations for my journey to 
 places accessible only to man, I ascended the second 
 platform of the Himalaya on the 24th of April. No 
 
206 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 traveller was ever seen fitted out so plainly as J am. 
 Thirty-six carriers are sufficient for me, at the expense 
 of nearly 400 francs a month : it is true, that I have 
 been able to reduce the number of my servants to five, 
 even although I have added a gardener to them. I have 
 besides an escort of five gorkha soldiers, commanded 
 by a chosen havildar, who perfectly understands how 
 to make my men get on ; so that, including myself, my 
 party amounts to twenty-six. You will consider this 
 a royal cortege. Nevertheless I have a very bad 
 dinner every day, deeming myself very fortunate that 
 I have not had to go without it hitherto. It consists 
 of boiled rice, some insipid and tough kid, and water 
 from the next torrent. I drink brandy only at day- 
 break to warm me ; a few drops are sufficient. I sleep 
 upon a very hard bed, without a mattrass. My tent is 
 very light : the icy wind, which at night falls from 
 the snowy tops of the mountain, blows through it in 
 gusts, and freezes me in my clothes and under my 
 blankets. Tempests, of a violence and continuance 
 quite unknown before in the mountains at this season 
 of the year, have assailed me since the day which fol- 
 lowed my departure. This vein of adversity is not yet 
 exhausted ; every day brings at noon a little storm of 
 hail and rain. At Dehra, the lightning struck a tree 
 under which my little tent had been pitched. Two of 
 my people were in it with me, and both were for some 
 instants paralysed in the left side. On the heights of 
 Mossouri, which overhang the valley of Dehra, the 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 207 
 
 space around me was strewed with the splinters of a 
 blasted rock ; whilst, chilled with cold and wet, I 
 made my careful and slender repast. It seems in truth 
 that they are aiming at me from above. The two first 
 shots have not touched me ; but I must beware of the 
 third. 
 
 The influence of elevation entirely effaces here that 
 of the latitude, 31°, on the climate and its productions. 
 I am encamped under a grove of wild apricot trees, 
 which are only just coming into leaf. The carpet of 
 my tent is, without metaphor, enamelled with flowers ; 
 they consist of strawberry plants, which are found 
 everywhere here amongst the grass. The wind brings 
 me the smoke of a large fire, around which my 
 mountaineers are sleeping or rather dozing : its odour 
 is agreeable ; it is either a cedar or a pine that they 
 are burning. Most of our forest trees, or species so 
 allied to them that a botanist alone can perceive the 
 difference, prevail in the middle zone of the Himalaya, 
 associated with some others which are foreign to us, but 
 which nevertheless have their representatives in the 
 plains of North America. 
 
 My sight has certainly grown shorter within the 
 last year : I only take off my spectacles to read and 
 write, and even with them I do not see far enough to 
 make use of my carbine. The range of my gun is 
 just the same as that of my eyes : so I have left my 
 carbine at Sharunpore. You must compliment your 
 comrade of St. Etienne ; his arms are excellent. 
 
208 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 But in the inventory of my person, this is the only 
 deficiency I feel : a year's residence in the plains has 
 not affected my constitution. I have again found, in the 
 mountains, the legs I had in the Alps. I suffer from 
 cold, just in the same degree that I was formerly in- 
 commoded by heat ; these contrary extremes only affect 
 my temper, without touching my health. My policy 
 of insurance against cholera, dysentery, and jungle, 
 three great diseases of India, never leaves me ; and I 
 think, indeed, I shall not open it till I get to Paris, as 
 I may never be obliged to open it till then : — it is a 
 little box, containing the violent remedies proper for 
 an attack, with an excellent instruction or little treatise 
 on their use, which the cleverest physician in Calcutta 
 was good enough to make for me. When I recollect 
 his attentions, I cannot help retracing the uninterrupted 
 series of kindnesses, and flattering distinctions, which I 
 have not ceased to meet with, since my arrival in this 
 country. They have often almost affected me by their 
 true cordiality. In this respect, nothing has been 
 wanting ; old and young, great and small, overwhelm me. 
 The oddest thing of all is, that my fortune has been the 
 same, even among the fashionables. Although I have 
 just travelled seven or eight hundred leagues on horse- 
 back, without whip or spur, the officers of the most 
 dashing corps of the English army, in which the major, 
 in order to become lieutenant-colonel, pays 240,000 
 francs, &c. &c, are my sworn brothers ; and when I 
 descend from the mountains, in October or November, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 209 
 
 I shall find a relay of horses prepared by their care, to 
 take me in one day, without stopping, from Sharunpore 
 to Meerut, a seven days' march, without any kind of 
 expense (fifty leagues). 
 
 It is late ; I must bid you good night, my dear 
 friend. Good night, and adieu, for a time. To-morrow 
 I shall go up to the sources of the Jumna : they are, I 
 believe, two thousand metres above this place, the 
 last inhabited part of the valley ; which makes six 
 thousand feet, or twelve thousand steps of a staircase 
 a hundred and fifty times the height of ours. Adieu! 
 — adieu ! 
 
 Camp of Nana, May 20th. 
 
 Again under apricot trees, my friend, but two days' 
 march below my last station j and although the height 
 of this still exceeds two thousand metres, the sun is 
 nevertheless very hot now, and I am just arrived, 
 exhausted with fatigue, and sick, from, the change of 
 regimen to which I have been forced by necessity in 
 these lofty mountains. For the last six months, the 
 foundation of my breakfast (if my slender repast 
 merits that name), and my dinner, has been rice. 
 Here is nothing but wheat and barley. I thought 
 myself well stocked with my usual provender ; and as 
 I have little desire to put my nose into my cook's den 
 of iniquities (I mean the provision basket), I took the 
 blockhead at his word, and a deficiency of rice was 
 soon declared. But my Gorkha havildar, who is my 
 lieutenant-general, by violating the domiciles of the few 
 
 VOL. i. p 
 
210 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 inhabitants of this lofty valley, found some baskets of 
 potatoes. We had a fine feast ; although I ate them 
 with salt, as Bonaparte did artichokes. But if you 
 have your Paul Louis Courier present in your memory, 
 you will recollect that he who was not yet called the 
 Duke of — I know not what — exclaimed, " Great man ! 
 admirable in every thing ! " Although I relatively am 
 a very great lord, no one paid me the compliment; and 
 the passing from dried to green vegetables had the 
 fatal effect on me which you felt eighteen years ago, 
 on the banks of the Niemen, when walking from 
 precaution, and leading your horse by the bridle. 
 Nevertheless, the weather was very fine ; and at the foot 
 of the lofty pinnacles where I was encamped, it was 
 too precious a circumstance not to be immediately 
 taken advantage of. I ascended them twice, at the in- 
 terval of a day ; being stopped on the first occasion by 
 the superstition, and above all by the stupid cowardice of 
 my men, much below the point which I had purposed 
 reaching. I should in the same manner have been 
 thwarted in the object of my second expedition, if, to 
 the first promises encouraging them to follow, I had not 
 added threats of chastisement, to be inflicted on those 
 who refused to march. One only, my gardener, the 
 most stupid and timid of the Hindoos, remained faithful 
 to me. The rest of the band, squatting, in the sun, on 
 a rock which pierced the mantle of snow upon which 
 we had been marching for two hours, became perfectly 
 mutinous, and called to my poor gardener. I did not 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 211 
 
 expect that his fidelity would succumb ; and though it 
 is difficult to climb over soft snow, some hundred feet 
 above a certain level, when the rarefaction of the air ren- 
 ders respiration quick and laborious, and exhausts a man 
 at the end of thirty paces, slightly bending my knees, 
 supporting myself with my two hands and my long 
 and strong bamboo, which moderated my velocity as I 
 needed it, when I made it plough up the snow deeper, 
 I darted like a stone upon the rock of revolt, where 
 the bamboo played another part. The traitor whose 
 voice I had recognised calling the gardener paid for 
 all, and very dearly too. The least weakness on my 
 part — a half measure — would have been the most 
 dangerous of all measures. The culprit being besides 
 the most active, the most robust, and habitually the 
 most evil-intentioned of all, I gave it him so heartily 
 on his shoulders from the first that he would not have 
 been able to reply, had he made the attempt. As 
 these poor devils, notwithstanding their piteous and 
 humble condition, are of high caste, and essentially 
 military, I really did not know how the others would 
 take this lesson. Rajpoots, and mountaineers though 
 they are, they took it as true Hindoos ; that is, joining 
 their hands, and asking pardon. The one who had been 
 beaten, recovering from his stunning, took the head of 
 the file, holding the end of a long rope, which all 
 the others took in their hands, like a rail, for fear 
 there should be crevices under the snow. Fastened in 
 this way, along with my botanical aide-de-camp, I 
 
 p 2 
 
212 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 marched along on the flank of the column like a true 
 shepherd's dog — a toilsome matter in such places — 
 exhausting all the tropes of my Hindoostanee rhetoric 
 to stimulate their fainting spirits. Had it not been for 
 the snow, there is not one of these people who, though 
 loaded with a weight of a hundred pounds, would not 
 travel along the most detestable paths of the moun- 
 tains, three times as far as I could do in the same time ; 
 but they are not used to these deserts of snow. 
 Having left their accustomed roads, and the snow con- 
 cealing entirely from them the often fatal danger of a 
 false step, their instinct of progression expires before 
 these snowy declivities, which require neither address 
 nor courage, for there is no danger in a fall. I 
 fell down frequently ; all I had to do was to shake 
 my clothes. I wished to ascertain the height at 
 which all vegetation ceases. I saw it on the point of 
 expiring; but the delays of my march, and its 
 extreme slowness, obliged me to think of returning 
 before I had reached the last crests of rock which rose 
 above the snow, and which are probably the limit of the 
 vegetable zone. In returning from the country of 
 Kanawer (Kannaur), this • opportunity will not be 
 wanting ; but I should have liked to have fixed this 
 point in different parts of the central chain of the 
 Himalaya. 
 
 Do not blame too much my violence with the people 
 of my escort. Between the hammer and the anvil, 
 between contempt and servile respect, there is no neutral 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 213 
 
 situation possible. You do not thrash people for not call- 
 ing you " your lordship, your highness, your majesty :" 
 now it is the rule in India for the natives never to 
 address the smallest English gentleman but by these 
 titles, the same which they give to their rajahs, their 
 nawaubs, and the emperor of Delhi. An ill-tempered 
 fellow on the road having called me you this morning 
 instead of your highness, I was forced to give him a 
 very severe lesson in politeness. I had fully as much 
 right to do so as the Parisian philanthropist would have 
 in boxing the ears of a rustic for thee and thouing 
 him. I ought to be the more jealous about etiquette, 
 as the simplicity of my equipment, the hard life I 
 lead, the privations and fatigues I endure along with 
 my people, my dress of common stuff proper for this 
 kind of life, and every thing in me and around me, 
 tempts them to depart from it. " My lord," therefore, 
 is not sufficient for me ; I must have " your majesty," 
 or, at least, " your highness." 
 
 . You would undoubtedly laugh at his majesty, if 
 you were to appear before him, in his dress of white 
 bear's skin and long mustachios, an ornament which has 
 a very imposing effect on the scarcely-bearded people of 
 the Himalaya. Fortunately I have no looking-glass to 
 settle the question, and I figure to myself that the red- 
 dish reflection, which I perceive on looking down, is 
 only the effect of a false light. 
 
 In more than one disagreeable respect, my dear Por- 
 phyre, my little misfortunes follow your miseries in 
 
214 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Moscow at a respectful distance. The horrible dirti- 
 ness of the mountaineers, against which I cannot defend 
 myself, is one of the evils to which I have the greatest 
 difficulty in submitting. I hope 1 shall not grow used 
 to it. The storm has just moderated the heat. A 
 military therapeutic experiment has had full success. 
 A burning infusion of the tea-pot, for want of tea, 
 edulcorated with equal parts of brandy, set me on my 
 feet again. They are bringing me a kid at last to 
 interrupt my Brahminical diet ; in the style of the 
 Constitutiotinel, the clouds which were covering, &c. 
 &c. are dissipated, and I catch sight of the dawn of 
 a curry on the fire, that is with red pepper, absolutely 
 uneatable for a Parisian, although but little burning to 
 me, and which will completely replace me in my saddle : 
 without it, I should have been dismounted. 
 
 This (evil be to him that evil thinks) reminds me of a 
 pharmaceutical episode (in this very modest country I 
 know not what decent name to give it) of my journey 
 among the Seikhs. One morning I was awakened by 
 the cry of " thieves ! " Day was hardly breaking, after 
 a dark night. Servants, soldiers, horse and foot, were 
 all aroused. A robber had slipped into my tent, 
 which is very small, by making a large entry with 
 his sword, and passing under my bed, which is very low, 
 stole at random from amongst the objects lying on the 
 ground. My pistols and watch were almost in his 
 way ; but, disturbed in his operations, no doubt, by 
 some noise or false alarm, he had not time to choose, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 215 
 
 and escaped, carrying away with him what was under his 
 hand, namely, my powder flask and shaving apparatus j 
 then, disturbed in his flight, he abandoned the least 
 precious of his booty, the razor strop, shaving box, a 
 phial of nitric acid, &c. &c. These articles were found 
 on the road to the neighbouring village. The shining 
 of the pewter in the twilight made the Seikh believe 
 that he had stolen some precious vessel ; whereas he 
 
 had only taken . The plenipotentiaries of the 
 
 Seikh rajahs immediately waited upon me to request 
 the value and description of the stolen articles, in order 
 to cause them to be sought for everywhere, and to 
 restore the price, in case of ill success, at the expense of 
 the freeholders of the place. As they understood but 
 ill my description of the one I most regretted, I illus- 
 trated it with a drawing of the natural size, and pre- 
 pared to make copies of this signalment for distribu- 
 tion among the inquirers, when my English friends 
 came up at the noise. My drawing threw them into 
 consternation ; they blushed to the white of their eyes, 
 and were heartily vexed with me, that having the un- 
 fortunate custom of using a , I did not take 
 
 more care to keep it secret. I told them gravely 
 that it was a matter of life and death to me. — " Ah, 
 death a thousand times over rather than keep one," 
 they exclaimed altogether. " No !" I replied, " a thou- 
 sand rather than a single headach ? " Then 
 
 followed a serious eulogium of that admirable remedy, 
 
216 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 and a medical satire of calomel, jalap, &c. which the 
 English have the folly to consider its efficacious equi- 
 valents. My speech was no doubt eloquent ; for the 
 rajah himself was immediately written to, to request 
 him to rummage all the huts, and beat all the bushes 
 of his paltry empire, to find the stolen article, and, if 
 they chanced to recover it, to send it to me under a 
 good escort, at whatever place I might happen to be. I 
 do not despair seeing a party of Seikh cavalry bring it 
 back to me to Paris, in a few years, on a velvet cushion. 
 Meanwhile my English friends, reconciled to the 
 reason of the thing, had the politeness to overcome 
 their scruples, and to send messengers in search of a 
 substitute to the directors of the neighbouring military 
 hospitals. They succeeded in procuring me one, 
 which I suppose to be of a venerable antiquity, and the 
 first attempt of the kind. Our father and you would 
 both laugh at it. The noise of this accident has given 
 me the most perfect reputation, not of immorality pre- 
 cisely, but as a freethinker, passing into cynicism. 
 Adieu, dear Porphyre; I was quite melancholy when I 
 came to you, exhausted and ill : and now punch and this 
 gossip with you have revived me, and almost made me 
 merry. I leave you to do honour to my aforesaid 
 English friends. In my isolated situation, and in 
 this remote spot, I feel the inestimable value of 
 health, and I take every care of it that circumstances 
 will allow. Rely on my prudence, moderation, and 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 217 
 
 address ; rely also on my honour (for there is some- 
 thing else besides good management in it) to see me 
 return some day without the loss of a hair. Adieu. 
 
 Encampment in a forest below the summit of Kedar-Kanta, 
 May 27th, evening, at the height of 3200 metres. 
 
 You are the sole confidant of my sufferings, my poor 
 friend ; since it is you who hear all my complaints. I 
 was well enough to continue my march, trusting that 
 my return to my habitual regimen would completely 
 cure me ; and, having arrived yesterday at the head of 
 the valley of the Boddiar, I left this morning its high- 
 est habitations to come and encamp in this solitude, 
 in order to climb the neighbouring peaks to-morrow, 
 and pass to the other side, into a valley parallel with 
 this. I arrived, overcome with fatigue, after a march of 
 only seven hours. Nevertheless I had collected ample 
 material for work, and set to without delay — besides, 
 my bed is so hard that I rest as well in my chair — but 
 on a sudden I was seized with such excruciating pains 
 in my bowels that I became almost delirious. The spot 
 was ill chosen for sickness : behind me the nearest 
 habitations are seven hours' march, before me two days', 
 and my people have only provisions enough for this 
 interval : so that I must either advance or go back ; and 
 for what purpose ? This is the reverse of the medal : 
 — on the side of health it is magnificent ; but on the 
 side of illness it is very bad, and there is not a woman 
 who cannot bear acute suffering better than I can. 
 
218 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 I scarcely know it except by very rare cramps, a fit of 
 fever eight years ago, and my suffering of to-day ; and 
 the idea has always come to me to make an end of it, 
 to get rid of the evil at once by strict diet. What my 
 legs will be to-morrow I know not. But night brings 
 counsel — and it is come. Adieu, then ; it is so cold and 
 wet in my tent, that from prudence I leave you, in order 
 to put my bed-clothes between its atmosphere and 
 myself. The scoundrels of Seikhs are perhaps the 
 cause of my indisposition. Good night. Oh, how 
 happy you are to live in a house. 
 
 June 4th, Camp of Adjalta. 
 
 Quite alive, I assure you. If I was paid at the rate 
 of six thousand francs for that (and would to God 
 I was so) I would explain to you in the most satisfac- 
 tory manner how, by the influence of air and water, 
 from being ill as I was, I am restored to health ; but 
 the fact is, without having a single day of perfect rest, 
 I am now the best in condition of my whole caravan. 
 Such is the state of the case — for there is not a day 
 passes that I have not to ascend and descend twelve or 
 fifteen hundred metres, without reckoning parentheses. 
 I have substituted milk for water as my beverage, and 
 I drink two bottles of it without scruple every evening 
 at my dinner. It is a sort of antidote to the essence of 
 fire, which forms the sauce of my eternal curry. It 
 costs me three sous a day more, and a little of the 
 arbitrary. I ascend to the mountain in search of cows, 
 
LAHORE .AND CASHMERE. 
 
 (observe, that to-day I am encamped at the height of 
 thousand three hundred metres — yesterday I was 
 two thousand six hundred) and before the door of my 
 tent a dozen are brought to obtain this small quantity 
 of milk. I pay magnificently — three sous did I say ? — 
 it is half as much again as it is worth ; but they must 
 make haste, and the arrival of the milk coincides with 
 the last touch of my cook. Nothing, besides, is so easy 
 as to be arbitrary when one has only to say, like Mon- 
 sieur de Foucauld, seize him ! — I imitate him with a 
 wonderful word of the Hindoostanee jargon, before 
 which the seize him turns pale — pocarau ! and my 
 Gorkha seapoys would seize the devil and Monsieur de 
 Foucauld himself. Besides the people in this country 
 seem to think there is a degree of honour in being 
 so treated. Those you want do not stir from home 
 unless you despatch a soldier to them in form. What 
 a useful thimj arbitrarv rule is ; but what a villanous 
 country, that which requires it ! I cannot think of my 
 own country without experiencing a feeling of admi- 
 ration and affection. 
 
 § rndm, Jun* 22im/, 1S33. 
 
 I have just, my dear friend, given my father such a 
 
 broadside of writing, that, unless I quit the subject of 
 
 my own affairs. I am at the end of mv news : since the 
 
 .itial is told, let me amuse myself. I have been 
 
 able enough with you in the preceding pa^ 
 
 So you too. my clear Porphyre, are in love with the 
 
 Afghans; and, not content with this, also with the 
 
220 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Kabulians, Kandaharians, and others, after the fashion 
 of Messrs. of the Courrier & Co. Oh ! oh ! No one 
 is a prophet in his own country. 
 
 Those two heroes, the two brothers, Mohammed 
 Khan and Purdile Khan, have no more effect at Delhi 
 than the Duke of Saxe-Schwerin, or of Anhalt- 
 Cobalt, who may, however, be very great princes, but 
 incognito. 
 
 Know that the Company's army consists of three 
 hundred thousand men ; thirty thousand of which 
 are king's troops, seven or eight thousand entirely 
 European corps in the Company's service, such as 
 almost the whole artillery, and, lastly, the native army 
 is commanded by numerous European officers and non- 
 commissioned officers : it is disciplined and drilled as 
 well as the king's army, dressed like it, fights very nearly 
 equal to it, and is commanded by officers in whom it has 
 the greatest and justest confidence ; — that in a country 
 like this, intersected by deserts, and in which the richest 
 provinces, with the exception of Bengal, which is 
 extremely distant from Erzeroum, could not support 
 the smallest army, the smallest body of troops, in 
 order not to die of hunger, and often of thirst, 
 would have to drag along with it an immense number 
 of elephants, camels, and wagons ; — that the company 
 has three thousand elephants, forty thousand camels, 
 and materiel of all kinds and proportion; — that it is 
 always ready to take the field ; — and ask yourself if, 
 from this place Semla, at a distance of seven leagues 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 221 
 
 from Runjeet-Sing, I have not reason to scoff at him 
 indefinitely, quandmeme ; as well as at all the Afghans, 
 Kandaharians, Kabulians, the brothers Mohammed 
 and Purdile, the heroes, and lastly at all the varieties of 
 vagabonds, brigands, and mendicants, both horse and 
 foot, who flourish on the right bank of the Indus. 
 
 If you can find a discreet and inoffensive mode of 
 insinuating this information, tell Messrs. of the 
 Courrier not to believe easily in heroes, which are a 
 sort of animal more rare in this country than elsewhere, 
 and in general exotic everywhere. 
 
 If I had more money, I would go to Cashmere, 
 which belongs to Runjeet-Sing. The Resident of 
 Delhi, whom I would request to ask a passport of him, 
 would write immediately to him for that purpose, and 
 would receive forthwith the desired firman. Perhaps 
 it is not to be regretted that pecuniary prudence 
 interdicts so interesting a journey, because Runjeet- 
 Sing may die one of these days. He is not young ; 
 and on the day of his death there will be war between 
 his two sons ; and a pacific naturalist is sure of being 
 pillaged, if not worse — how shall I say it?— the 
 Seikhs are such Turks in that respect. 
 
 M. Allard is quite the Soliman Bey of Runjeet- 
 Sing. He comes from time to time to Loodeeana (on 
 the banks of the Sutledge) to visit the English officers 
 on that station, one established beyond the Company's 
 territory, among the independent Seikhs, in the do- 
 minions of my friend the Rajah of Pattiala, who has 
 
222 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 not yet sent me back my syringe. He is well paid (a 
 hundred thousand francs, like a general officer on this 
 side the river), but he is half a prisoner. Runjeet- 
 Sing takes great care to make him spend the whole of 
 his income every year, in order to take away all desire 
 of leaving him. He pursues the same policy with regard 
 to his other European officers, upon whom he only 
 half relies. A Mr. Mevius, a Prussian, commander of 
 one of his regiments of cavalry, having very lately 
 excited a revolt in his corps, by the application of the 
 German procedure of the whip to his Seikhs, was 
 obliged to take refuge in the tent of the king himself 
 (Runjeet-Sing) to escape the fury of his men. Runjeet 
 saved his life, but refused to retain him in his service ; 
 upon this, sharp words ensued upon both sides, and at 
 last Runjeet, dismissing him, exclaimed with an oath : 
 
 " Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, those are all 
 
 the same !" 
 
 I ought to have left an enormous blank for the oath, 
 which is very short in Hindoostanee, but so energetic 
 that it would require a whole line to express it in 
 French. 
 
 The English Government has every interest in 
 Runjeet's preserving his sovereignty. Before the 
 establishment of his power, parties of cavalry used 
 constantly to pass the Sutledge, and pillage the inde- 
 pendent Seikhs on the left bank, the friends and 
 proteges of the Company. These it was necessary to 
 succour ; and, unless the fugitive aggressors were 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 223 
 
 pursued on the other side of the river, no satisfaction 
 or reparation was possible: the petty princes of the 
 Punjab being too weak to be responsible for the robberies 
 committed by their subjects. If such a thing was to 
 happen now-a-days, the political Resident at Delhi would 
 send Runjeet an apothecary's bill, with an immediate 
 demand of the value of the crops and cattle plundered, 
 and moreover a respectable number of the culprits, in 
 order to have them hanged with all due ceremony. 
 Runjeet would care very little for their hanging, but 
 the payment of the rupees would concern him much ; 
 he therefore takes care that nothing of the kind shall 
 happen. There has been no example of it since the 
 establishment of his authority. 
 
 Although my host is the political agent who 
 exercises his control over the only Tartar and 
 Tibetian states to which the English power extends, 
 we have never heard of the anonymous savant who is 
 travelling in Tibet with an escort of twelve hundred 
 cossacks, and other mounted canaille of the same 
 kind*. The twelve hundred horses of these twelve 
 hundred cossacks would run a great chance of starving 
 in the part of Tibet which extends to the foot of 
 the Himalaya on the northern side. I am not 
 without some fear as to the means of feeding the only 
 steed which I reckon upon the pleasure of riding in 
 Kanawer. 
 
 * Jacquemont here contradicts an article in a French paper, con- 
 cerning which his brother had questioned him. 
 
224 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 My artilleryman, with his thousand foot Gorkhas, is 
 so much the master of these mountains, that, during 
 the last nine years since his arrival, he has not had 
 occasion to resort to force. He deposes the kings in 
 the neighbourhood when they kill too many of their 
 subjects. He imprisons and fines them : he has 
 only to give information to the Resident of Delhi, 
 under whose orders he is politically placed. The 
 Hindoo Tartar rajah of Bissahir takes great care to 
 inform him of all that passes on the other side of the 
 mountains where he resides, and I have reason to 
 believe that the savant in question, with his twelve 
 hundred cossacks, must have stopped some months' 
 march from this frontier. 
 
 You appear to me to be pretty confident about the 
 Afghans, and you commence with a very pleasant reflec- 
 tion about a pie; to which I am happy to be able to answer 
 that I have the prospect of eating here in four months 
 a Strasbmg pate de foie gras, and also a Perigord 
 pate defoie gras, which are not inferior to the Bou- 
 logne pate de becasses in their finest season. The 
 Bordeaux vessels bring them every year to Calcutta, 
 where they arrive as fresh as at Paris ; and your colleague 
 the artilleryman, my host at present, has just written 
 to the capital, in order that he may regale me with both 
 at our next meeting. Since we are talking of pies, I will 
 tell you that upon the peaks of Mossouri, in the moun- 
 tains of the Himalaya, another artilleryman, a general, 
 a grey-haired old bachelor, whom you would love to 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. L 2Q5 
 
 distraction if you knew him, made me taste — taste ! I 
 devoured a pate de lievre t ruffe and a quantity of 
 Perigord pates de perdri.v-rouges truffees. The 
 proceeding of both is very simple ; the one on account 
 of his high rank in the army, and the other on account 
 of his office, have an income of a hundred thousand 
 francs, which diminishes distances in a singular 
 manner, and exercises the action of a sucking-pump 
 on all the good things of Eurone, raising them to a 
 height of seven or eight thousand feet above the level 
 of the sea. Why are you not the captain of artillery 
 aux pates de foie gras ? In your absence, know, 
 however, my friend, that the treacherous islander, 
 your compeer, drank your health yesterday with me, 
 and (do not tell our father or Taschereau) that it was 
 not with vin de Tours. 
 
 June 25lh. 
 
 I close this packet with announcing to you that I set 
 out the day after to-morrow for Kanawer. Adieu. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT, THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Semlah, Semla, Simla, Simlah, ad libitum, June 2 1st, 1830. 
 
 My last letters were addressed to you, the one from 
 Benares, called in my memorandum enormous ; the 
 latter was commenced at Delhi and closed at Kithul, 
 in the Seikh country, on the 22d of March. Under 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
2€6 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the same cover as this, Porphyre will receive a sort of 
 journal of my march from Kithul to the centre of the 
 Himalaya, which almost dispenses with my mentioning 
 it to you. 
 
 This place, like M ont-d'or or Bagneres, is the resort 
 of the rich, the idle, and the invalid. The officer 
 charged with the military, political, judicial, and finan- 
 cial service of this extremity of the British empire, 
 which was acquired only fifteen years ago, bethought 
 himself, nine years ago, of leaving his palace in the plain 
 during the heats of a terrible summer, and coming and 
 encamping under the shade of the cedars. He was 
 alone in the desert; some friends came to visit him there. 
 The situation, and climate, appeared admirable to 
 them. Some hundreds of mountaineers were sum- 
 moned, who felled the trees around, squared them 
 rudely, and, assisted by workmen from the plains, 
 in one month constructed a spacious house. Each of 
 the guests wished also to have one ; and now there 
 are upwards of sixty scattered over the peaks of the 
 mountains or on their declivities. Thus a considerable 
 village has risen, as it were, by enchantment. In the 
 centre of the space which they occupy, splendid roads 
 have been cut through the rock ; and at a distance of 
 seven hundred leagues from Calcutta, and seven thou- 
 sand feet above the level of the sea, the luxury of the 
 Indian capital has established itself, and fashion main- 
 tains its tyrannical sway. 
 
 Porphyre has a right to be jealous of my host. He is 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 227 
 
 an artillery captain of his own age, and, like him, of long 
 standing in his rank. He has a hundred thousand francs 
 a year, and commands a regiment of Highland chas- 
 seurs, the best corps in the army. He perforins the 
 duties of receiver-general, and judges with the same 
 independence as the Grand Turk, his own subjects, and 
 moreover those of the neighbouring Rajahs, Hindoos, 
 Tartars, Tibetans ; these he imprisons, fines, and even 
 hangs when he thinks proper. 
 
 This first of all artillery captains in the world is an 
 amiable bachelor, whom the duties of his viceroyalty 
 occupy for one hour after breakfast, and who passes 
 the rest of his time in loading me with kindness. He 
 had expected me for a month past ; some mutual friends 
 having informed him of my design of visiting Semla. 
 He passes for the stiffest of dandies, the most formal 
 and vainest of the princes of the earth ! I find nothing 
 of all this ; it is impossible to be a better fellow. We 
 gallop an hour or two in the morning on the mag- 
 nificent roads which he has constructed, often joining 
 some elegant cavalcade, among which I meet some of 
 my Calcutta acquaintance. On our return we have an 
 elegant and recherche breakfast ; then I have the 
 entire and free disposal of my day, and that of my host, 
 whenever I think proper to put it in requisition, to 
 view men and things. At sun-set fresh horses are to the 
 door, and we take another ride, to beat up the most 
 friendly and lively of the rich idlers and imaginary inva- 
 lids whom we may chance to meet. They are people of 
 
 a 2 
 
228 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the same kind as my host, bachelors and soldiers, but 
 soldiers employed in all kinds of departments : the most 
 interesting people in India to me. We sit down to a 
 magnificent dinner at half-past seven, and rise at eleven. 
 I drink hock, claret, and champagne only, and at 
 dessert Malmsey ; the others, alleging the coldness of 
 the climate, stick to port, sherry, and Madeira. I do 
 not recollect having tasted water for the last seven days ; 
 nevertheless there is no excess, but great cheerfulness 
 every evening. I cannot tell you how delightful this ap- 
 pears to me, after the dryness, insipidity, hardness, and 
 brevity of my solitary dinners, during two months in 
 the mountains. And I have not one arrear to pay off. 
 Having the approaching prospect of four months of 
 misery on the other side of the Himalaya, I revenge 
 myself by anticipation. I arrived here so much ex- 
 hausted by fatigue and the consequences of an obsti- 
 nate indisposition, that I thought I would avail myself 
 of the period of my stay, to recruit my health ; but my 
 host's cook cured me in four and twenty hours. 
 
 Do you not see Semla on your map ? A little to 
 the north of the 31° of latitude, a little to the east of 
 the 77° of longitude, some leagues from the Sutledge. 
 Is it not curious to dine in silk stockings at such a place, 
 and to drink a bottle of hock and another of cham- 
 pagne every evening — delicious Mocha coffee — and to 
 receive the Calcutta journals every morning? 
 
 The kin.? of Bissahir's vizier, whose master is the 
 greatest of my host's allies, is here at present ; Captain 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 2^9 
 
 Kennedy (that is my artilleryman's name) has intro- 
 duced us to each other ; and I am assured of receiving 
 all sorts of attention at the other side of the Himalaya. 
 
 One of his officers will follow me everywhere, and 
 I shall take with me from hence a couple of Ghorka 
 carabiniers belonging to my host's regiment, the most 
 active and clever of them, and one of his tchourassis 
 (a sort of usher or janissary) who has already visited 
 that country, having gone thither with his master some 
 years ago. 
 
 The people on this side the mountains are horribly 
 afraid of their neighbours on the other. It is rather 
 difficult to procure porters for the baggage, and con- 
 stitutionally it would be impossible to make a single 
 domestic follow one thither ; but Captain Kennedy has 
 obligingly offered to imprison any of mine who refuse 
 to accompany me ; and although they declare that they 
 prefer being hanged on this side the mountains to 
 being free in Kanawer, I think that by availing myself, 
 in one or two instances, of my host's kindness, I shall 
 make the rest decide upon following me. What the sim- 
 pletons fear I know not : — but it is no longer India on the 
 other side ; there are no more castes ; instead of Brah- 
 mins there are Lamas. Besides, in my suite there will 
 be perfect safety. The rajah of Bissahir knows very 
 well, that if any harm happened to me he would suffer 
 for it, and he will take great care of th.e.jranei& saheb, 
 captdnne Kindt sahebke doste, which means " the 
 French lord, friend of the great General Kennedy." 
 
230 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 June 22nd. 
 
 Yesterday was the solstice, and the periodical rains, 
 which that period brings, invade all the southern slopes 
 of the Himalaya, notwithstanding their distance from 
 the tropic. It is already several days since this 
 disagreeable change of weather took place ; I can 
 scarcely see sufficiently to write, so thick are the 
 moist clouds in which we are inclosed. Nevertheless I 
 shall be obliged to march a fortnight before I reach 
 the Tibetian valleys, where it never rains. It will be 
 the worst part of my journey. 
 
 A few lines in answer to your two letters. I cannot 
 help smiling at your fears, arising from the news of an 
 insurrection of the Company's troops at the time of my 
 arrival in India. What must you not have thought, 
 when you saw the Half Batta affair in the English 
 papers ! You must have believed the army to have been 
 in full mutiny, and Lord William Bentinck compelled 
 to embark for Europe, with his council — the natives 
 availing themselves of the quarrel among Europeans, and 
 arming on all sides against them Now to me this mon- 
 strous ignorance of Asiatic affairs in Europe is the 
 height of the unimaginable, for an enormous mass 
 of correspondence is constantly exchanged between 
 the two countries ; the fluctuation of travellers between 
 them is no less so ; and, lastly, though the Government 
 of India is despotic on principle, and ought to be so, 
 it is in fact as free as any other in Europe. There is 
 no preventive censorship exercised against periodicals, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 231 
 
 which are numerous ; first, at Calcutta — John Bull ; 
 second, the Hurkuru, (which means in Hindoostan 
 the Messenger ) ; third, the East India Gazette ; the 
 Government Gazette; Liter ary Gazette, &c. &c. with- 
 out mentioning the journals published in Bengalee and 
 Hindoostanee language. From the contradictory reports 
 of these different papers, nothing would be more easy, 
 it seems to me, than to deduce the true state of affairs : 
 all of them go to England, and yet the mass of the Eng- 
 lish public is as ignorant of India as we are in France. 
 Some of the little newspaper scraps which you sent me, 
 to inform me that the Afghans had sent an embassy to 
 the Russian general at Erzeroum, and that the king of 
 Lahore, Runjeet-Sing, was inclined towards the Rus- 
 sians, have excited the mirth of my Indian friends. 
 Here we are precisely a day's march from Runjeet-Sing, 
 and in five days we can see a considerable part of his 
 dominions : — now he is as supremely indifferent to us as 
 the emperor of Japan. The forces maintained by the 
 Company on the north-west frontier, at Delhi, Kurnal, 
 Meerut, Agra, Mutra, and Loodeeana, would be suffi- 
 cient to invade the whole of the Punjab without any 
 movement of troops in the interior of India. Runjeet- 
 Sing might risk a battle behind his actual line of de- 
 fence, the Sutledge, and he would afford the English a 
 precious opportunity of annihilating him in half an hour. 
 As for the Afghans, " a warlike nation," says your esti- 
 mable journal, " which has so many times invaded India, 
 and can bring thirty thousand cavalry into the field," 
 
232 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 this is a little too much : the days of Mahmood, 
 and Ghirni, and Tim our, are past. The Afghans are 
 very inferior to the Seikhs, and, at most, just strong 
 enough to do battle from time to time with Runjeet- 
 Sing*. 
 
 This latter disciplines his little army in the 
 European fashion, and almost all his officers are 
 Frenchmen. Their chief is one M. Allard, of whom a 
 great deal of good is said on this side the Sutledge. A 
 month ago, three young French officers, one of whom 
 is a younger brother of M. Allard, passed through this 
 place on their way from Calcutta to enter Runjeet-Sing's 
 service. Not only did the local government allow 
 them free passage, but they also received many atten- 
 tions on their long journey. Lord William Bentinck 
 regrets that the Russians were blockheads enough not 
 to take Constantinople ; and, though they were to 
 occupy the whole of the Turkish empire, he would not 
 feel himself in less security at Calcutta, or even at 
 Delhi or Semla, than he does at present. 
 
 In order to maintain his little army (from thirty to 
 forty thousand men) on a European footing, Runjeet- 
 Sing is obliged to grind his country with imposts, which 
 are ruining it. Several of his provinces are calling for 
 the English ; and I do not doubt that some day or other 
 (but not for some years) the Company will extend the 
 limits of its empire from the Sutledge to the Indus. 
 It is not a hundred years since the Punjab was 
 dismembered from it, after the invasion of Nadir Shah, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 233 
 
 and it naturally forms a part of it . the religion is 
 nearly the same, the language also scarcely differs ; 
 and the course of the seasons is the same. But the 
 English will make this conquest only at the last 
 extremity. All that they have added to their territory 
 for the last fifty years beyond Bengal and Bahar, 
 beyond the empire which Colonel Clive had formed, 
 has only diminished their revenues. Not one of the 
 acquired provinces pays the expenses of its government 
 and military occupation. The Madras presidency, 
 taken in the lump, is annually deficient ; Bombay is 
 still further from covering its expenses. It is the 
 revenue of Bengal and Bahar, principally of the 
 former, which, after making up the deficiency of 
 the north-west provinces recently annexed to the 
 presidency of Calcutta, Bundlecund, Agra, Delhi, &c, 
 sets the finances of the two secondary states afloat. In 
 France, we consider a hypocritical farce, the excuse 
 of necessity alleged by the English for the prodigious 
 aggrandisement of their Asiatic dominions : nothing, 
 however, is more true ; and certainly no European 
 Government was ever more faithful to its engagements 
 than that of the Company. 
 
 Your map, in four sheets, is not the same as mine. 
 But I know it is a very good one ; and you will be able 
 to follow me step by step, except in the mountains. 
 Since you love this country for my sake, and desire to 
 become acquainted with it, summon all your courage, 
 and ask at the Library of the Institute, or at the 
 
234 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Royal Library, for the five octavo volumes of Mill's 
 History of India. It is beyond all comparison the 
 best work on that country. Perhaps the two quarto 
 volumes of Dr. Heber, the late Bishop of Calcutta, might 
 amuse you more, but they would give you very little 
 information : it is regular milk and water ! Those 
 parts of the Deccan left blank in the map, and marked 
 unexplored countries, annoy you. You are afraid 
 that I should have to cross them. Be of good cheer. 
 Should it so happen, I shall take a strong escort ; 
 besides, the danger to be encountered there is that of 
 dying of hunger and thirst, or of atonic fevers, rather 
 than that of being attacked by parties of marauders. 
 But there is no interest in visiting them. They are 
 deserts without water, covered with wretched forests, 
 through which a few hovels are scattered at great 
 distances. I saw a good specimen between Rogonat- 
 pore and Sheergottee, in the beginning of my journey. 
 In many parts of India every one is certain of death 
 who passes through those terrible places between 
 September and January; and the danger is the same to 
 the natives as to Europeans. Rely on my prudence, 
 and my complete submission to the exigencies of places 
 and seasons. 
 
 The learned or literary societies of the United States 
 are about on a par with those of India. As societies, 
 the latter are below every thing that can be conceived 
 in ignorance, folly, and puerility. However, there are 
 necessarily some men of merit in each ; in that of 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 235 
 
 Calcutta particularly, Horace Wilson, for instance, 
 the first Sanscrit scholar in the world, a linguist, 
 literary savant, and poet, at the same time. Read his 
 Hindoo Theatre : this book cannot be wanting 
 at the Royal Library. I wrote yesterday to my old 
 host, Sir Edward Ryan, and my amiable neighbour, 
 Sir Charles Grey, chief justice of India, and ex- 
 plained to the latter why I sent no memoir to the 
 Asiatic Society of Calcutta. I concluded my chapter 
 of grievances against it with the very circumstance of 
 his being the president without having any title to be 
 even a member, and as a proof that the society itself 
 is absurd. The very great talents of Sir C. Grey will 
 find employment in politics. His short hours of 
 leisure are for European literature ; and he cares as 
 little for the history and antiquities of this country as 
 you do. I have the same contempt for them. The 
 Sanscrit will lead to nothing but Sanscrit. The 
 mechanism of this language is wonderfully complicated, 
 and nevertheless they say it is admirable. But it is 
 like one of those machines which never issue from 
 museums, and are more ingenious than useful. It 
 has served only for the manufacture of theology, 
 metaphysics, history intermixed with theology, and 
 other stuff of the same kind-: triple nonsense for the 
 makers and the consumers ; and for foreign consumers 
 especially — nonsense = g. The Arabic is not exempt 
 from these evils. The allegorical mysticism of the 
 Orientals has penetrated even into the elementary 
 
236 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 notions which they have acquired of the physical and 
 mathematical sciences ; and the Trinity, translated into 
 good French, is not so clear but that the interference 
 of Brahmiuic fables with the planetary motions and 
 principles of physics, complicates the understanding of 
 it with singular difficulties. 
 
 The fashion of Sanscrit and literary Orientalism in 
 general will last, nevertheless ; for those who may have 
 spent or lost fifteen or twenty years in learning the 
 Arabic or the Sanscrit, will not have the candour to 
 allow that they possess a useless piece of knowledge. 
 D'Eckstein is, I think, very right to go on as if he 
 understood them ; and the trash which he gives, 
 se non e vero e ben trovato. Try some of Schlegel, 
 who is honest and conscientious, and see if there is 
 much difference. Try some of Cousin. Have not the 
 absurd at Benares and those in Germany a family 
 likeness ? 
 
 Let us go on to your second letter. Here come 
 back your Afghans — then the probable war between 
 England and Russia, occasioned by the latter's hostile 
 designs upon India ; the sedition of the Indian army : 
 — all this is broad farce at Semla. Porphyre's 
 moustaches are something new ; but I flatter myself that 
 mine owe them nothing. They are an ornament which 
 ecclesiastics almost alone, in the north of India, 
 dispense with, and which is particularly appropriate to 
 the country in which I am now travelling. 
 
 I am much surprised that the Jar din had not 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 237 
 
 received a letter from me on the 9th November, 
 1829, the date of your letter, as I wrote to those 
 gentlemen from the Cape of Good Hope, on the c 2Jih 
 December, 18 c 28, by Captain D'Urville, who arrived 
 in France in the month of March or April, 1829- 
 I also wrote to them from Bourbon after the hurricane; 
 and I have already received news of other letters, 
 written at the same time and intrusted to the same 
 ship, having reached Europe. What astonishes me no 
 less is their silence respecting me. I wrote to them 
 from Kithul, and I also write to them to-day, that, my 
 credits expiring in the year 1831 inclusive, if new ones 
 do not soon arrive for the year following, and supple- 
 mentary ones for the present year, to enable me to carry 
 on to the next, I shall be obliged to start for Europe 
 from Bombay by the shortest and least expensive route. 
 Whatever may happen, do not be any thing more than 
 vexed at it j but entertain no fear that I shall allow 
 myself imprudently to be cast on the shores of India, by 
 the unforeseen retreat of the wave which has carried me 
 thither. My confidence being restored in that respect, 
 I do not suffer myself to be turned from my present 
 studies by any uneasiness as to the future. 
 
 What need had you of the testimony of V to 
 
 be convinced of the extravagant absurdity of a scientific 
 journey into equinoctial America? Mexico in parti- 
 cular? One had need be French, to be so completely 
 ignorant of external affairs. M. de Humboldt was very 
 fortunate in the period which he fixed upon to make 
 
238 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 his great journey ; and the social confusion of the 
 countries which he visited is a literary god-send for 
 him, since he drives away new observers, and restores 
 a sort of monopoly for his works on America. Besides 
 he had to describe the finest part of the world. 
 
 With regard to the picturesque, India is very poorly 
 gifted. Can it be, I have sometimes asked myself, 
 that the source of admiration in me is exhausted? I 
 have passionately admired the scenes of nature at 
 St. Domingo, and afterwards in Brazil. The evil is 
 not in me ; the fault is in the objects in the country. 
 
 The English papers are filled with the complaints 
 of all Europe about the excessive cold of the winter. 
 I am more disturbed about it on your account, than 
 by the changes of the ministry on account of the 
 prosperity of our native country. I think there is 
 no Government capable of doing much harm in France 
 henceforth. The " Association Bretonne" was in- 
 vented, nearly two hundred years ago, by Hampden. 
 The invention will remain with the English. Its 
 adoption among us appears to me, as well as to you, a 
 revolution, if it is adhered to. 
 
 A letter by M. Jomard, translated into the English 
 journals, informs us that the Pacha of Egypt has availed 
 himself of Courier's advice to the King of Spain, and 
 given himself the productive amusement of a little 
 puppet of a representation. But I am afraid he will 
 scandalise our liberal friends, by shooting from time to 
 time some of the members of the opposition, unless he 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 239 
 
 associates with them some rivals of the counter-oppo- 
 sition, in order to prevent jealousy. However, this is the 
 way to begin: and until Bolivar becomes a king, or, 
 remaining president (never mind the name), shall have 
 the power of acting in this way, every one will kill his 
 neighbour, according to his own convenience. This right 
 must be limited to a single person ; and though he 
 should be half mad, like Christophe, public order would 
 still gain by the immoderate and often absurd manner 
 in which he might exercise it. 
 
 I thank you for M. Humboldt's letter to M. Arago, 
 and for the report of the labours of Beaumont. 
 
 I leave here, with my regal artilleryman, all the col- 
 lection which I have formed since my entrance into the 
 mountains ; and I shall leave him, in a couple of days, 
 to proceed by Kotgur, Rampore, and Seran, along the 
 banks of the Sutledge, through one of the hottest valleys 
 in India. I shall be carried in a sort of arm-chair. At 
 Seran, the summer residence of the Rajah of Bissahir, 
 I shall re-enter the mountains, where I shall dismiss 
 my porters, and probably substitute in their place a 
 ghounte, or mountain horse, of wonderful strength and 
 activity, though of small size. My suite will then be 
 reduced to fifty persons, at an expense of seven or eight 
 hundred francs a month, and it is only by reducing my 
 personal baggage to what is strictly necessary (and in 
 truth, all that is necessary is not among it), that I can 
 proceed with so few people. In the autumn, I shall 
 return by the Barunda Pass, over the central chain 
 
240 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 of the Himalaya, either to this place, or directly to 
 Subhatoo (Sabatoo, Subatoo), Captain Kennedy's 
 winter residence, if he be already come down to 
 it, sending my baggage on before me ; and from Sub- 
 hatoo to Sharunpore, without the mountains, where I 
 shall reinstate my travelling establishment for the plains. 
 I have left a considerable part of my baggage and col- 
 lections there. The whole will be despatched to Delhi, 
 which I have constituted my first depot ; and when I 
 see my wagons start for Sharunpore, instead of march- 
 ing slowly after them, to bring up the file, across a pro- 
 vince entirely destitute of interest, I shall gallop in a 
 single day to Meerut, where I shall rest for several 
 days from fatigues, privations, and miseries of all kinds, 
 which I shall have experienced. I do not know Mee- 
 rut ; but I have a number of acquaintances, almost 
 friends, there. Perhaps I shall have some leisure in 
 Kanawer, and may find an opportunity of writing to 
 you ; however, that is not probable. Expect, there- 
 fore, a long interval of silence after this. Long as 
 it may last, be assured I shall then be in a country 
 as salubrious as Europe, eating apples and grapes, 
 drinking the wine of the country, which is execrable, 
 and lastly, 
 
 Sachez, sachez, 
 Que les Tartares, 
 Ne sont barbares, 
 Qu'avec leurs ennemis. 
 
 Adieu, adieu ; I love you and embrace you with all 
 my heart. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 
 
 241 
 
 TO M. VICTOR DE TRACY, PARIS. 
 
 Semla in the Himalaya, June 23rd, 1830. 
 
 My last letter, my dear friend, was addressed to you 
 from Kithul, in the country of the Seikhs, dated the 
 2nd March. For a fortnight I was running after lions 
 there, which we went in search of nearly to the edge of 
 the desert of Bikaneer, but we did not so much as catch 
 sight of one. In this short space of time, deduct- 
 ing the lions, I saw more of the East than in the whole 
 year which had elapsed since my arrival in India. 
 
 On the 12th April I entered the lower valleys of 
 the Himalaya, and on the 23rd I ascended the peaks of 
 the secondary chain. In the midst of the extreme dis- 
 order of the often very lofty mountains, which cover 
 so large a space to the south of the line of its eternal 
 snows, I proceeded as far as those above the sources of 
 the Jumna. I also approached those of the Ganges. 
 Thence, by the most tortuous paths, I came hither, 
 near the banks of the Sutledge, but six thousand feet 
 above its waters. 
 
 For two months, I have been living among the wild- 
 est and most desolate scenes of the north of the Upper 
 Alps, and under their inclement sky. I have had many 
 fatigues and privations to suffer ; but I think myself 
 sufficiently rewarded by the interesting nature of all 
 that I have seen. It is a purely scientific interest : 
 the landscape is poor and monotonous. In the highest 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
242 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 mountains in the world there is necessarily grandeur ; 
 but it is grandeur without beauty. 
 
 My health has suffered a little from the want of 
 some articles most necessary to life. The numerous 
 suite, with which I cannot dispense in a country in- 
 accessible to beasts of burthen, and where all my baggage 
 must be carried on men's backs, does not permit me to 
 remain in any village to take the rest which would 
 recruit me. My people would soon exhaust the 
 resources of the most considerable. Here, however, 
 I have again found the abundance, luxury, and riches 
 of European civilisation. After two months of 
 misery and absolute isolation, without seeing a single 
 European, I cannot tell you all the charm of this tran- 
 sition. My health is perfectly restored ; it is necessary 
 for the journey which I am going to undertake through 
 the eternal snows of the Himalaya, a barrier but lately 
 considered insurmountable. I shall pass the summer in 
 Kanawer, a country at once Hindoo, Tartar, and 
 Tibetian, where I shall escape from the solstitial rains, 
 and which has scarcely hitherto been visited at all. Its 
 climate is extremely severe. The English protection 
 will accompany me, and leave me exposed to no other 
 dangers than those which result from the country and 
 climate. I shall not return to India for four months. 
 
 As I am hurried by different cares incidental to the 
 preparations for this journey, I must confine myself to 
 these lines. Perhaps I shall have leisure on the fron- 
 tiers of China ; and if at the same time I have an oppor- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 243 
 
 tunity of sending a letter for you to India, you shall 
 receive one longer than the present. The European 
 newspapers, which I have found here after being so 
 long deprived of them, interest me exceedingly ; 
 perhaps they would alarm others. But I have a happy 
 confidence in the strength of the party on the side of 
 reason. I do not believe that there could be any 
 Government henceforth capable of doing much harm 
 in France. Nevertheless, I should like the English 
 journals to bring to me the denouement announced 
 for the second of March : for the meeting of the 
 Chambers must bring one. 
 
 My correspondence has become very irregular since 
 I left Benares. For the space of five months I have 
 been without any intelligence from Europe, and I 
 shall have to wait the same length of time before I 
 receive any. What a melancholy idea! Adieu, my 
 friend, adieu ! Write without delay, in order that I 
 may find a letter from you on my arrival at Bombay, 
 next spring. I love you with all my heart. 
 
 TO MADAME VICTOR DE TRACY, PARIS. 
 
 Semla, June 2\th, 1830. 
 
 Dear Madam, — Although this place (an unknown 
 desert nine years ago) is situated at the extreme limit 
 of the British dominions, thirteen hundred miles from 
 
 r 2 
 
244 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Calcutta, at a greater height from the sea than St. 
 Bernard and Mount Cenis ; although the roads to it 
 seem impracticable, except for mules and men devoured 
 by curiosity ; in spite of several days' march through a 
 thousand difficulties : notwithstanding all this, your 
 countrywomen come here and pass whole months of the 
 summer to avoid the insupportable heat of the plains. 
 Braving the wild and sterile solitude of the desert, 
 they mount their horses every morning and evening in 
 very elegant costumes, adorned with ribands, and with- 
 out the omission of a single pin ; they could not be 
 better dressed in Hyde Park. Sometimes this amuses 
 me ; at other times it is detestable. It is a discord ; 
 and you know how variable is the effect which contrasts 
 produce on our nature. 
 
 I have just been travelling for two months among 
 mountains without meeting a single European. I have 
 lost my small provision of English, and am afraid you 
 will find too great a mixture of Hindoostanee in this 
 letter to understand me easily. For want of French, 
 English pleases my ear as well as my own language, 
 which I have for a long time only been able to make 
 use of in writing ; it is grown like Latin to me. 
 
 I am going to pass a very cold summer. I shall cross 
 a range of mountains adorned with snow, to arrive at 
 those which are the highest in the world. You would 
 laugh a good deal if you saw my disguise, and you 
 would make a caricature of me still more amusing than 
 that in which you represented my tall figure on one of 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 245 
 
 the little Bourbon ponies, the beast and myself with 
 hair streaming in the wind. I resemble a white bear, 
 enveloped in thick woollen coverings ; my head thrust 
 into several silk caps, my legs concealed in thick 
 gaiters, and my face ornamented with a pair of very 
 long mustachios. This latter part of my costume is 
 altogether indispensable ; it is the dustour, a tyrant 
 infinitely more absolute in this part of the world than 
 fashion in England. This powerful Persian word is 
 as much above fashion as this latter is above mode. 
 The individuals of my escort have the ideal figures of 
 banditti, such as one dreams of. We have no fault to 
 find with each other. 
 
 I have latterly travelled through strange scenes of 
 wild and savage solitude, and I flatter myself I shall 
 find some of a character still more curious when I arrive 
 at the frontiers of Chinese Tartary. As for danger — 
 that proceeding from the hand of man — none exists ; 
 for man is so scarce in these deserts, that my numerous 
 escort shields me from being carried off, and gives me 
 the air of a conqueror. 
 
 After so many marches and counter-marches, seas, 
 the burning sun of India, the snows of the Himalaya, 
 what shall I still see before I return to my country ? 
 
 After all that, with what delight shall I enjoy the 
 calm prospect of Parayl — with what a sweet feeling of 
 repose shall I walk about those peaceful domains ! — 
 Sometimes I think I am dreaming ; I seem to be 
 
246 
 
 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 already a hundred years old. As for you, you will 
 never grow old. Adieu, I embrace your husband with 
 my whole soul. God bless you both. 
 
 TO A. M. ACHILLE CHAPER, PARIS. 
 
 Semla, in the Himalaya, June 2bth, 1830. 
 
 It is more than a year since I wrote to you, my dear 
 friend : and, if I recollect right, I then sent you only 
 a few lines, to inform you that I had at length arrived 
 at the end of my long voyage, and was receiving 
 from every one most distinguished in India for rank, 
 intellect, and learning, a reception which confounded, 
 by the flattering excess of its kindness, all the hopes 
 I had conceived of the noble pride of the English. 
 Since then I have often been inclined to retrace 
 my wandering life to you, and confide to you the 
 emotions excited in me by the sight of so many new 
 objects, to make you the partaker of my pleasures, and 
 my associate in the fleeting troubles which interrupt them 
 — but I have too much to say ; and being limited by the 
 short space of my rare moments of leisure, I have found 
 it more convenient not to write at all, than to do it with 
 the restraint imposed by this want of time. In your 
 journeys to Paris, you have, I think, sometimes seen 
 my father, and from him you must have learnt at least 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 247 
 
 that I am alive, and moreover content. I have seen 
 Benares, Agra, Delhi, and have travelled to the north- 
 west of that city, beyond the frontiers of the English 
 possessions, into the country of the Seikhs, and scarcely 
 stopped till I reached the margin of the desert of Bika- 
 neer. From thence, returning to the east, I entered 
 the Himalaya ; on the 12th April I visited the sources 
 of the Jumna; I also approached those of the Ganges, 
 and ascended considerably above them, on the eternal 
 snows of the colossal chain which separates India from 
 Tibet. This latter part of my journey kept me for two 
 months from all European society. 
 
 Under this severe climate of the Upper Alps, among 
 their most rugged and desolate scenes, the remembrance 
 of you more frequently presented itself to my thoughts. 
 I often recal to mind those mantles of snow which you 
 were the first to teach me to climb, and the nakedness of 
 the rocks which here and there pierce through them. 
 How many times have I not been moved before those first 
 pictures of our friendship, which my imagination renews 
 with so much freshness ! Alas ! I am alone here ; no 
 friendly recollection will associate itself with that which 
 I shall preserve of these strange places to render them 
 dear to me ! To live alone, to be solitary in feeling ! 
 oh ! my friend, it is not because I am so far from our 
 country, lost in the icy deserts of the highest mountains 
 of the world — that my isolation is painful to me ; I 
 should perhaps feel this cruel void quite as much in the 
 midst of the sweets of European society — perhaps in 
 
248 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the midst of its tumult and its pleasures, I should not 
 suffer less — and I am not yet thirty ! Let us drop the 
 subject. 
 
 The forms of the Himalaya, the progressive elevation 
 from the base of the mountains heaped upon each other 
 on the plains of Hindoostan, up to the crests of ice 
 which cover the line of their most elevated summits, 
 the absence of platforms, valleys, and escarpments, 
 singularly disguise their height. I have several times 
 encamped, at an absolute elevation of three thousand 
 metres, habitually at 2000 ; however, it is always in the 
 lowest and best sheltered places, near villages, that I 
 must make my halts. You see, then, what subtraction 
 must be made from the absolute height of mountains, 
 in order to measure their relative or apparent height. 
 The latter is still enormous ; but as the eye seeks in 
 vain to oppose horizontal to vertical lines, and as the 
 declivities, notwithstanding their great inclination, do 
 not shoot up all at once, but are added to each other 
 on planes successively more distant, there is no point 
 from which the highest peaks can be seen under a very 
 large visual angle. Lastly, where there is grandeur — 
 beauty and grace are wanting. Oh ! how beautiful the 
 Alps are ! 
 
 The Indian acclivities of the Himalaya, which I have 
 just visited, are pretty well known. But a very small 
 number of travellers have crossed to the Tibet side, 
 at least with the information requisite to study that 
 mysterious country. In two days, my dear friend, I 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 249 
 
 shall undertake this journey. The productions of 
 nature must be little varied in so cold a country, but 
 I may hope that a great number will be unknown 
 to us. I reckon upon going as far as the frontiers of 
 Chinese Tartary ; the admirable protection of the 
 English Government will defend me so far from all 
 dangers which may proceed from men. The half- Hin- 
 doo half-Tartar rajah, who rules the lofty valleys 
 hollowed out of the northern base of the Himalaya, 
 has also some states on the Indian side, which make 
 him absolutely dependent on the English power. I am 
 besides obliged to have a very numerous suite, nearly 
 fifty men, and it is rather in order to be absolute master 
 in my camp than for any other object, that I take an 
 escort of Gourkha seapoys with me, whose utility I 
 experienced in my first excursion. You must, my dear 
 friend, give me absolution for my little acts of arbitrary 
 power : without them all that I have done here would 
 be impossible. Some day or other we will philosophise 
 and theorise on their morality. Adieu ; you will easily 
 conceive how much occupation the multiplicity of my 
 researches gives me — I am overwhelmed with work. 
 But my health has remained perfect, except in the 
 snows at the sources of the Jumna, where cold, fatigue, 
 and bad nourishment slightly deranged it. I am 
 restored to my accustomed vigour, which is very neces- 
 sary for me, in order to resist the fatigues, privations, 
 and miseries of all kinds which I shall have to endure 
 on the other side of the Himalava. I embrace vou 
 with all my heart. 
 
250 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 TO A. M. JACQUEMONT THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Chini, in Kanaor (Katiatver), July 15lh, 1830. 
 
 Only a few words, my dear father, to avail myself of 
 an opportunity which may not very probably offer 
 again until my return to Semla. I left that place on 
 the 28th of June, overwhelmed, by my host Captain 
 Kennedy, with still more attentions than I had 
 perhaps ever yet received. He made admirable pre- 
 parations for my journey into this country; and on 
 my arrival at Seran, the summer-residence of the Rajah 
 of Bissahir, that sovereign came in all haste to pay me a 
 visit, and make me all kinds of offers of service. I had 
 a draught on his treasury, the amount of which it was 
 not convenient for me to receive immediately; and 
 another on one of his subjects who was absent. The 
 amount of both will be paid at sight, in the Rajah's 
 name, whenever I may think proper to demand it ; 
 his little Chancery has written to all the chiefs in the 
 Upper Country, and to the Lamas of Ladak, to comply 
 with all my desires. I hope then to be able to penetrate 
 as far as the platform. The Rajah, besides, has given 
 me, as Captain Kennedy had done, the highest in rank 
 among his servants, to serve as interpreter, and to give 
 orders everywhere in the name of his master, whom 
 nobody here contradicts. My Semla janissary has, be- 
 sides, under his orders, some Gourkha soldiers; so that, 
 what with persuasion and coercion, I shall be but little 
 exposed to die of starvation, or to be stopped in the 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 251 
 
 middle of my journey for want of people to carry my 
 baggage forward. 
 
 A story-teller might find something superb in the 
 visit of the Rajah, with his fan in his hand, during a 
 furious hurricane, which threatened to overturn the 
 tent in which I was expecting him and his viziers, for 
 such is the Hindoostanee and Kanaor name of his 
 ministers. His court and people assembled to shout 
 God save the King, after their own fashion. Like 
 Louis the Fourteenth, on another occasion, I regretted 
 the weight of my grandeur, which did not permit 
 me to return the King of Bissahir's visit, for I 
 was very anxious to see the interior of what is called 
 his palace ; but Kennedy had justly reproached me for 
 having spoiled his allies by this excessive conde- 
 scension. It was the Rajah's place to come with all 
 the pomp of his royalty, and to consider himself 
 honoured at my allowing him to take a seat before me, 
 and at my shaking hands with him. I could neither 
 have embraced him, nor returned any present, or his 
 visit, without derogating from my dignity. 
 
 Nevertheless do not believe, I beg, that he is a bandit 
 of the lowest kind, in a cavern, covered with scarlet rags, 
 with plenty of daggers, pistols, and other melo-dramatic 
 instruments at his girdle. The Rajah of Bissahir is a 
 legitimate king, who reigns de sire or de cire over a 
 degree of latitude, and two or three degrees of longi- 
 tude; and although the greater part of his dominions 
 lies buried under the eternal snows of the Himalaya, 
 
252 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 although nine-tenths of the rest are covered with 
 forests, and the remaining tenth nothing but sterile, 
 arid pastures or naked rocks, he has a revenue of a 
 hundred and fifty thousand francs a year, without 
 pressing on his subjects, who are the most wretched in 
 the world. His nuzzer, or offering, consisted of a bag 
 of musk in the animal's skin, a rarity indigenous in his 
 mountains, which is not wanting, I hope, either in local 
 character or in Tibetian perfume. The only thing I gave 
 him in return was a lesson in geography, of which he 
 stood in great need. He leaves the trouble of knowing 
 it to his viziers, and passes his time with his Cash- 
 merian slaves, whom he fattens in their cage, and who 
 are probably not very handsome : — whatever may be 
 said, they are not generally so. 
 
 On the 11th of July, I crossed the Sutledge, or, if 
 you don't think that fine enough, the Hyphasis ; and 
 have been travelling ever since on its right bank, or, 
 more correctly, three, four, or sometimes five thousand 
 feet above its right bank. The climate here begins to 
 be very different from that on the southern side of the 
 mountain : on this side there is nothing but wind and 
 fog, while on the other the rain falls in torrents. There 
 are apple trees and vines in the gardens, but unfortu- 
 nately without either apples or grapes in this season ; that 
 will be for my return. Budha here begins to steal the 
 clouds of incense of which Brahma has the exclusive 
 right on the Indian side of the Himalaya. They 
 practise the religious precepts of Miss Frances Wright 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 253 
 
 on the community of the sexes, for there is polygamy 
 as in India, and polyandry at the same time ; and 
 this latter institution prevailing, the consequence is an 
 excess of females, who retire into convents, situated, no 
 doubt for mutual convenience, in the neighbourhood 
 of little abbeys of Lamas. 
 
 At Kanum, I shall soon see that incredible Hun- 
 garian original, M. Alexander de Csomo, of whom 
 you have no doubt heard : he has been living for four 
 years under the very modest name of Secundamr-Beg, 
 that is to say, Alexander the Great, dressed in the 
 Oriental style. He is now about to throw off his 
 sheepVskin, and black lamb's-skin cap, and resume 
 his name, in order to go to Calcutta, and no doubt annoy 
 you, with the galimatias of the Tibetian Encyclo- 
 paedia, which he has just translated. You will see that 
 M. d'Eckstein will have some fault to find with it ; 
 and yet M. Csomo is the only European in the world 
 who understands the language. The Tibetian Ency- 
 clopaedia abounds in astrology, theology, alchemy, 
 medicine, and other stuff of the kind, no doubt 
 translated from the Sanscrit at some distant period. If 
 M. Csomo gives us ever so little of it in German, and 
 M. d'Eckstein turns it from German into French, it 
 will be nonsense, raised to the fourth power — an 
 expression, the magnitude of which Porphyre will 
 explain to you, if your algebra will not carry 
 you so far. 
 
&54 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 I am very well. I shall find milk everywhere. I 
 have rice for three months, sugar for the same period, 
 and forty-six pounds of tobacco of the finest quality, 
 which I bought at Rampore, to make presents to the 
 Tartars of the Spiti (and which cost me seven francs). 
 On my road, when the mornings are cold, I smoke the 
 best leaves in a little roll of paper ; it is better than 
 what is sold for forty-six times the price at Paris. 
 Since leaving Semla I have had a new cook, my 
 steward and maitre-d'hotel at the same time ; he has 
 the character of being a terrible rogue, but makes 
 me fare as well as the resources of the place will admit, 
 that is to say, very badly, but no worse — an immense 
 amelioration in my establishment; for his predecessor 
 was an honest man, but his works defied the rudest 
 appetite. The mountains here produce rhubarb, 
 celestial happiness ! But this is not all; after three 
 months' research, the Rajah of Pattiala, one of those 
 whom I should embrace, and whose visits I should 
 return — a man with a revenue of four millions — this 
 admirable ally of the English power has written officially 
 to my friend, the ex-sub-resident of Delhi, since pro- 
 moted to the political agency of Kotah, that he has 
 recovered my syringe. The news is in the Akbars 
 (manuscript gazette) of his court : he has sent it to the 
 Resident of Delhi with a strong escort. It is deposited 
 in the palace of the residency, and I am officially asked 
 for instructions, either as to the manner of sending it, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 9,55 
 
 or keeping it till my return. One would say that it was 
 a barometer or pneumatic machine : however, at the 
 top of the letters written to me on the subject is printed 
 
 " POLITICAL DEPARTMENT." 
 
 I shall thus bring back to you the most diplomatic 
 and historical syringe that has ever existed. You shall 
 leave it to Porphyre, and it shall pass from male to 
 male. If Porphyre does not marry, he has brothers 
 worthy of possessing such an object. 
 
 I fancy that Porphyre's moustachios might be 
 thicker and of a more equal tint. Mine are irre- 
 proachable — an inch long, as thick as a postilion's 
 queue, and of the most uniform red ; they are 
 extremely admired in Kanawer. but I regret their 
 beauty every morning when I eat my porridge. 
 
 Whilst the political resident at Luknow, with an in- 
 come of two hundred thousand francs a-year, is sweat- 
 ing and stifling in his palace, I am warming myself at 
 the fire-side, in a wretched little house, costing one or 
 two thousand francs, which he built two years ago, in 
 order to spend a fortnight in it. What a luxury a 
 house is, let it be ever so little or wretched ! 
 
 I am extremely busy, and shall only stay here to get 
 through my arrears of business. I close this letter, by 
 adding, that it will go, with my No. 7, to the Jardin 
 des Plantes. Twenty-three months have now elapsed 
 since I left France, and I have not yet received a line 
 from you. 
 
256 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Adieu, my dear father ! Do not be afraid of the revolt 
 of the Birmans, nor of the insurrections of the army, 
 nor of the great approaching collision of interests in 
 the debates of the British parliament ; it is always from 
 the English journals that we learn that we are upon a 
 moving soil here ; — I assure you that there is not a 
 firmer. As for the only real dangers, those of the 
 climate, let the treasure-trove of the rajah of Pattiala 
 quiet your fears. I embrace you and Porphyre with 
 all my heart. 
 
 A MADEMOISELLE ZOE NOIZET DE SAINT PAUL. 
 
 Camp of Tashigung, on the borders of Ladak and 
 Chinese Tartary, August 24th, 1830. 
 
 My dear Zoe, — I had only just sent off one of my 
 mountain servants to Semla when a Tartar arrived from 
 Soongnum, a great Lama village of Kanawer, and 
 brought me, among many others, your charming letter 
 of the 10th of February. To answer you properly 
 would require a volume ; and it would be a delicious 
 task to write that volume, if I had some days to remain 
 unoccupied in a camp. But I am overwhelmed with 
 labours of all kinds — botany, geology, &c, give me no 
 leisure. I must go forward, and can only allow myself 
 a few lines. If your letter had joined me yesterday with 
 a great number of others, these lines would now be on 
 their way to India. But, at the distance we are from 
 each other, a few weeks sooner or later matters little. 
 
LAHORE AN'D CASHMERE. 2.37 
 
 I have this moment returned from a half military 
 excursion into the Celestial Empire, which I conducted 
 in the most fortunate manner ; for, without being 
 obliged to commit any other hostility than a display 
 of murderous arguments when the Chinese made any 
 show of opposition, I saw the object of my curiosity 
 very quietly. I had to march five days without 
 finding any village, and to cross two lofty chains of 
 mountains, more than five thousand five hundred 
 metres, or eighteen thousand English feet high (two 
 thousand five hundred feet higher than the summit 
 of Mont Blanc). I was obliged to have provisions 
 carried with me, sufficient for the whole journey till my 
 return, and my troops amounted to more than sixty 
 men. I had, besides, a quantity of new plants, and 
 organic remains, which I found at the enormous height 
 of five thousand six hundred metres, so that a great 
 number of interesting observations amply repaid me 
 for the trouble and fatigue of my expedition. I am 
 now exploring Ladak ; and am going to visit some 
 mountains, where, according to the reports of the 
 mountaineers, I expect to observe several interesting 
 geological phenomena. I this morning crossed the 
 Sutledge, to follow the course of the Indus at no great 
 distance. Both of them are but large torrents here, 
 being very near their sources. The Sutledge rises in 
 the celebrated lake Mansarower ; as do the Indus, and 
 the Barampooter, which are the two largest rivers in 
 its immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
2,58 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 The Tartars of the mountains have certainly nothing 
 of the ferocity generally attributed to them ; and 
 though there are in my numerous suite only six armed 
 men, the Francis saheb, or French lord, as they 
 call me, would drive thousands before him like a flock 
 of sheep. They are, on the contrary, mild and peace- 
 able people, who keep pressing round my tent to obtain 
 a little tobacco, several parcels of which I brought 
 from India to distribute among them. When their 
 extreme curiosity grows troublesome, a single word 
 disperses them. They have nothing of the servile 
 manners of the Indians ; and the progress of our cor- 
 ruption is so rapid among the latter, that at Bekar, the 
 Chinese town to which I laid siege, the head man 
 coming to me to complain of this violation of the terri- 
 tory of his most Tea-iftc majesty, and advancing very 
 near me without alighting, I felt really so indignant at 
 this want of respect, that in a transport of rage, I seized 
 the fellow by his long plaited queue and pulled him off 
 his horse. 
 
 Does not the second person plural, which I am 
 obliged to make use of when writing to you, sound 
 strange to your ears, my dear Zoe ! This language is 
 at present as familiar to me as my own ; nevertheless I 
 am not yet reconciled to the coldness of the you. In my 
 opinion this is a great defect in the English language ; 
 and it will always make it disagreeable to me to speak 
 it with those to whom I am accustomed to address 
 myself in our own language in a more tender way. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 25Q 
 
 Here is my dinner — spring water (for I preserve 
 carefully for bad days, snow, &c. &c, my almost ex- 
 hausted supply of French brandy) — very coarse cakes 
 made of barley meal, scarcely ground — spinach, or ra- 
 ther, instead of that vegetable, the leaves of buckwheat, 
 which have nearly the same taste ; — apricots, the only 
 fruit of these lofty regions, but small as cherries, and 
 without flavour ; and, as a foundation for all this, 
 the bones of a cold leg of mutton. This is a faithful 
 testimonial of my cook's skill ; for to obtain so 
 wretched a dinner, I must keep a cook and his 
 assistant, properly called scullion, whose duty it is to 
 wash the two only dishes I possess. 
 
 As it would be a thing worthy of the bitterest cen- 
 sure to embrace you at the end of this letter, I ought, 
 in order that I may be English to the last, sign myself, 
 my dear Zoe, your very affectionate Cousin. 
 
 What an insipid thing an English letter is ! Yorick 
 was right : " they manage it much better in France." 
 
 TO M. PORPHYRE JACQUEMONT, PARIS. 
 
 Camp Nates, in Kangarang, August 25th, 1830 
 (frontiers of Zadah and Chinese Tartary). 
 
 This Delhi paper, more botanical than literary, blots 
 with European ink; I must therefore, my dear Porphyre, 
 give you blue and white, instead of black. The place 
 from which I am writing to you is twenty-five days' 
 
 s2 
 
2(50 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 march from the last English station ; and is probably 
 one of the most lofty inhabited places on the surface 
 of the globe. Its height above the level of the sea is 
 four thousand metres. As I was ascending yesterday 
 from the banks of the Sutledge, which flows a thousand 
 metres below, a Tartar belonging to the Vizier of 
 Soongnum, nimbler than myself in climbing almost 
 vertical declivities, gained on me, and delivered me a 
 packet pretty well covered with grease and dirt, but 
 in which I found, among many others, letters from 
 you, our father, Madame de Paray, and Zoe\ These 
 were all from Europe ; but from India and Africa 
 there were a great many more. I read my father's 
 immediately ; yours at a thousand feet above ; and it 
 was only this morning that I finished those from 
 Africa and India. It is curious that the day before, 
 another courier (couriers who, although Tartars, 
 scarcely ever run, but manage with hands and feet 
 to clamber up the rocks, and when they have gone 
 thirty steps puff, and take their breath to go another 
 thirty): it is singular, I say, that the day before, a 
 messenger also succeeded in finding me. The latter 
 brought me only letters from India, but a well 
 furnished packet. There are some which I thought 
 proper to answer without delay ; and yesterday 
 morning, raising my camp at Nanija, I despatched 
 one of my people to Semla (one-and-twenty marches) 
 to deliver them to Kennedy, who is charged with 
 forwarding them to their destination. One of them 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 26l 
 
 '-this will astonish you — is addressed to M. Allard, 
 Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, Commander-in- 
 Chief of Runjeet-Sing, Rajah of Lahore ; a man, in 
 fact, who appeared to frighten the Company's Directors 
 in London so dreadfully, when I went to ask them for a 
 passport. I sent you from Semla (perhaps they were 
 addressed to my father) some information concerning 
 M. Allard, who enjoys the most honourable reputa- 
 tion among the British officers. In my day before 
 yesterday's packet, I found a letter from him, addressed 
 to me, which he sent to me at Semla. Here is a copy, 
 since it is of no great length. 
 
 " Lahore, July 28th, 1830. 
 
 " Sir,— I am informed by Dr. Murray, of the 
 arrival at Semla of a French traveller, distinguished 
 for his attainments and the mission with which he is 
 charged. This news gives me the hope that an old 
 officer may find it in his power to be serviceable to 
 one of his countrymen, in regions so remote from the 
 mother-country. I therefore have the honour of 
 addressing to you the present letter, by one of my 
 hurkarus — (a sort of footmen, chamberlains, janis- 
 saries, or what you please)— to offer you all that my 
 situation at the court of the Rajah of Lahore may 
 enable me to be useful to you in. Dispose of my 
 services, Sir, as freely as I offer them ; it will be a 
 mark of nationality. In the meanwhile receive the 
 
262 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 assurance of the high consideration with which I have 
 the honour to be," &c. 
 
 This cordial offer from a stranger, who thus came 
 in search of me on the frontiers of China, affected me, 
 and I am sure I answered it with some sentimental 
 effusion. My answer is too long to be transcribed, 
 although I have kept a copy. But here is the sub- 
 stance of the most important part : — " To visit the 
 plains of Punjab (a country between the Sutledge and 
 the Indus, where Runjeet-Sing is firm in his stirrups), 
 would be no great service to me ; but if M. Allard 
 could overcome the repugnance of the Rajah, to suffer 
 Europeans to penetrate into Cashmere, and succeed 
 in obtaining this permission for me, guaranteeing 
 me perfect safety, I should feel under very great 
 obligation to him. As a motive to induce the Rajah 
 to suffer me to see the mountainous parts of his 
 empire (Cashmere), M. Allard may inform him 
 that my researches will enable me, more than any 
 other, to discover mineral masses which it might be 
 advantageous to work." 
 
 His letter is evidently a proof that he has no doubt 
 of getting me as far as Lahore ; and in fact there is no 
 reason to doubt it. Whatever he may gain beyond, I 
 am nearly resolved, at least to pay him a visit ; for 
 on the spot, it is possible that I may find some means 
 of getting something out of Runjeet-Sing. 
 
 The possible is impossible to be foreseen, on acconut 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 263 
 
 of its variety ; perhaps it may amount only to zero. 
 This is what I shall very probably ascertain at Lahore. 
 In order to arrive at that great city, where I shall of 
 course be the comfortable guest of the French com- 
 mander, there are only fifteen days' march on a plain. 
 Admitted by the Rajah, I cannot fail to be taken 
 to his durbar, and to hook en passant a good Bukhara 
 horse and a Cashmere shawl, instead of the shabby thing 
 which the Grand Mogul of Delhi, like a Jew, sold me. 
 In any case I shall not pass the Sutledge (that is to 
 say, from India and Lahore, for here I cross it every 
 week, yesterday for once) without writing about it 
 to Lord William Bentinck. 
 
 I pass on to your two letters. It is indeed very 
 extraordinary that in the month of February 1830, 
 none of my letters from Calcutta, of May, June, and 
 November, had reached you ; but, my friend, you 
 promised me, in your security, to take a large share, 
 not of my personal accidents, but of those of my corre- 
 spondence. A letter of mine to M. Victor de Tracy 
 arrived seasonably after a very long time, to show you 
 the risks which it had run. You have, besides, indirect 
 news of me in my letter to De Mareste, in the months 
 of July and August from Calcutta, and you persist 
 in making yourself uncomfortable : this grieves me, 
 when I consider that still longer intervals may elapse 
 without your hearing of me at all. Unless you wish 
 to condemn us mutually to a great deal of uneasi- 
 ness, you must rely on my dry and stringy fibre, my 
 
264 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 prudence, and — what more shall I say? — my dexterity. I 
 know how to fill up the blanks of our correspondence 
 with nothing but fortunate things. I have always done 
 so when I thought of you ; however I will confess, 
 Porphyre, that I long to know how our father got 
 through the terrible winter of unheard-of rigour, as 
 the English journals have informed me. 
 
 From the Jardin and its inhabitants not a word 
 since the amiable letter which I received from Jussieu 
 and Cambassedes at Calcutta. If the fault is theirs, 
 the devil take them ! Not a word from England. Yet 
 Sutton Sharpe, M. Seguier, and Sir Alexander 
 Johnson cannot fail to have answered me. Yes, if they 
 have received my letters. It is provoking ! I return 
 to yours. — I agree with you on the name which you 
 give to your musical fanaticism ; it is truly a slight 
 tinge of madness. You might have told me who sang 
 to you, and what they sang to you for your sub- 
 scription to the Italian opera. That would have 
 appeared singular to me in Tibet, where they sing agreat 
 deal also (one or two inhabitants per square league), 
 but only a single song of three words, own mani 
 pani ; which means, in the learned language, which 
 neither the villagers nor their Lamas understand, 
 " oh ! diamond water-lily !" and leads the singers 
 direct into Buddha's paradise. Laugh colossally at 
 
 in my name ; and his accidents by flood and 
 
 field. Tell him that it happens to me to be several 
 months without hearing the sound of a European 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 265 
 
 voice, also that my dinner is fundamentally detestable; 
 and that I do not complain. A-propos of dinner : I 
 have hit upon a mode of preserving my health ; spinach 
 made of the leaves of buckwheat produced the 
 desirable result ; coarse cakes of corn scarcely ground 
 strengthened this amelioration, by means of which I 
 am in every respect as well off as you. It is wonderful : 
 on bad days, for instance, when I am encamped at the 
 height of six thousand feet, or have been obliged to 
 cross mountains of more than eighteen thousand three 
 hundred feet high, I have set before me the bones of an 
 ex-leg of mutton smoked a VEcossaise, which bones I 
 shall finish by eating likewise ; for they cannot be 
 harder than the flesh that was on them. But Kennedy 
 sends me word that he will treat me with truffles every 
 day on my return to Semla. The excursion in which I 
 have been obliged to ascend four times to so enormous 
 an height (seven hundred metres higher than the 
 summit of Mont Blanc), had for its object some beds 
 of shells which I presumed were there, and in fact 
 proved to be so : it furnished me at the same time 
 with many new plants. But with five days' march 
 without a habitation, and the lowest of my encamp- 
 ments at the height of fourteen thousand feet, I was 
 obliged to carry twelve days' provisions ; for the 
 Chinese town or village, where at the beginning of my 
 expedition it was very uncertain that I could arrive, 
 would in no case furnish me with any for my return. 
 My little army, for it was truly an act of hostility 
 
266 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 I was committing against his Tea-ify'mg Majesty of 
 Pekin, exceeded sixty men ; six of whom, reckoning 
 myself, were fighters. By rare good luck, I found 
 Chinese vigilance at fault on the frontiers ; and the 
 unexpected arrival of my caravan, in close column, 
 surprised the people of Behar so much that they fled 
 on my approach instead of offering any opposition. I 
 encamped peaceably in a chosen spot, and next day 
 received in my little tent the visit of a Chinese 
 officer, who commands a turret of sand-stone, fortified 
 with two leather guns, at no great distance. He came 
 to complain. I transformed him into the accused ; put 
 a multitude of questions to him without allowing him 
 to speak, except in answer to them ; then dismissed 
 him and his staff with a nod, after I had sifted 
 him to the bottom. I designedly put on a threatening 
 look, and commanded my people to do the same, in 
 order that such demonstration might suffice. The 
 Beharites had no idea of a double-barrelled gun, still 
 less of a percussion one. 
 
 The effect of two balls which I shot, one after the 
 other, into a tree at hand, a moment or two before 
 giving audience to the Chinese officer, and in the pre- 
 sence of several of his followers, made a wonderful im- 
 pression on the subjects of the celestial empire. I gave 
 them a little tobacco, which made them love me as much 
 as they had before feared me. A whimsical incident 
 immensely increased their respect for the French lord. 
 I was exhausted with fatigue, and was, nevertheless, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 267 
 
 going to continue my march : I therefore drank the 
 stirrup-cup, filling my spoon with brandy, in order to 
 put a bit of sugar in it. The sugar remaining solid, I 
 set fire to the brandy, and when it was melted, after 
 blowing on my spoon, I swallowed this dose of punch. 
 The Beharites, who are no artillerymen, thought that I 
 was drinking jire, and almost took me for the 
 devil. It was on that day that I encamped so high 
 as sixteen thousand feet. I w r as still on the Chinese 
 territory, where I wished next day to determine the 
 direction of some strata. During the night, some 
 horsemen came to lie in ambush near my camp. 
 However, I had intimation of their arrival, and of their 
 small numbers. Not caring at all for them, I com- 
 menced my examination at day-break, followed by six 
 servants at most. The Tartar -Chinese cavalry 
 immediately got into motion, following my steps, 
 but at a respectful distance. I commanded one of 
 them to approach ; and the fellow doing so without 
 alighting to speak to me, I laid hold of him by his pig- 
 tail and threw him off his horse. This comes, my 
 friend, of living a year in India : a man thinks himself 
 very sincerely insulted by every act which is not 
 servile. Here I was wrong, for the poor devil of a 
 Beharite was ignorant of Indian etiquette. But I saw 
 only one thing, the colour of his skin ; and, forgetting 
 the difference of places, I took his ignorance for deli- 
 berate insult : inde irm. His comrades had gallopped 
 away. The poor man remounted his nag with a 
 
2C8 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 good deal of trouble, and joined them as quickly as he 
 could. 
 
 Afternoon. — Here I am, in spite of my thick 
 woollen clothes, wrapped up in blankets from head to 
 foot. I am obliged to do so every evening, and yet I 
 suffer from the cold. This is a strange climate: it 
 snows moderately in winter, and there is no thaw for 
 four months ; it scarcely ever rains, but blows a violent 
 hurricane every day at three o'clock, which lasts far on 
 in the night. I often awake long before day-light, 
 frozen through my five blankets. 
 
 The good-natured vizier of Soongnum joined a little 
 present to the packet of letters ; this was a small basket 
 of bad apples, such as divine Providence has made them. 
 Great feasting on the occasion. But the grapes will 
 be ripe when I return to Soongnum, the highest spot 
 where the vine prospers (ten thousand feet) : then there 
 will be thorough feasting. In my Indian packet of the 
 day before, were some newspapers : an attention of 
 Captain Kennedy's. I saw the speech at the opening 
 of our Chambers, attacked in an article in the 
 Globe, entitled, La France et les Bourbons en 
 1830: an article criminally prosecuted, adds the 
 English journalist, with many others of the same 
 description, which appeared daily in the liberal papers. 
 I do not know what to think of the issue of this. 
 Is the question only to know which of the two will be 
 most afraid and give way ? I wish it were so ; but in 
 truth I know not well what to think. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 26<) 
 
 Supposing, what will not take place, that the direct 
 government of the king should succeed that of the 
 Company in India, this change would not cause the 
 slightest shock in Asia. Our father appears to be 
 uneasy about the attitude of Mahrattas and Afghans, 
 &c. &c. (and other canaille who are not worth a kick 
 
 ) in this crisis. Let him know, then, that 
 
 the sixty millions of Indians about whom he was so 
 much alarmed, are ignorant of the difference between 
 the king of Valalte (Europe altogether, England, 
 America, &c. &c, for they are no geographers) and the 
 Company. This subtle distinction is understood only, 
 and but indifferently too, by the superior (mercantile) 
 classes at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. But the 
 peasant who ploughs, the mechanic who works, and the 
 seapoy who mounts guard, have not the slightest idea of 
 it. The ideas entertained in France about this country 
 are absurd. The governing talents (St. Simon and 
 his crew of the Producteur have no doubt manu- 
 factured a better word to express this idea) of the 
 English are immense ; ours, on the contrary, are very 
 mediocre ; and we believe the former to be embarrassed 
 when we see them in circumstances in which our awk- 
 wardness would be completely at a stand still. Our father 
 also regrets that I have not brought with me all the 
 papers, which might assist in verifying my character as a 
 Frenchman ; as if it was by papers, truly, that it could 
 be proved to people among whom, in his idea, it might 
 be useful to me ! as if they could read the Roman letters ! 
 
270 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 as if they understood a single word of a single European 
 language ! Let him take courage ; he may live till he 
 is a hundred before he learns that a general massacre 
 of the English has taken place in India. The cold 
 redoubles, my dear Porphyre, and I should never get 
 warm in bed if I delayed any longer getting into it. I 
 embrace you. 
 
 August 26th. 
 
 I return to you, my friend : — I have just written to 
 our father, and have determined to despatch a courier 
 (of the description mentioned above) to take the whole 
 to Semla ; whence Kennedy will forward it to Calcutta 
 — thence it will be despatched to Chandernagore, to the 
 obliging care of M. Cordier, my agent for Europe. I 
 shall take care to write to you as soon as there is some- 
 thing determined upon about my Lahore affair ; but — 
 for heaven's sake — if six months elapse between the 
 receipt of this letter and the arrival of the following, 
 do not be uneasy, my friends. For your own in- 
 formation, Porphyre, do not refuse me the modest title 
 of Esquire, which you appear to fancy sometimes, that 
 the F.R.A.S. excuses you from giving me. It is not 
 ad libitum, but indispensable. The F. R. A. S. is 
 facultative. 
 
 When you speak of the excellent table kept on board 
 merchant ships, I would willingly say, "Vousetes 
 orfevre, Monsieur Josse." Do I not recollect the very 
 hostile manner in which you spoke of the passengers, 
 their appetite, &c, and the nautical artifices of a certain 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 271 
 
 captain to excite tempests just at dinner-time, and 
 other accidents, which rendered it necessary to adjourn 
 the sitting before the attack on a certain pie, of 
 which the messmates of his ship had only seen the 
 outworks on their arrival at Port au Prince. It must 
 have been a pasteboard pie, or such as they have on 
 the stage, if there was any at all. But it is true all 
 ship-owners are not captains of artillery; and it is said 
 that the .Bourdeaux gentlemen, whose ships come to 
 Calcutta, do things liberally. 
 
 My annual credit of six thousand francs expires in 
 1831 inclusively. On the 1st November, on coming 
 down from the mountains, I calculate that I shall have 
 three thousand or two thousand five hundred francs left, 
 in all eight thousand five hundred. This is enough for 
 my journey to Lahore (if I must return without proceed- 
 ing further), and from thence to Bombay, perhaps even 
 to Pondicherry, where, on my arrival, I shall have 
 something left to pay for my passage to Europe on 
 board one of those excellent merchantmen, where there 
 is such good cheer. That, my friend, is what I call 
 making the best of the matter ; that is to say, calcu- 
 lating the chance that the Museum forgets to send me 
 a prolongation of credit. 
 
 You will have to sell two or three shares in ships to 
 pay for the carriage of this letter, and our father a few 
 volumes of his Essences to some silly bookseller, to 
 whom Taschereau is specially charged to recommend 
 the undertaking. 
 
272 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Adieu, iny dear friend ; envy me my mustachios, 
 which are now five months old, a foot long, and of the 
 brightest red. My cigar takes fire at them whenever 
 I smoke a moment or two in the morning to warm 
 myself on bad days. Adieu ! I love you, and embrace 
 you with all my heart. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT, THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Camp of Nako, August 26th, 1830. Long. 78° 40'; 
 Lat. 32°. Frontiers of Chinese Tartary. 
 
 My dear Father, — To write a letter every evening 
 by stealth, either in Europe or India, in order gradually 
 to liquidate my correspondence, would occupy my 
 mind and distract it from the horrors of this hell of 
 ice, upon which it would otherwise have to sleep. But 
 I make a great sacrifice, and take a whole day of 
 rest in order to finish all to-day, and not think 
 of anybody till my return to Semla. I am writing 
 to you on Indian paper, with a magnificent pea- 
 cock's feather, and indigo rubbed down ; a goose 
 quill would be a great deal better, and some 'petite 
 vertu, whether indelible or not, and some of the paper 
 of those dogs of Christians. But what would you have ? 
 The necessities of past times have been such in this 
 way that those of the present impose this wretched 
 epistolary apparatus upon me. 
 
 I already blued, yesterday evening, ten or twelve 
 
LAHORE AXD CASHMERE. 273 
 
 feet of this vile paper for Porphyre ; and I send you 
 many articles of this akbar or gazette as a reply 
 to several chapters of your volume-letters. Until 
 insurance companies are established for the contents of 
 letters, I am perhaps wrong in risking such large 
 packets ; but at the distance which separates us, I 
 cannot write short notes. So I commit this to the 
 care of God : may he watch over it. 
 
 As it appears that he, or his favourite substitute, 
 Providence, suffered my first from Calcutta to be lost, 
 I return to that place, and beg to inform you that his. 
 Most Christian Majesty's log, which carried me and 
 my fortunes, cast anchor before Fort William, on the 
 5th May, 1829, and after the customary salutes from 
 the guns of the aforesaid vessel, I arranged my plans 
 of landing for the next morning ; they were put in 
 execution as follows. 
 
 My Portuguese valet from Pondicherry having called 
 a palanquin, I bid farewell to the Zelee, dressed in 
 black from head to foot ; and, throwing myself into 
 the little ambulatory house, I said to the carriers, 
 " Pirsonn sahebka ghceur me ;*■ a Hindostanee 
 sentence, which I had been meditating ever since 
 I left Pondichery ; it caused me to be set down 
 without hesitation at the door of Mr. Pearson's mag- 
 nificent house, which happened to be the one nearest to 
 the river. A sort of Eurybates preceding me, between 
 a double hedge of servants lining a wide staircase, 
 introduced me into an immense drawing-room, where 
 
 VOL. i. x 
 
2?4 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 I found three ladies in full toilet, and a man with grey 
 hair in a light cotton dress, all four being fanned by a 
 complicated machinery of hand-screens. My un- 
 known name announced by the herald, and the simul- 
 taneous entrance of my tail black person, produced the 
 effect of a thunder-clap ; but the excessive pre-occupa- 
 tion of my mind, caused by the novelty, strangeness, and 
 extraordinary appearance of every thing 1 had seen 
 in the six minutes after my landing, paralysed my 
 English eloquence mortally. Thus, at the critical 
 moment when the spectre should have spoken, there 
 was a pause. I would have given ten louis for a 
 glass of port wine, which would have given my sail 
 some little wind — unable to stir, my debut was the 
 candid avowal of my inability to proceed. " I spoke 
 a few words of English formerly, Sir, but I perceive 
 I have forgotten the whole ; so I must entreat you 
 to help me ! " and so the grey-haired gentleman did, 
 and so did the three ladies, the two young ones in 
 particular, and so well, that an instant after I was 
 swimming in English like a little fish in the river. 
 The strangers were Mr. Pearson, Mrs. Pearson, their 
 daughter, and her governess or companion. I delivered 
 my letters of introduction, on the effect of which I 
 did not rely with implicit confidence, because they 
 were second or third hand ; however, they caused me 
 to be considered a guest at the breaking of the first 
 seal. I was asked if they were the only ones I had 
 brought to Calcutta ; a question, which I answered, by 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. ^7^ 
 
 exhibiting an enormous packet which deformed my 
 pocket, and which, being charged beforehand, like a 
 judicious firework, commenced on opening it with a 
 
 few trifling squibs — Dr. Mr. * * *, merchant, or 
 
 Captain ; then by degrees shot out the name of a 
 
 judge, then that of the chief justice, then a member of 
 council, and terminated in a grand crash with the 
 name of Lady William Bentinck, and then the 
 Governor-general's five times repeated. Each drew a 
 chair near mine, and loaded me with questions and 
 kind offers. 
 
 Eleven o'clock struck, and Mr. Pearson said to me : 
 " This is the hour at which I must go to the Supreme 
 Court, and I regret exceedingly that I cannot introduce 
 you to the persons whom you are to see ; but my 
 daughter will inform you of every thing, and my 
 carriage is at your service." He then left me, giving 
 me a hearty shake by the hand. Miss Pearson told me 
 that my firstvisit ought to be to the palace ; and with- 
 out informing me, she wrote and despatched a note to 
 Lady William Bentinck. The answer, according to eti- 
 quette, was addressed to me direct, and. delivered in less 
 than a quarter of an hour, by the aide-de-camp on duty, 
 who gave me to understand that her ladyship expected 
 me. I got into Mr. Pearson's carriage, with footmen 
 before and behind, and on arriving, I was received at 
 the palace by the aide-de-camp, who conducted me 
 into Lady William's private drawing room. She is a 
 woman of fifty, who must have been very handsome, 
 
 t 2 
 
2; 6 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 but is now without any of the pretensions of youth. My 
 letter to her was from Lord Ashley, one of the members 
 of the Indian Government in London, whom I met only 
 once at the famous dinner of the Asiatic Society. I 
 confessed therefore how slight was the title of recom- 
 mendation which I brought ; it was scarcely mentioned. 
 Lady William had already discovered that I had seen 
 several of her acquaintances at Paris. We chatted an 
 hour and a half on a multitude of subjects, till her 
 physician and also her guest entered to offer his arm 
 to conduct her to the dining room, where the collation 
 was served. Lady William despatched the doctor to 
 her husband, to inform him that she had a new 
 acquaintance to introduce to him ; and a few minutes 
 after I entered the refreshment room, giving her 
 my arm. Lord William Bentinck came at the same 
 time from the opposite side, with the ministers and 
 two members of the council, which met on that day. 
 Lady William introduced me in the most friendly 
 way ; and I sat on the right of the Governor-general, 
 who read his five letters rapidly during the colla- 
 tion, and introduced me, when we rose from table, 
 to all the persons assembled round it. I reconducted 
 Lady William to her apartment, and did not leave her 
 till I had promised to come and dine in the evening at 
 eight. She taught me by heart all about the family 
 on which my good star had fallen. 
 
 On returning to the Pearsons, who were a little 
 surprised at the length of my absence, I found the 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. ^77 
 
 two best rooms in the house placed at my disposal ; 
 and when I retired there to congratulate myself on my 
 happy debut, a host of servants pursued me armed with 
 fans to cool me. I had some trouble to get rid of them. 
 At five o'clock, Mr. Pearson, returning from the court, 
 paid me a long visit, and acquainted me with the 
 form of his material and domestic existence. I related 
 my history, the last incident of which, my engagement 
 with Lady William for the evening, rather embarrassed 
 me ; but he seemed more satisfied with his acquisition 
 than vexed at losing it for a few minutes on the first day. 
 I was a recherche guest. At six, he took me on a drive 
 in his carriage along with his wife and daughter : this is 
 the daily pastime of the inhabitants of Calcutta for an 
 hour at sunset. They return to dinner by candle- 
 light. After a short toilette, mine being changed, I 
 went to the palace in Mr. Pearson's carriage. 
 
 The company was assembled in Lady William's 
 drawing-room. I was once more her chevalier, and 
 sat next to her at dinner, that being of course the 
 place of honour. Every thing around was royal and 
 Asiatic : the dinner completely French, and exquisite 
 delicious wines served in moderation, as in France, but 
 by tall servants with long beards, in white gowns with 
 turbans of scarlet and gold. Lord William asked me to 
 take wine, a compliment which I immediately returned, 
 begging the honour of taking wine with my fair neigh- 
 bour, who was conversing with me on a variety of agree- 
 able topics, and offered to act as my Cicerone. To give 
 
278 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 our appetites time to revive for the second course, an 
 excellent German orchestra, led by an Italian, per- 
 formed several of the finest symphonies of Mozart 
 and Rossini, and in a most perfect manner. The 
 distance from which the sound proceeded, the un- 
 certain light flickering between the columns of the 
 neighbouring room, the brilliancy of the lights with 
 which the table was illuminated, the beauty of the 
 fruit which covered it in profusion, and the perfume from 
 the flowers by which its pyramids were decorated, and 
 perhaps also the champagne, made me find the music 
 admirable. I experienced a sort of intoxication, but 
 it was not a stupid intoxication. I chatted with Lady 
 William in French on art, literature, painting, and 
 music, while I answered, in a regular English speech, 
 the questions put by her husband concerning the 
 internal politics of France. I did not avoid showing, 
 in my opinions, all that might excite disapprobation, 
 employing, however, to express it, the most modest 
 forms, which a lad of sixteen in England considers 
 himself entitled to dispense with. Returning to Lady 
 William's drawing-room to take coffee, of which I drank 
 five or six cups without perceiving it, I found myself 
 complimented by every one enough to turn my head. 
 You will imagine that I did not fail to engage the 
 physician, who is still young, in conversation, on the 
 novelties in physiology ; for I had no opportunity, 
 in the general conversation, of speaking on subjects 
 connected with my own profession of naturalist, and I 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. "279 
 
 wished to show myself in character before the hour of 
 departure. 
 
 Next day, I tired my host's pair of horses, in 
 going my round of visits, which however could not 
 be finished till the day after. That day, I waited on the 
 persons by whom I had been particularly noticed at the 
 Governor-general's, and for whom I had brought no 
 letters : you know the rest. A fortnight after, the 
 Governor-general went to reside in the country, and I 
 was of the party. Lady William would have me ride 
 for the first time on an elephant with her ; and she 
 seemed so pleased with our gossip on the top of 
 this moving mountain, that she never had any other 
 companion but myself. As long as we stayed at Bar- 
 rackpore, I worked during the day-time in the cottage, 
 in which I had been settled near the palace. Some- 
 times after lunch, which, at two o'clock, brought 
 together all the inmates, and where I refrained from 
 appearing very often, for want of virtue to resist the 
 pate de foie gras, I used to go with Lady William 
 to her drawing room, where the afternoon slipped 
 away very pleasantly, in talking of the antipodes, rain, 
 and fine weather. In the evening, after dinner, we 
 had sometimes a little music, en petit comite. I used 
 to monopolise Lord William at the end of a sofa 
 in the furthest corner of the room ; he talked to me 
 of India, and I talked to him of the United States ; then 
 at half past ten, the signal for departure, I retired, 
 taking the arm of the friend, whom, among so many 
 
•280 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 kind acquaintances [ had already gained : I mean 
 Colonel Hezeta. Often before entering the bung-alow 
 which we inhabited together, we used to stroll till 
 midnight through the immense walks in the beautiful 
 park at Barrackpore. He related to me the two revo- 
 lutions which he had witnessed in his native country ; 
 the last of which had cast him upon this without any 
 other resource than the old friendship of Lord William. 
 There is a strange mental resemblance between Hezeta 
 and Dunoyer ; and though he has strongly marked 
 Spanish features, this resemblance physically struck 
 me no less. Such, my dear father, was the way in which 
 I spent the first days after my arrival in India. Why 
 have I to relate them to you a year after they are 
 gone by ? The uneasiness in which the loss of my first 
 letters has left you, concerning this period of our 
 separation, afflicts me exceedingly. You had promised 
 to fill up the prolonged intervals of my correspondence, 
 which accident might leave blank, with none but 
 pleasing conjectures : let your affection for me make 
 you keep, in future at least, your promise of August, 
 1828. 
 
 "What a contrast between my life at Calcutta and the 
 isolation of my present situation, and the fatigues, priva- 
 tions and miseries which I now experience ! But this op- 
 position is not without its charms. I often eat my crust 
 with extreme pleasure, when past recollections arise. 
 Besides, the future has still lucky days in store for me. 
 
 Must I tell you that in the midst of the whirl in 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 281 
 
 which I then was, my life was less exempt from cares 
 than now, solitary and independent as it is, in all its 
 austerity. I contemplated with avidity this immense 
 country which was opened before me, and I often 
 considered, with bitterness, whether the access to it 
 would not be closed against me by my poverty. I now 
 look with satisfaction on the distances I have travelled ; 
 and am in nowise dispirited by the remoteness of 
 Madras and Bombay. 
 
 What was agreeable and mild in my life then, is 
 often recalled to my mind even in these deserts, in a 
 manner which delights and affects me. You will your- 
 self enjoy all the affecting testimonials of remembrance 
 that reach me from such a distance. The English 
 having nothing which resembles what we call society, 
 and are almost universally destitute of that facility which 
 we learn in it, of talking gracefully about nothings, and 
 without dullness on serious subjects. We thus have an 
 immense advantage over them, when we can lead them 
 to a somewhat general conversation, the subject of 
 which is sufficiently familiar to allow us gradually to 
 take the greatest share in it, and to give it its tone. It 
 is to this artifice that I owe most of my success in what 
 they call their society ; and it is incumbent on me to 
 practise it, as it is on every traveller, on every man who 
 is but a passer-by, and has only a few moments to show 
 himself to make himself known. Although I have 
 not succeeded in speaking their language entirely like 
 themselves, the necessity of making use of this foreign 
 
282 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 instrument is, I know, far from being disadvantageous 
 to me. I am quite certain of speaking properly when 
 I think rightly. 
 
 Tell all whom it may concern, among the people in 
 Europe, that I consider myself very much neglected by 
 them. If those in Asia imitated them, I should not 
 have so much to write to-day. But perhaps it is with 
 the English post-office I ought to find fault. What 
 letters I do receive, continue to fall upon me like 
 manna in the desert, as to the Hebrews of old. I do 
 not see the sons of the prophet. In general, I suppose, 
 it is the good governor of Chandernagore, who plays the 
 part of Moses here ; then at Delhi, there are new ad- 
 dresses and collections of letters, made by my baggage- 
 master, the judge, or king of the city, under a single cover. 
 Kennedy, at Semla, commonly tacks something of his 
 own to this mixture ; and the whole arrives like anchovies 
 preserved in butter and oil. It is the hydrophobia of 
 the Kanaoris and Tartars, which, by making them care- 
 fully avoid all their life the contact of water, collects on 
 their surface treasures of the conservative principle. 
 It might rain in this country, but my letters, I assure 
 you, would not be afraid of travelling in the open air 
 in the hands of the courier. 
 
 But I shall never finish, if I do not set seriously to 
 work to answer your letters. As to the chance of 
 being devoured alive, by serpents which swallow an ox 
 without winking, as we would an egg, I think it useless 
 now to assure you of my safety. I have not yet seen a 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 283 
 
 single tiger, lion, or leopard, though I went to look for 
 them for a fortnight among the Seikhs, assisted in my 
 search by five companions considered clever in dis- 
 covering them, a score and a half of elephants broken-in 
 to the sport, and five or six hundred horsemen. In 
 one of the darkest of nights at the foot of the Himalaya, 
 I discharged the two barrels of my gun in the direction 
 in which they supposed there was a leopard, in order 
 to account for the disappearance of a goat from a 
 flock in a fold near my tent. My escort fired at the same 
 time, and it is probable that there really was this time 
 something like a tiger or leopard near, for the shep- 
 herd found the goat at the foot of the precipice, 
 strangled and torn. It is very true, as Malte Brim 
 tells you, that the Fakirs murder very cleverly on occa- 
 sions. But I am none of their game : they seldom kill 
 any but children, whose hands and feet they cut off, in 
 order to steal the copper and silver bracelets which their 
 parents attach to their arms and legs. If I were to 
 meet several together, with a suspicious appearance, and 
 had any doubt of their intention, I should begin by 
 killing a couple of these horrible brutes on the spot ; 
 but from Calcutta to this place, a few kicks on the 
 posteriors were sufficient to drive away the most impor- 
 tunate of their species ; and I shall no where see so 
 many of them in any part of India, as I did in the 
 woody desert and mountainous region which I crossed 
 in the first part of my road to Benares. They were 
 going to Jagrena. 
 
284 
 
 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Mangoes and mangosteens have nothing in common 
 but the first syllable of their name. The mango 
 accommodates itself to every climate within the 
 tropics ; the cultivation of the mangosteen has suc- 
 ceeded scarcely any where except in the Moluccas, 
 in Ava, and in Cochin China. There is a tree at 
 Bourbon. My hosts in that island had the kindness 
 to send a servant twelve leagues from their house, 
 with a note to the proprietor of this rarity to 
 obtain two specimens for me ; it was just in season. 
 I found the fruit excellent, but nothing more ; whereas 
 it often happens that mangoes surpass all epithets — it 
 is therefore best to say nothing about them. Common 
 mangoes are execrable. It is a fruit which is either 
 adored or detested ; — there is no medium. A man- 
 gosteen, on the other hand, in an intermediate limit, 
 pleases universally. Mangoes are very common at 
 Hayti, where their quality varies between delicious and 
 bad. At Bourbon and Calcutta in particular, I ate 
 mangoes, which must not have a word said against 
 them. In the North of India, and at Benares, where 
 the tree vegetates very luxuriantly, the fruit ripens 
 badly. 
 
 I have no time at all to keep up the scientific corre- 
 spondence, the occasional publication of which my 
 friends think likely to be of advantage to me in a 
 professional point of view. Although I do not spare 
 myself, my time is sufficiently occupied without that. 
 I shall therefore return with a full budget to be then 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE, 28.5 
 
 wholly emptied. If some persons have thought me 
 dead, I shall come to life again for them. Tell 
 Camoassedes this, with my kind regards, if you have 
 occasion to see him ; if not, let Merimee, to whom 
 this message is also addressed, deliver it to him. 
 Besides a want of the necessary ingredient, time, there 
 is another cause, which would discourage me were I dis- 
 posed to undertake such a task : I mean the uncertain 
 fate of my letters, and the fear of these being lost like 
 the others, or arriving only at rare intervals. Appoint 
 an attorney to convey my friendly regards to M. de 
 Beaumont. Tell Dunoyer and M. Taboureau that I 
 receive and return theirs, without talking of it ; and 
 the same with regard to every other friend near you. 
 
 I have not here the register which would inform me 
 what number I am to put upon this letter. But the 
 last, despatched a month ago, is dated from Chini in 
 Kanawer, and the one before it from Semla, about the 
 20th of June. Write to me through the Navy Board, 
 as it is so good a channel. M. Cordier of Chanderna- 
 gore will manage, with his frank, to find me in any 
 part of India, no matter whether it be Pondichery or 
 Calcutta. It is an age since I heard from M. de 
 Melay. Adieu, my dear father. I am in admirable 
 health. Continue, as you have done, to govern your 
 coming years; patience and confidence — and we shall 
 have much to tell each other. Adieu ; I love you and 
 embrace you with all my heart. 
 
"286 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 P. S. From horror of white, I resume my peacock's 
 quill to blue, to the end of the page. 
 
 At Danum in Kanavver, I saw M. Csomo de Koros 
 — Boiimi — or Alexander the Great (Secundoeur-Beg), 
 the Hungarian original, in short, of whom you must 
 have heard. During the last ten years, he has been 
 travelling in Asia, under a wretched disguise, to dis- 
 cover, by a comparison of language, the tribe of which 
 his nation is a swarm. 
 
 I am now going to Ladak, a Tartar or Tibetian 
 country tributary to China. The projected boundary 
 of my course is seven marches hence towards the 
 North. Thence I shall descend to Kanawer, and 
 return to India by the Burunda Pass, through what 
 the Indian and European public improperly term the 
 great chain of the Himalaya. The Burunda Pass 
 scarcely exceeds fifteen thousand feet in elevation ; 
 this will be mere child's play to me, who have reached, 
 four times, an elevation of eighteen thousand three 
 hundred, and eighteen thousand six hundred feet. 
 Kennedy promises to come from Semla and meet me 
 on the -Indian declivity of the mountains, and we shall 
 travel together some days, in order that he may make 
 known to me the petty mountain sovereigns subject to 
 his political control. Adieu. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 287 
 
 TO M. ELIE DE BEAUMONT, ENGINEER OF MINES. 
 
 Lari, September- 9th, 1830. Territory of Ladah. 
 
 Dear M. de Beaumont, — I see forming on the 
 horizon, in Kanawer, a storm of work which only 
 awaits my return thither to burst. I therefore take 
 advantage of my last leisure of the desert to write you 
 a few lines. Those fire-side geographers are fools; 
 with their independent Tartary. The natives of this 
 country pay tribute, on four sides ; and the rajah or 
 khan of Ladah, between the Seikhs of Cashmere and 
 the Mantchous of China, is much less at his ease than 
 the badshah of Persia, between the Russians and the 
 English. However, fire-side geographers are happy 
 fellows; I would willingly be a blockhead on such 
 agreeable terms. 
 
 I found it very piquant, on the 21st of November 
 last, to awake under a tent for the first time ; but after 
 having had no other dwelling for the last ten months, I 
 have learned the value of a house ; a place on the floor 
 of the Hostelry of Courmageur would be better than 
 my unmattressed bed, under my little mountain tent, 
 which the frozen night-blast threatens to upset. I do 
 not recollect, without regret, M. Durr's good dinners 
 at the Union at Bex. Not that I, yielding to Asiatic 
 luxury, have not my cook and sub-cook or scullion to 
 provide good cheer ; but for the five months I have 
 spent in the Himalaya, these artists, by combining their 
 
288 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 talents, can produce me nothing daily but a pyramid 
 of coarse cakes made of flour with all the bran in 
 it. Now as one gets tired of all things in time, be 
 they ever so nice, it is allowable to turn up my nose at 
 the daily fare of my lordship, highness, or majesty, 
 as they call me. But this is croaking too much ; and 
 as my health has suffered from neither cold, heat, rain, 
 or the miseries of an ambulatory life, you know me 
 well enough to believe that I care little about comforts. 
 You will have known through Adrian de Jussieu, Cam- 
 bessedes, or Prosper Merimee, the admirable reception 
 I met with at Calcutta. The season in which I arrived, 
 and the necessity of learning the abominable jargon 
 of the country detained me there several months; and 
 I successively lived with people the poorest of whom had 
 a hundred and fifty thousand francs a year. The law 
 of drainage of rupees, nevertheless, gave me intervals 
 of care even when I was thus magnificently treated. 
 Nevertheless, since I find water enough to float, 
 without running aground, from hence to Paris, I shall 
 not complain to you of these miseries. An isolated and 
 unknown stranger, placed in the circumstances under 
 which I arrived at Calcutta, would inevitably have 
 stranded. It is to the kilogramme of admirable letters 
 of introduction with which I was provided, that I en- 
 tirely owe the possibility of writing to you from Lari, 
 six hundred leagues from Calcutta. In the great num- 
 ber of new personages that I have seen in India, there 
 are none of our profession. Not that I did not, during 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 289 
 
 my stay at Calcutta, become more or less acquainted 
 with some skilful in the line ; and, by means of the 
 Asiatic Researches, with their predecessors. But ab- 
 stracting localities, the Asiatic Society of Calcutta and 
 the Lyceum of Natural History in New York, of a 
 meeting of which I think I gave you an account, have 
 the greatest resemblance. Geology is very much the 
 fashion. It is a science much cultivated, in order to learn 
 how to name scientifically the stones found in the road, 
 and picked up and placed in the palanquin on a change 
 of residence or garrison. So there is granite, gneiss, 
 micaslate, clayslate, sandstone (which is always new red 
 sandstone), and limestone (which is invariably lias.) 
 I think I have said all. If M. Pentland has found in 
 Peru some mountains higher than those of the Hima- 
 Iaya, I would not advise him to come to India ; and 
 as it is generally admitted that this mighty range, 
 before which the Andes sink into inferiority, is the 
 eldest-born of the creation, I beg you to abide by what 
 I shall tell you some day concerning the phenomena of 
 this eldest-born in the creation ; for your beautiful 
 work on the relative age of the elevation of mountains, 
 of which I yet only know the sketch given by M. 
 Arago in the Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes, 
 will in India be considered a personal insult by the geo- 
 logists of Calcutta, their wives, their children, and their 
 children's dolls. At Bombay I shall take care not to 
 say I am a friend of yours. Some ten years ago, 
 in Switzerland, a learned man of Zurich proved that 
 vol. i. u 
 
290 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the History of William Tell was a Danish legend of the 
 eleventh century, and they could not but yield to his 
 proofs ; nevertheless he was condemned to death for 
 having destroyed a belief which was one of the dearest 
 heir-looms of the Swiss peasant. Being fortunately 
 contumacious, the poor devil is now a professor in some 
 university in Germany. To touch the antiquity of the 
 Himalaya is no less a sacrilege in India. 
 
 A few words concerning my route. From Calcutta 
 I went to Benares nearly in a straight line across low 
 mountains, which form a very regular chain from the 
 platform of Bundlecund to Rajomal, where they are 
 terminated by a small escarpment above the Ganges ; 
 from Benares I proceeded to Mirzapore, and going 
 from thence, I spent the whole month of January in 
 Bundlecund, over the platform or its sides, or in the 
 adjacent plains. In order to go from thence to Agra 
 by an interesting route, 1 should have had to pass 
 through Gewalior ; but the material circumstances of 
 waggons and escorts obliged me to reach the Jumna at 
 Kulpy, and to go on from thence by the Doab, from 
 Agra to Delhi, and from Delhi towards the desert of 
 Bikanere, to the W.N.W., in the country of the Seikhs. 
 I was then engaged in a hunting party, most admirably 
 got up on my account. 
 
 This was at the end of March, and the hot winds 
 threatened every day seriously to invade the plains of 
 the north of India. Quitting my companions, there- 
 fore, I re-mounted my faithful Pegasus to reach the 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 291 
 
 foot of the mountains by short marches, in the same 
 manner that I had come from Calcutta to Delhi. I 
 entered the Himalaya by the valley of Dehra or the 
 Dhoon of Dehra, commonly called by the English the 
 T^alley of the Dhoon, which means literally the valley 
 of the valley. It is a longitudinal valley hollowed out 
 between the foot of the Himalaya, properly so called, 
 and the elevated diluvial soil. I there bid adieu to 
 the comforts of the Indian traveller in the plains ; 
 changed my horse for a stick; put my baggage on 
 the shoulders of five-and-thirty mountaineers, and 
 commenced the series of miseries with which I have 
 annoyed you above. I went to the sources of the 
 Jumna, and near those of the Ganges ; thence I re- 
 turned westwards to Semla, a summer station near the 
 Sutledge ; ascending along its banks, or rather on the 
 side of the mountain overlooking them, I passed to 
 the north of the Himalaya, in the country of Kanawer, 
 the Rajah of which is tributary to the English. This 
 is the commencement of Tibet, in respect of climate, 
 productions, and the religion of the inhabitants. My 
 researches have carried me twice from Kanawer into 
 the Chinese territory ; and in the first of these expe- 
 ditions (for they were rather military, and invasive,) I 
 had to pass four times through defiles at a height of 
 five thousand five hundred metres, and to encamp at 
 five thousand metres. I am now on my return from 
 an excursion towards Ladak, without perceiving that 
 
 u 2 
 
292 A JOURXEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the mountains begin to diminish in altitude. The 
 village from which I am writing to you, seated on the 
 banks of the Spiti, a very considerable feeder of the 
 Sutledge, is about three thousand seven hundred metres 
 high. Three days ago I was encamped near a village 
 in Ladak, called Ghijourmul, at an elevation of five 
 thousand metres. On the Indian slope I have seen 
 none above two thousand seven hundred metres. Cul- 
 tivation also is arrested on the southern side two thou- 
 sand metres lower than on the Tibetian. The tempera- 
 ture is not the predominant circumstance of climate 
 which determines these differences ; it is particularly 
 the state of the sky which produces them : covered with 
 clouds and charged with rain on the Indian side, clear 
 and void of all humidity as soon as the peak of the 
 Himalaya is past. Having gone from that side by the 
 natural cut of the Sutledge, I shall return into India 
 by one of the gorges of the southern or Indian chain. 
 Their mean elevation is from fifteen to sixteen thousand 
 English feet ; that is to say, three thousand feet below 
 the mean level of the passages across the branches 
 which cover Tibet and Tartary. — In the same manner 
 as you have found that all the Alps are far from being 
 contemporary, so it appears doubtful to me, whether 
 the Tibetian chains of the Himalaya are of the same 
 period of elevation as the southern chain. I will not 
 tell you the sufficient reason of these doubts, because 
 this letter would have no end, and my leisure has 
 but narrow limits. • 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 293 
 
 Adieu, my dear Beaumont. I shall expect your 
 answer at Bombay. Believe in my sincere attach- 
 ment. 
 
 TO M. CHARLES DUNOYER, PARIS. 
 
 Semla, in the Himalaya, October 23rd, 1830. 
 
 I regret much, my friend, to learn by your letter 
 of the 1st of April, that I have lost another of an 
 anterior date, which required a special answer. Perhaps, 
 when it has travelled several times from Europe to 
 Asia, it will reach me at last ; and then doubt not the 
 eagerness with which I shall endeavour to satisfy your 
 wishes. To-day I have only to thank you kindly for 
 your friendly remembrance of me. I have certainly 
 explained to you why I did not take leave of you : 
 notwithstanding the pretty things that Romeo says 
 about the pleasure of bidding good bye, I am not of 
 Shakspeare's opinion. In every parting, which is 
 likely to be of some duration, there is a perhaps, so 
 melancholy, that I systematically avoid the pain of the 
 last shake by the hand. Thus I show myself worthy of 
 my father, who, you know, is a hero of stoical insensi- 
 bility — that is, on paper. He assures me, that he was 
 as gay as possible, and quite at his ease, about me, 
 when he had not received a letter from me for nearly a 
 year ; and his friends thought him very uneasy. I 
 should be delighted if he had told the truth, without 
 
294 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 saying more ; for at the distance at which I am not 
 only from Europe, but also from Calcutta and Bom- 
 bay, nothing is so much a matter of chance as the 
 arrival of my letters. What ought to satisfy him as 
 to the future, whatever the intervals of my corre- 
 spondence may be, is the fortunate experiment I have 
 made of the climate of India, the acquaintance I have 
 contracted with men, and my general knowledge of 
 the country. It is now nearly a year since I left Cal- 
 cutta. I have travelled in the meanwhile twelve or 
 fifteen hundred leagues on horseback, and nearly a 
 thousand on foot. In Tibet, whence I am just now 
 returning, I have made war on the emperor of China, 
 encamped several times at a greater height than the 
 summit of Mont Blanc, and am all the better for it ; 
 but this is a particular case, and proves nothing against 
 the insalubrity of India. It is true that the English 
 add greatly to the dangers of the climate by their want 
 of sobriety. Excepting when I am at their establish- 
 ments, I live not only like a Brahmin, but like a Car- 
 thusian friar, not having altered my opinion as to the 
 relative merits of quartos and duodecimoes: 
 
 Hydrophobia in a whole nation is a frightful disease. 
 On my journey into Tibet, I had a small escort of 
 Gorkhas. It would certainly have sufficed for me to 
 conquer the whole of central Asia, if I had taken a 
 fancy to make myself a king. These folks had the 
 custom of brutally driving away the Lamas and other 
 Tartar villagers, whom the curiosity of seeing a white 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 29-3 
 
 man had attracted round my encampment. One day, 
 when it was less cold than usual, I undressed myself 
 to take a bath after the Indian fashion, that is to say, 
 to have a skin of water poured over my head and 
 shoulders. At the splashing of this little cascade, 
 the crowd of Tibetians pressing round me fled in a 
 fright ; and since that day I have always got rid of 
 their importunities, by stationing my water-carrier or 
 Mussulmaun bisti with his large black beard, who was 
 an object of admiration to these beardless people, as 
 sentry at the door of my little tent, with his skin well 
 filled, which excited their terror. Instead of a score 
 of Gorkhas, I should only take half a dozen apothe- 
 caries to make myself great khan of Tartary. You 
 will easily think, that, when king of such a water- 
 fearing people, I should be little tempted to use all the 
 rights of an Asiatic prince, and would make myself 
 a Lama, if I did not remain a Carthusian monk. A 
 very singular trait in Tibetian manners, with which 
 you are surely acquainted, is a plurality of husbands. 
 All brothers born of one mother have but one wife 
 in common. It never happens that she has any pre- 
 ference for either of her husbands, which might trouble 
 the peace of her numerous family : love and jealousy 
 in their rudest forms are therefore feelings unknown 
 to these people. However, the great Lama of Kana- 
 wer, whose portrait I will show you some day, has 
 the episcopal mitre and crosier. He is habited like 
 our prelates; and a superficial observer would, at a 
 
29t> A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 distance, take his Tibetian or Buddhist mass for a 
 Roman mass, and one of the most orthodox. He 
 makes a score of genuflexions at different intervals ; 
 he turns to the altar and people alternately, rings a 
 bell, drinks out of a cup of water which an acolyte 
 pours out for him ; he mumbles Paternosters to the 
 same tune ; — in every point there is shocking resem- 
 blance. Men of a robust faith, will see nothing in it 
 but a corruption of Christianity. Nevertheless it is 
 incontestable that Buddhism, now confined to the north 
 of the Himalaya, the east of the Burampooter, and in 
 some islands of the Indian Archipelago, preceded, in 
 India, the worship of Brahma. It still partially 
 existed there at the period of the invasion of the 
 first Afghan conquerors, who proved, like the 
 Spaniards in America, that persecution, in spite of the 
 proverb, is no feeble engine of religious conversion. 
 A considerable library is deposited in the temple of 
 Kanawer. I saw there several books on theology, 
 printed in Tibet, consisting of a Sanscrit text, with an 
 interlineary Tibetian translation ; and their date is only 
 of the century before last. The Buddhist church at that 
 period still kept up some friendly relations with that 
 of Brahma ; and they still preserved at Teshoolombo, 
 at Tashigung, and in several other great monasteries in 
 Tibet, a knowledge of the sacred language of Benares. 
 The common herd of Lamas are ignorant of the sense 
 of the devout ejaculation which they utter from morn- 
 ing to night : 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 297 
 
 •• Houra ! mani, pani houm! 
 " Heu! gemma lotus heu !'' 
 
 But, though composed of three Tibetian words, it 
 is evidently of Indian origin, and I have proved it 
 botanicaUy. The lotus, or Xmtos of the Greeks, is a 
 plant peculiar to the lukewarm and temperate waters 
 of India and Egypt : there is not one of its genus, or 
 even of its family, in Tibet. Its extreme beauty, and 
 its abundance in the tanks dug near the Indian 
 temples, have rendered it celebrated in the Hiudoo 
 legends. 
 
 But enough of this. I verv much doubt the ex- 
 istence of the table laud of Tibet. I have travelled 
 northwards 3*2 10' of latitude. The snowy chain of 
 the Indian Himalaya was to the south very far behind 
 me, and vet the countrv was constantly rising before 
 me. I had, in my caravan, people who had travelled 
 three months' march to the north-east, and six 
 months to the east, of the furthest point to which I 
 advanced. Their accounts agree too well not to be 
 exact. They represent all the countries which are 
 unknown to me, as very similar to those I visited 
 with them: that is to say, covered with mountains, 
 heaped up without order, ramified irregularly, and 
 prolonged into chains, which cross each other in 
 every direction. The Himalaya, whose eternal snows 
 are seen from the banks of the Ganges, even as far as 
 Benares, and which forms a spectacle so full of 
 
298 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 grandeur for the plains of India, is but an humble and 
 modest preface to the Tibetian Alps. 
 
 My being a Frenchman, is far from disadvantageous 
 to me : an Englishman could not have undertaken the 
 journey which the French lord has just terminated 
 so fortunately. The Government forbids English 
 subjects to approach the Chinese frontiers, in order to 
 avoid the trouble of the complaints which violations 
 of territory might excite. Being free from this re- 
 straint, and persuaded that my little caravan would 
 inarch in these deserts like a conquering army, I 
 fearlessly ran my chance. Several times I found, 
 in much greater numbers than my retinue, people 
 assembled from all the villages around, to stop my 
 progress ; sometimes on the summit of a mountain, 
 sometimes in a narrow defile which a single man 
 might have defended against thousands, sometimes on 
 the banks of a torrent. I never hesitated to push 
 forward without paying attention to their injunc- 
 tions ; and I had very seldom occasion to use any 
 of these good people roughly, in order to disperse 
 their astonished companions. Notwithstanding their 
 bold appearance before the engagement, I never saw 
 in them any signs of resistance by open force; but 
 they endeavoured to famish me, in order to force me 
 to retire. They did not dare positively to refuse to sell 
 me provisions, but laid a very high price on them, 
 and the farther I advanced the more they increased it. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 299 
 
 At length I adopted the resolution which I ought to 
 have taken in the first instance. I dictated the price 
 myself, on a very liberal scale, and warned them that, if 
 they did not submit to it, I would plunder the village, 
 and carry off their cattle : a menace which was 
 sufficient for my purpose, and which I had never any 
 occasion afterwards to repeat. 
 
 From so cold a country I have not been able to 
 bring a very large number of organic productions. 
 My collections are, nevertheless, considerable, and, 
 contain a great number of new objects. The excessive 
 nakedness of the mountains was favourable to geo- 
 logical observation; and I do not think' I flatter 
 myself in putting a pretty high price on those I have 
 made. 
 
 English hospitality, so far as I am concerned, is 
 truly admirable : the most flattering attentions have 
 always been paid to me. But here especially, I have 
 had the happiness to form, in a few days, quite a familiar 
 acquaintance with my host, the king of kings, like 
 Agamemnon of old, for he governs absolutely a number 
 of petty mountain princes ; and my residence at Semla 
 will always leave me most agreeable recollections. 
 For four months I had been deprived of all European 
 society. None of my people speak a word of English, 
 my adopted language ; and I have heard nothing 
 during the whole duration of my solitary journeys, but 
 the wretched Hindoostanee mountain patois. 
 
 With your letter, my dear Dunoyer, I found here a 
 
300 A JOURNEY IX INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 number of others, come from the same point, but of 
 an equally old date; nevertheless, from the English 
 newspapers, I have learnt European news up to the 
 1st of June. On quitting Calcutta, I had made 
 a very secret vow to forget the things of that part of 
 the world, or at least not to think of them so long as I 
 should be in this. Impossible ! and lo the English 
 newspapers are no longer sufficient to give me a 
 satisfactory account of our political affairs. I related 
 my distress to Lord William Bentinck, who is five 
 hundred leagues from hence, and receives several 
 French journals regularly. He will be so good 
 as to send them on to me, after having read them. 
 Sometimes I fear that the king is still more of a fool 
 than a coward, and that the denouement of all this 
 will be a revolution. If we were forced to come to 
 blows, I know very well who would remain master of 
 the field ; but I am frightened at the immense number 
 of good timid people always ready to second passively 
 a movement of reaction. I think the bastard system, 
 imposed on the Martignac ministry by the composi- 
 tion of the chamber at that period, was rapid enough 
 in its legislative ameliorations to allow us to have 
 patience with it, at the same time that it caused 
 the votes in parliament to be for us, and brought the 
 great body of the nation out of it, to our side. I 
 am waiting with great impatience for news of the 
 3rd of June. V\ hat becomes of Algiers ? — and Greece, 
 the crown of which Prince Leopolds declaration 
 
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3Q<2 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 TO M. ELIE DE BEAUMONT, ENGINEER OF MINES, 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 Semla, in the Indian Himalaya, October 24th, 1830. 
 
 So many people whom I have never seen before, call 
 me and write to me, my dear Sir, that I shall hence- 
 forth suppress the Sir to you, my dear Beaumont, and 
 beg you will have the kindness to make the same re- 
 duction in my favour. People of our age, with friend- 
 ship for each other, ought to call each other ingenuously 
 by their names. I have no reason to treat you more 
 ceremoniously than Charpentier or Adrien de Jussieu, 
 both of whom I did not know till after you. When 
 I return to Europe, I shall perhaps find you married, 
 and grown ten years older by that simple fact ; then 
 the ice of our past ceremony would be very hard to 
 break. Let us break it, then, before it grows too thick, 
 and call me Jacquemont in return for calling you 
 Beaumont. 
 
 The acre of scrawl which will accompany this note 
 will prove to you that my thoughts have anticipated 
 yours. Your letter of the 22d February last has only 
 this moment arrived. I wrote to you more than six 
 weeks ago. I reckoned that by this time that long 
 letter would have been at least at Calcutta ; but I kept 
 it here by mistake — it is very lucky that it was not 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 303 
 
 lost*. It answers by anticipation several parts of yours, 
 without excusing me, however, from returning to it. 
 
 Every one is talking of the fame which you have just 
 acquired by your ingenious discoveries. I shall esteem 
 myself happy if I bring back some proofs of the justice 
 of your views ; and in spite of wild elephants, tigers, 
 and, what is worse, of dangerous fevers, of which the 
 forests covering the foot of the Himalaya are the 
 constant abode, I shall go and collect them there. As 
 for animals, though it would be an excess of scep- 
 ticism not to believe in them, I give myself little con- 
 cern about them ; and as for the Jungle typhus, I 
 rely greatly on my dry and tough fibre- and my ali- 
 mentary regimen, to preserve me from it. I shall have 
 finished this expedition in a fortnight, and shall 
 perhaps have some leisure at Sharampore to tell you 
 the result. 
 
 I have found, accumulated here, all my collections 
 made during the space of six months in the Indian and 
 Tibetian Himalaya, and am busied with the cares neces- 
 sary for their preservation. I likewise found a little 
 mountain of European correspondence, formed here 
 during my absence. I must answer on all sides ; and 
 it is almost without pleasure that I scribble these lines 
 to you, bewildered as I am with business. 
 
 I am rejoiced to learn that you see Merimee from 
 
 * The letter addressed to the same person, of the 9th of the 
 preceding- September, was despatched only with the present one. 
 
304 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 time to time ; I have an extreme friendship for him, 
 with which he will also inspire you, when you know 
 him as well as I do. I suppose he is going on getting an 
 abominable reputation by his literary hardihood, whilst 
 at bottom he is the best fellow in the world. You are 
 more fortunate : your brilliant success against the ob- 
 scurity of the ancient revolutions of the globe, does not 
 expose you to troublesome interpretations. It is better 
 to show only one's reason to the public, and reserve 
 one's imagination for friends ; this is the advantage of 
 those who cultivate the sciences. 
 
 You have obliged me according to my taste with your 
 friendly mosaic. There is no doubt a great deal of the 
 ridiculous in the industrialism of M. de Saint-Simon, 
 because the exposition of it is exclusively dogmatical, a 
 form without which it would appear perhaps less ori- 
 ginal, and would border upon a truism. But the in- 
 terest which it excited, and which is also awakened by 
 the doctrines of Mr. Owen, the Methode Univer- 
 selle of M. Jacotot, all those speculative and practical 
 novelties in short, occupy too great a number of 
 minds not to prepare considerable changes in the for- 
 mation of human communities. God grant that this 
 slow but inevitable revolution may not be checked, 
 delayed, and turned back in its progress, by vulgar 
 commotions of brute force. I have just run through 
 the English papers up to the l6th of June ; they are 
 very disquieting as to the future prospects of France : 
 the question must be decided now, but five months will 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 30.5 
 
 elapse ere I can learn its fortunate or deplorable 
 solution. 
 
 Adieu, my dear Beaumont. I am ashamed of this 
 disjointed stuff, and shall cut it as short as possible. 
 Thanks for my health, in champagne, at Edon's. This 
 evening I shall make a little speech to my English 
 hosts, and the whole company will rise and drink to my 
 toast of absent friends. I shall think of you as I 
 empty my glass. 
 
 TO M. DE VICTOR DE TRACY, PARIS. 
 
 Semla, in the Indian Himalaya, August 25th, 1880. 
 
 If you had ever been deprived, for four months, of 
 all European society, you would understand, my dear 
 friend, the joy I experienced on my return to this 
 place. In order that nothing might be wanting, 
 your letter of the 12th of March was waiting for me' 
 with several others from my family, all satisfactory ; 
 and the day after my arrival I received another packet 
 from botanical and geological friends, Elie de Beaumont, 
 Adrien de Jussieu, &c. &c. I am not yet recovered from 
 the very common pleasures of sleeping under a 
 roof, not eating alone, hearing the sounds of a sister 
 language, and receiving at the same time so much 
 pleasant and agreeable news : I still feel a sort of 
 nervous agitation, which scarcely allows me to remain 
 the whole day before a writing table, and which the 
 
 vol. i. x 
 
306 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 fatigue of my long journey across the mountains can 
 alone calm, This must be my excuse for the confusion 
 that must reign in this letter. 
 
 I have succeeded, in spite of the jealousy of the 
 Chinese government, in visiting some parts of Tibet 
 subject to its authority. An English physician, some 
 years ago, had almost as much success in a similar 
 undertaking ; but he was destitute of the information 
 which might have rendered it interesting in a scientific 
 point of view. Mr. Moorcroft afterwards penetrated 
 a good way beyond the point reached by his coun- 
 tryman the doctor, and that at which I was compelled 
 to stop, since he visited Leio, where he died, no doubt 
 by poison. Before this journey, which proved so fatal 
 to him, Mr. Moorcroft had travelled into another 
 part of Tibet, equally shut against strangers by the 
 suspicious policy of the Chinese. If you have read the 
 account of his pilgrimage to the sacred lake of Mansa- 
 rower, you will doubtless have had considerable diffi- 
 culty in understanding how to satisfy, a vague curiosity, 
 he could have resolved to expose himself to the dangers 
 of a fanciful disguise, and resign himself to the privations 
 of all kinds which it entailed upon him. Mr. Moorcroft 
 visited Mansarower and the eastern Kailas, in the 
 borrowed guise of a fakhir, dumb in consequence of 
 a vow. In his last unfortunate expedition he had 
 adopted the Persian costume, and traffic was the osten- 
 sible object of his journey. He could ask questions, 
 but with reserve ; curiosity however led him too far : he 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 307 
 
 gave the lie to his Asiatic dress, and soon perished the 
 victim of his imprudence. 
 
 I took much higher ground with the emperor of 
 China : for him I did not change my dress, nor volun- 
 tarily deprive myself of all means of observation, with- 
 out which my journey would have taught me nothing. 
 I directed my caravan in a manner to avoid trouble- 
 some encounters as much as possible ; and when I 
 could not prevent them, I put a good face upon the 
 matter, and ordered the people, who were collected to 
 stop my progress, to retire immediately. Their as- 
 tonishment was extreme, and they always withdrew 
 murmuring. You will easily imagine, my dear friend, 
 that I should not have risked menaces, if I had not 
 had the moral certainty that it would prove sufficient to 
 open the road to me. Perhaps these Tartars, if pro- 
 voked by verbal abuse, would have shown the determi- 
 nation which anger often inspires ; but I was as silent 
 as the deserts around us. It was with the most 
 indifferent tone that my Tibetian interpreter, at 
 their injunctions to me to retire, gave them a similar 
 order in reply. I continued to advance slowly, at my 
 horse's or Yak's pace, followed by my men, who 
 marched in close order, most of them loaded with 
 bundles, some armed. My little caravan had an 
 appearance of cool resolution, which left the Tartars 
 to the mildness and natural timidity of their character, 
 and I never met with any resistance but of the passive 
 kind. One day, accompanied only by a few servants, 
 
 x 2 
 
308 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 all unarmed, with the exception of the one who carried 
 my gun, I fell in with a party of two hundred moun- 
 taineers, all Lamas from their dress. Though I had 
 already experienced their circumspection many times, 
 I confess that I relied, with some misgivings, upon 
 the small number of my men. My interpreter being 
 far behind, I had no means of communication but by 
 signs. I made a very imperative one, and this crowd 
 retired from the pathway ; two men only remained 
 in it, who left me no passage. I pushed the first 
 gently ; for a violent shock would have precipitated 
 him down the sides of the mountain, which are too 
 steep to hold on by ; he caught some tufts of grass, 
 and joined the more docile troop grumbling. The 
 other, who was without doubt the Cid of the band, did 
 not stir. I removed him in the same way without 
 showing any anger. This is the simple recital of my 
 greatest battle. 
 
 If I did not know the value of the calling of Tartar- 
 king, I could here perform the double of Dr. Francia. 
 I would willingly undertake the conquest of central 
 Asia with a hundred Gorkhas. The name of these 
 latter is a terrible bugbear, it is true ; and my tall 
 white figure, though it has nothing very terrific, ap- 
 peared very formidable to the peaceful Lamas. 
 
 The Indian Himalaya has something in it like 
 Europe. It is covered with forests, whose trees have 
 a family resemblance to those of the Alpine forests: 
 they consist of pines, firs, cedars, sycamores and oaks 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 309 
 
 differently associated with each other, according to the 
 height of the mountain. Above the limit of the forests, 
 there is green pasturage intermixed with dwarf 
 shrubs, willows, and junipers, and this zone extends 
 to that of the eternal snow. But towards Tibet, the 
 whole region is so elevated that the bottom of the 
 valleys exceeds the level at which the forest stops, on 
 the southern declivity of the chain. The vegetation, 
 reduced to some creeping, thorny, stunted shrubs, 
 and scanty dried grass, forms here and there blackish 
 spots on the margin of the torrents ; the sides of 
 the mountain are covered with nothing but what the 
 rushing waters wash down ; and the immense horizon 
 offers a uniform scene of sterility and desolation, ter- 
 minating on all sides by the snowy summits of the 
 mountains. 
 
 Such is the strange peculiarity of the climate, that 
 these Tibetian chains, if their height does not exceed 
 twenty thousand feet, are entirely stripped of snow 
 towards the middle of summer. I have several times 
 encamped higher than the summit of Mont-Blanc, 
 and to the north of the o^° of latitude ; and as it was 
 always the vicinity of a stream that decided my halts, 
 almost every day brought me an opportunity of examin- 
 ing, at leisure, the rare traces of their singular 
 vegetation. At the same elevation in the southern 
 chain of the Himalaya, I should have been surrounded 
 by scenes of snow. 
 
 Though my attention was principally directed to 
 
310 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the study of the phenomena of nature, and the obser- 
 vation of its productions, I did not neglect that 
 of our species, oddly modified, as might be expected, 
 from such peculiar circumstances of soil and climate. 
 One of the most singular traits in Tartar and 
 Tibetian manners, is polyandry. However nume- 
 rous a family of brothers may be, they have only one 
 wife in common ; and it is with absolute confidence in 
 the correctness of the information which I collected, 
 that I consider the feeling of jealousy to be entirely 
 unknown to this strange people, for it never disturbs 
 the peace of these populous households. I could 
 scarcely make myself understood when I inquired, 
 whether the preference of the wife for one of her hus- 
 bands did not sometimes cause quarrels among the 
 brothers. This is certainly a most ignoble compensa- 
 tion for polygamy, which prevails throughout the rest 
 of the East. 
 
 The collections of natural history, which I made in 
 the north of the Himalaya, could not be very consider- 
 able ; nevertheless the number of objects I have 
 brought from thence exceeds my hopes, and I think 
 that most of them are new. 
 
 My geological observations, on the southern girdle 
 of this great chain, so far confirm the views which M. 
 de Beaumont has hazarded concerning the period of its 
 elevation. But in the same way that he has proved 
 certain parts of the Alps to have been raised at different 
 epochs, the Tibetian Himalaya, according to my 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 311 
 
 observations, appears also of a different age, (not of 
 geognostical formation, but of elevation,) from the 
 Indian Himalaya. 
 
 As for the age of its geognostical formation, the re- 
 searches with which I have been occupied to determine 
 it, have put me in possession of an immense number of 
 facts, from which I hope to deduce a very simple and 
 satisfactory theory on the primary earths. 
 
 My professional friends are urgent that I should 
 send them from time to time a scientific paper which 
 they might publish as a certificate of my existence. 
 I am as convinced as they are of the advantage which 
 would result to me from such publications, but I 
 absolutely want leisure ; and if I wished to write some 
 pages with care, pages which I should not regret 
 at any future time having written, I immediately feel 
 the want of books, which are not at hand. I had rather 
 pass for dead than for dying, which might be con- 
 cluded from feeble and neglected works. I cannot 
 flatter myself that I shall bring home from my journey 
 materials enough to live upon India for a score and a 
 half of years, as M. de Humboldt has done on his 
 concerning America ; but if I could, I should not like 
 such a thing. 
 
 I am now ready to descend into the plains ; but 
 whether it will be to proceed to the south or to the 
 north, I know not. 
 
 I am negociating with the rajah Runjeet-Sing 
 and the government of Calcutta, to obtain from the 
 latter permission to leave their states by the Sutledge, 
 
3 1*2 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 and from the rajah that of entering his. This point being 
 gained, I shall have to run after Runjeet I know not 
 where, for he is making war on the revolted Afghans of 
 the Upper Indus. I shall have to make a score and 
 half of bows, give him a few louis for a Turkish dress, 
 and remove the suspicions which he conceives of all 
 Europeans. 
 
 How charming it would be for us to meet again at 
 Paray, when you will have so many nice new things to 
 show me there, and I so many stories to tell you ! How 
 much more should I be attached to that secluded and 
 tranquil spot, if, on returning to France, I could 
 spend the winter with you there, free from care, re- 
 perusing the journals of my travels, and preparing some 
 work which might draw my name from obscurity. 
 
 Thanks a thousand times for the details of your 
 long and kind letter. I keep my reflections on 
 these novelties to myself, for my letter would be 
 endless. 
 
 The extracts from our journals in the English 
 papers, selected without discernment by the journalists 
 of Calcutta, and which reach me here after this double 
 test, give me great uneasiness concerning the issue of the 
 absurd quarrels at present carried on in France. With 
 an august imbecile like ours, there are no longer any 
 probabilities to guide one in conjectures about the 
 future. — Every thing is possible ; and the circle of possi- 
 bilities encloses great misfortunes ! I shall know in a 
 fortnight the result of the first electoral operations, but 
 I easily foresee it. What I cannot foresee is the con- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 313 
 
 sequence of a new liberal majority in the chamber of 
 deputies. — Adieu, my friend. I wish to turn my 
 thoughts from such melancholy and irritating subjects. 
 Adieu ! Write to me oftener ; speak to your father of 
 my filial attachment to him, and remember me kindly 
 to the rest of your family. A few words more to 
 answer what you tell me of your children. Is it not 
 ten years ago since I began to say that Louisa would 
 one day be very beautiful, and the same time nearly 
 that I made the engagement for Mary, which she 
 keeps ? Adieu again ; I love you and embrace you 
 with all my heart. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Semla, in the Indian Himalaya, October 28th, 1830. 
 
 My dear Father. — Among my European, Ame- 
 rican, Asiatic, and African correspondents, I have 
 already written thirty-four letters (some of which will 
 come to you), and I have not done yet, although I 
 have limited my correspondence to what is strictly 
 necessary. I wanted to keep you for the last, but I 
 knew not when your turn would come ; so then, with- 
 out farther preamble, I shall answer your two letters, 
 which I found here on my return from Kanawer, on 
 the 13th of this month. It is a great affair to reply 
 properly to six pages of your close and small writing. 
 But fortunately several of my letters, written since my 
 
314 A JOURNEY IX INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 departure from Calcutta, will have satisfied you on 
 many points which made you uneasy at the date of your 
 No. 13. You hiss the wild elephants, tigers, lions, and 
 serpents; and you care very little for the blanks in your 
 map designating the unexplored countries which you 
 find sometimes on my route, or for the 12mos. (with re- 
 gard to which my opinions do not vary), &c. &c. If there 
 is any other danger about which your affection alarms 
 you on my account, tell Porphyre to show you how 
 to make a rule of three ; and from my success against 
 the obstacles which your perfect security about me has 
 drawn up in battle array, on my road, conclude that I 
 shall be equally fortunate against future difficulties. 
 
 I am returned from afar ; I have often been very 
 cold ; I have had a hundred and eighteen very bad 
 dinners ; — but I think myself amply recompensed for 
 these Trans-Himalayan miseries, by the interesting 
 observations and vast collections which I have been 
 able to make in a country perfectly new. The Tartars 
 are very good sort of people. It is true, that to please 
 them I made myself a little heathen after their fashion, 
 and joined without scruple in their national chorus, 
 " Houm ! mani, pani, houm !" and liberally distributed 
 among them fifty pounds of tobacco, to enable them to 
 smoke the calumet of peace with me. Near Ladac, how- 
 ever, they endeavoured to stop my progress by the 
 excessive price they put upon the provisions of which 
 my caravan stood in need. Their refusing them 
 altogether, which they should have done as faithful 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMEHE. 315 
 
 Chinese subjects, would have been compelling me to 
 plunder their villages, and take by force what I re- 
 quired ; but their circumspection preserved them from 
 such a measure. I however considered the excessive 
 dearness of their consent as a refusal, and reformed the 
 prices by authority, still leaving them very high. I 
 added the formal threat of plunder, if my camp was not 
 well provisioned on these conditions ; and I was allowed 
 to want nothing. 
 
 If I was not the son of so great a philosopher, 
 hereditarily insensible to worldly greatness, I should 
 not have returned to Semla, but have remained in 
 Tartary, king or khan of some villages. Assisted 
 by three servants, I literally took the fort of Dunker, 
 in Spiti, which you will find somewhere astride on the 
 32° of latitude. 
 
 Sabhatoo, October 31st. 
 
 If I were not candid, as the Baron de Stendhal calls 
 me, I should not want matter for plenty of stories ; I 
 will only tell you that I believe less than ever in ad- 
 ventures, precipices, &c. &c. I used to repeat to 
 Madame Micond, when I formed the project of visiting 
 the Alps with Hippolyte Jaubert, " people do not kill 
 themselves." It was then only a conviction of feeling 
 in me; it is now experience, and of long standing. 
 The English doctor, who travelled without the slightest 
 advantage, part of the journey which I have just 
 brought to so fortunate a close, left half-a-dozen 
 servants on the Sutledge, in Spiti, and in the snows of 
 
316 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the summits of the Himalaya. Of this, he somewhat 
 boasts. He says he experienced excess of sufferings, 
 when they had to pass the highest gorges. I encamped, 
 and even sojourned in places at a greater height than 
 those over which he only passed, and felt nothing of 
 these miseries. But I drank water, and he brandy. 
 Not one of my people (and I always had fifty) was 
 seriously indisposed in this more than six months' expe- 
 dition ; there was not a fall, nor an accident of any kind. 
 I learned the value of discipline on board the Zelee of 
 immoveable memory ; and I introduced some of it into 
 my caravan, to prevent mishaps, or, at all events, to 
 remedy them immediately. My people soon understood 
 that this regulation, which at first seemed irksome to 
 them, was made for their safety and welfare ; and on 
 my return to Semla, there was not one who did not 
 wish to remain with me. The English treat them 
 like dogs and beasts of burthen, the labour of which 
 these poor devils in truth perform. For some days I 
 imitated cold English hauteur, but returned afterwards 
 into my natural character of a good-natured fellow. I 
 shall frequently regret my mountaineers. I shall no 
 doubt take one or two with me into the plains. 
 Although, since my departure from Calcutta, I have 
 not yet been robbed by my servants, and have still two 
 of my Bengalese, I have not more confidence in them 
 than I had the first day I hired them. The moun- 
 taineers are like the poor Lafleur whom Yorick took at 
 Montreuil, full of good will, but not knowing how to 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 317 
 
 do anything. In this country it is no great fault in a 
 servant to be fit for nothing. My pahari will have no 
 other business than to carry my gun and guard my 
 imperial treasure. It will be a sort of insurance which 
 will cost me thirteen francs a month. 
 
 You ask me for some personal details about myself. 
 What could I add to those which I have so often given 
 you since my departure from Calcutta? My Semla 
 friends tell me that I am returned from Tibet a little 
 stouter, and that I have brought back with me the 
 appearance of perfect health. I possess the reality of 
 it. I am very brown ; I have large mustachios of a 
 distressing colour ; no whiskers, long hair, a very small 
 light and flexible palm straw hat, made at Pondichery 
 — every two or three months it is covered with a new 
 black silk shirt ; I have not lost a single tooth. Thus 
 I am not a bit the worse. Having returned yesterday 
 to the hot country, I dressed myself in white cambric 
 muslin from head to foot ; in the evening, to dine 
 tete-a-tete with my host, notwithstanding our in- 
 timacy, I was in full dress, silk stockings and black 
 everywhere instead of the white I wore in the morning. 
 It is my ceremonious and perhaps foppish formality 
 of the evening which permits me to do as I like 
 in the day-time. My Parisian tailor stands greatly in 
 need of a successor ; and I shall soon find one at 
 Meerut. Were it not that I am ashamed of exhibiting 
 my calves, which are not so flourishing as my shoulders, 
 I should increase my actual etiquette so far as to adopt 
 
318 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 breeches ; but I am not yet enough of a philosopher for 
 that. I shall be content with substituting a dress coat 
 for my black frock. The judges in Calcutta often 
 wear trousers ; so will I — the whole will be of a thick 
 black Chinese silk stuff (economical). For the moun- 
 tains, I have thick dresses of white woollen stuff. I 
 have brought from Tibet a stuff of this kind, as soft as 
 a Cashmere shawl, and I now wear it. I have also had 
 a dressing-gown made, in which I do not despair of 
 doing metaphysics in my old age. In cool weather I 
 wrap round my neck a large white shawl without a 
 border, and consequently of no value. In the evening, 
 in order not to be frozen in my tent, I have twelve 
 ells of my superb Thibetan flannel (which cost me 
 ten francs) rolled over my body from head to foot, and 
 I do not look much unlike a mummy. On a march, I 
 never wear stockings ; and in the evening, if I can 
 keep my legs warm, I never suffer from cold feet. 
 Formerly this was doubtless a morbid disposition, 
 which is effectually effaced, as well as my tendency to 
 sore throat. I breakfast invariably before I start. 
 This is contrary to the English custom ; but it is because 
 their marches last three hours at most, and mine fre- 
 quently do not end till night-fall. I set out, then, at 
 four or five o'clock in the morning, ballasted for four- 
 teen or fifteen hours, and my meal is very plain. It is 
 a large cup of cow's or buffalo's milk — goat's where 
 there is no better — with some cakes of coarsely ground 
 corn. These cakes are what the natives call their 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 319 
 
 bread (roti). After trying them six months, I have 
 completely given up rice. The poor sub-lieutenant, 
 when on a journey, drags after him a few sheep. In 
 order to eat meat at dinner, I have only the very 
 uncertain chance of getting an old cock or hen. But 
 I do not sleep the worse for lying down after a repe- 
 tition of my Brahminical breakfast ; besides, if I find 
 honey anywhere, I have my empty bottles filled with 
 it ; this rarity I carry everywhere with me, when 
 there is no milk or fowl — for instance, when I encamp 
 in a desert. 
 
 I have still four pint bottles of brandy left out of the 
 twenty-four which I brought from Calcutta a year ago ; 
 but my majesty's maitre d'hotel has broken — that is to 
 say drunk — about six or seven, and I have used four 
 or five to preserve different objects of natural history. 
 But J have just done an admirable thing at Semla. A 
 man died there the other day. When he was buried, 
 his house and furniture were sold by auction ; such is 
 the law. But there were no purchasers, as there, then 
 was scarcely any body left in the mountains. I bought 
 a basket of port wine, which connoisseurs pronounce 
 the best in India. It cost me exactly three francs 
 and half a bottle, and it is worth fifteen or twenty. 
 When I have to cross the unhealthy forests I shall 
 drink a small glass to your health, and it will not 
 injure mine. — Very middling claret costs ten francs a 
 bottle at Calcutta. When it arrives at Delhi it is 
 always little better than vinegar. My port is proof 
 
320 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 against such a transformation. I shall endeavour to bring 
 you a bottle to make Porphyre tipsy with, or failing 
 in that, Frederic, without any other witnesses. My 
 cellar will be quite stocked for more than a year. — 
 Good news of my cavalry which I left at Sharunpore 
 last April. My host there, Dr. Royle, sub-Wallich 
 by profession, sends me word that I should hardly 
 know my poney again. Happily the soil is very sandy 
 about Sharunpore, where the acquaintance will be 
 renewed between him and his rider ; for this extraordi- 
 nary vigour of my old companion promises me many 
 a fall. 
 
 Evening. 
 
 Although we Europeans number only seven in this 
 place, I am just returned from a funeral. The deceased 
 was a young officer, who had five or six good reasons 
 for dying ; the brain injected, the lungs tubercled to 
 the last degree, the liver disorganised, the peritoneum 
 inflamed, &c. &c. I know this, for I myself opened 
 the body, which appeared to me to gratify the 
 survivors, who begged me to do it. I do not avoid 
 mentioning this event of the day to you, because my 
 head is always cool, I never feel any pain in my liver 
 or bowels, and I can climb and run without being out 
 of breath, the longest and steepest acclivities ; — a 
 proof that all parts of my lungs are in good order and 
 perform their functions properly. With the exception 
 of some formidable places, which no one can pass in 
 certain -seasons of the year, without exposing himself 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 321 
 
 to an almost certain death, I do not believe the climate 
 of India to be so fatal as it is generally represented. 
 You recommend me to be my own physician -, this I 
 always am. My alimentary regimen is generally so 
 mild, that when I travel or stay in suspected places, I 
 can, by modifying it, obtain medical effects sufficient 
 to remove any suspicion of intermittent fevers which 
 I might conceive. A glass of brandy in the morning 
 before going out, some spices in the evening at dinner, 
 and before going to bed, a little sulphur, sugar, or 
 resin burnt in my tent. I shall henceforth add a 
 chillum, or tobacco pipe, in the oriental fashion, 
 adopted by the great majority of Europeans. The 
 tobacco which is stuffed into this little apparatus is 
 mixed with different kinds of dried fruits, particularly 
 apples, and a little conserve of roses ; and the 
 smoke, traversing a vessel full of water, reaches the 
 mouth cool and divested of all acridity. Every other 
 mode of smoking is barbarous when compared to 
 this. 
 
 But I am speaking too much of myself, although 
 you desired to know all about me. The ignorance 
 which prevails in England about India is incon- 
 ceivable. The English papers, when they speak of it, 
 are scarcely less absurd than our own. Never believe 
 any thing you read in them. I am perfectly well 
 informed of the commercial and political relations be- 
 tween the English factory at Canton and the Chinese 
 Government, and can assure you that there will be no 
 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
322 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 war in that quarter for a long time to come. The two 
 governments are sometimes sulky with each other, and 
 the question then is which of them shall not make 
 the first step towards an accommodation : the factory 
 orders all English vessels to remove, suspends its 
 immense purchases, and consequently the receipts of 
 the Chinese custom-houses ; and, as a deficiency in this 
 respect would cost the viceroy of Canton his head, it is 
 always he who has to come forward and yield the point 
 in dispute. As for political insurrections in China, 
 nothing is more common, as in every other part of the 
 East. A province revolts, the emperor sends forces 
 there, his troops are very bad and seldom risk a battle ; 
 but the hostile forces pass the time in observing each 
 other, and the Government always succeeds in corrupt- 
 ing some of its enemies, who deliver up their chiefs ; 
 these have their heads cut off at Pekin, and there is an 
 end of the matter. But they immediately begin again 
 in some other part of the empire. — In the Indian princi- 
 palities, nominally or really independent, there is con- 
 stantly the same sport. Look for Belaspore on your 
 map, near Subhatos, on the banks of the Sutledge. 
 The rajah hung his vizier a week ago, and is now here 
 because his subjects have taken the part of the dead 
 man. The prince in short is come to claim the assist- 
 ance of Kennedy. The latter is making an inquiry, 
 which he will submit to the resident at Delhi, who, 
 without referring the matter to Calcutta, will, no 
 doubt, condemn the rajah to bestow a pension on 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 323 
 
 the family of the vizier unreasonably put to death, 
 and make him give good security not to repeat such 
 an act. If the people of Belaspore were to persist in 
 not receiving their petty sovereign back, Kennedy 
 would march a company or two of his gorkhas, and all 
 would be restored to order immediately. — We are 
 making war in Bikaneer on the western frontier, not 
 far from hence, which means only a hundred leagues 
 off. Some great feudatories of this wretched crown, 
 refused tribute to their legitimate prince. The latter 
 immediately demanded the assistance of the English ; 
 and the resident of Delhi has just ordered three 
 regiments of infantry and one of cavalry to march 
 into Bikaneer. Their approach is sufficient to appease 
 the rebellion. The dukes and counts of the desert 
 will come and arrange matters with the commander 
 of this little expedition. They will pay the rajah 
 something more, in the shape of a fine, and will 
 defray the expense occasioned to the English Govern- 
 ment by displacing its troops. 
 
 The English officers of the Indian army are ex- 
 ceedingly dissatisfied with Lord William and the Court 
 of Directors, on account of the reduction recently 
 made in their pay. It is possible that a regiment may 
 openly revolt. Twenty years ago, a sedition of this 
 kind, provoked by the same cause, broke out in the 
 Madras presidency : the governor was put on board 
 ship almost by force, and driven away. This happened 
 at a critical period* If Runjeet-Sing had then crossed 
 
 y 2 
 
324 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the Sutledge, the Mahrattas and Bundlecund, which 
 were not then reduced to submission, and marched 
 to Bengal, the British power would no doubt have 
 re-entered into the limits conquered by Lord Clive ; — 
 but the revolted of Madras soon perceived the danger, 
 and returned of themselves to their duty, with the 
 exception of a regiment or two, which the others 
 immediately reduced ; and the Government had the 
 weakness not to shoot a single officer. Lord William 
 would have been more severe : his invincible firmness 
 is well known. There are only a few fools who will 
 perhaps brave it without any chance of success. All 
 the officers, however, agreed, in their correspondence 
 with Europe, to draw an exaggerated picture of 
 the exasperation of the army (that is to say of the 
 European officers of the army — for the soldiers and 
 subalterns, that is the Indians, do not take the least 
 part in this quarrel, in which they are peculiarly 
 disinterested), and of the dangers to which it exposes 
 the Government, in order to intimidate the Court of 
 Directors, and obtain the revocation of the economical 
 measures carried into execution by Lord William ; but 
 the latter, you may easily suppose, wrote also to the 
 Directors that these dangers were imaginary, and that 
 they must remain firm. 
 
 Lord William, on arriving in India, found that the 
 expenses of the Government exceeded its receipts (six 
 hundred millions of francs) by a twelfth, that is fifty 
 millions. He immediately wrote a curious letter to 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 325 
 
 the Court of Directors, which has just been published in 
 England by order of Parliament : — It would, he said, 
 be the worst of measures to continue on this footing. 
 The imposts must be raised fifty millions of francs, 
 or the expenses reduced by so much. Each of these 
 remedies offers great inconveniences ; the latter is 
 the least evil, and I adopt it. — Great joy on this 
 occasion amongst the natives, assured of having 
 nothing more to pay ; great anger among the 
 Europeans. They wished the Dutchman at the 
 devil (Lord William is of Dutch origin ; his great 
 grandfather arrived in England with William, in 
 1688); they hope he may be drowned in the Ganges, 
 or break his neck in the mountains, whither he is 
 now coming — but be assured that they will not ship 
 him for London. 
 
 The Calcutta papers inform me that Rammohun 
 Roy is sailing for London. He is a Brahmin of 
 Bengal, the most learned of the orientalists. He is 
 acquainted with Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, 
 Sanscrit, and writes admirably in English. He is 
 not a Christian, whatever they may say. He has 
 converted several skilful clergymen of the English 
 episcopal church, who had been sent to him, to 
 Unitarianism. The honest English execrate him, 
 because, say they, he is a frightful deist. The 
 Hindoos, of the priestly order, abhor him for the 
 same reason. If I find him in Paris on my return, I 
 
326 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 will bring him to talk metaphysics with you. I used 
 to see him often at Calcutta. 
 
 The political hubbub in our country often disturbs 
 me : I catch some bits of it here and there in the 
 Calcutta papers, in extracts from the English journals, 
 but made without skill or discernment. Notwith- 
 standing my scepticism, not to say my habitual 
 incredulity, I confess I consider inevitable a revo- 
 lution more or less complete. I know well what 
 will be the issue of it, and I do not dread it j but 
 I do fear the passing evils which will perhaps lead 
 to it. I have lately written to Lady William to 
 beg she will send me the French journals, after every 
 body about her has read them. I shall thus have 
 the Gazette de France, the Constitutionnel, and the 
 Courrier Francais. 
 
 The arrival of the new Governor of Bombay annoys 
 you. It is true that it will render useless the 
 numerous recommendations which I had brought from 
 Europe for General Malcolm. I had also some for 
 the Judges of that presidency ; but they have all died 
 within the last two years, and their successors also. 
 However one remains firm, the Chief Justice. He is 
 an intimate friend of Sutton Sharpe's, and was only a 
 barrister at Bombay eighteen months ago. I have so 
 admirable a letter for him from Sharpe, that I do not 
 doubt of being perfectly well received. He is 
 moreover a young man of four-and-thirty, and of our 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 327 
 
 own school. He will serve as my introducer to Lord 
 Clare, whom nobody here knows. 
 
 Adieu, my dear father. I am now going to dis- 
 charge my account with Porphyre. It will be long, 
 and you will find in it all that is wanting in this. 
 Kind regards to every one. Adieu ! — Once more, I 
 am in excellent health, and next year shall get excel- 
 lently well over thirty. I embrace you with all my 
 heart. 
 
 TO M. PORPHYRE JACQUEMONT, PARIS. 
 
 Sabaton, November 1st, 1830. Sobatoo, Sabatuo, 
 Subatoo, Subhatoo, ad libitum. 
 
 My dear Porphyre, — My last letter was a very 
 long one, and accompanied one to our father of an 
 equal extent ; both dated from Nako in Hangarang, 
 the 26th August. It replied to two letters which had 
 miraculously succeeded in finding me in Tibet ; but it 
 contained also a great deal more. For fear it should 
 be lost, I return to a part of its contents, without 
 which this would be unintelligible. Runjeet-Sing, 
 king of Lahore, has several French officers in his 
 service. His generalissimo is a Monsieur Allard, 
 formerly aide-de-camp to Brune, who, I think, has 
 shown himself at several Asiatic courts for the purpose 
 of obtaining a military command. He has been in 
 
3^8 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Egypt, Syria, at Constantinople, at Teheran ; and he 
 came at length to Lahore in 1822. Runjeet did not 
 engage him until he had obtained the consent of the 
 English Government ; for, according to the terms of 
 the treaties, he ought not to admit any European into 
 his army. But British policy having changed con- 
 siderably since the time when this treaty was made, 
 the cabinet of Calcutta answered the rajah that they 
 did not insist upon the execution of that article. Since 
 that period they have allowed several other French 
 military men to travel, without molestation, from 
 Calcutta to the frontier of the Sutledge, particularly 
 a younger brother of M. Allard, whose avowed object 
 was to enter Runjeet-Sing's service. The British 
 Government beholds without jealousy these attempts 
 at discipline and European, though French civilisa- 
 tion, beyond the Sutledge, and the individual English 
 appear to entertain great good will towards our 
 countrymen in the Punjab. Of M. Allard, in par- 
 ticular, I have never heard them speak but with 
 esteem. 
 
 Jacquemont here gives 31. Dillard's letter, which 
 the reader has seen before ; then his own, and 
 adds — 
 
 Here is the answer which I found at Semla, the 
 13th October last. 
 
LAHORE AND CASimERE. 3'29 
 
 " Umbritsir* , September 27th, 1830. 
 
 " Sir, — Your answer, which I expected with the 
 greatest impatience, has reached me at Amretsir, where 
 the rajah usually collects his troops for the festival of 
 the desere. When I had the honour "of addressing 
 you, I flattered myself that you would receive my 
 letter with pleasure ; but I was far from expecting 
 that it would draw so many obliging things from you, 
 which I receive with gratitude, but which add nothing 
 to the sincere desire I have of being useful to you. 
 I shall be happy if, from my situation in this kingdom, 
 I can facilitate the scientific discoveries which, with 
 truly astonishing courage, you are come to make 
 in regions so full of dangers. However, my good will, 
 to which will be joined that of my good friend and 
 brother in arms, M. Ventura t, who is not less impatient 
 than I am to become acquainted with you, gives me 
 the certainty of easily smoothing many difficulties for 
 you, if you decide on crossing the Sutledge. It is 
 true that our rajah is not pleased to see Europeans 
 coming from India, visit his kingdom, particularly the 
 province of Cashmere ; but if you could obtain letters 
 from the Governor of Delhi for Runjeet-Singl:, or 
 
 * Umbritzir, or Amratsir, Umretsir, Amretsir, &c, is a large city, 
 between the Sutledge and Lahore ; it is the holy city, the Rome of 
 the Seikhs. (Author's note.) 
 
 f Ventura, an Italian officer in the service of Runjeet, formerly 
 in our army. (Author's note.) 
 
 J Runjeet, Runjeet- Sing, the Rajah, — Maradjah, — one and the 
 same person, King of Lahore. (Author's note.) 
 
330 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 even from Captain Wade * , the first difficulties would 
 be removed ; and as to what remains to be done, it will 
 be our place to provide for your safety and necessities: 
 all these things are necessary for a countryman of 
 ours, such as M. Jacquemont, to travel in the Punjab. 
 Lord William Bentinck and Sir Charles Metcalfe 
 did not deceive you when they assured you that a 
 journey into the country of Kabal was impracticable. 
 To undertake it would be to expose yourself to almost 
 certain danger. I address my letter to Dr. Murray 
 at Loodheeana, who will have the kindness to forward 
 it to Captain Kennedy, in order that it may be 
 delivered to you. I hope it will reach you soon, and 
 that it will induce you to continue a correspondence 
 to which I attach the greatest value. I repeat, Sir, 
 the offer of my services in whatever way they may be 
 useful, as also the assurance of the high consideration 
 with which I have the honour," &c. &c. 
 
 My reply to this second letter from M. Allard was, 
 that I had determined on paying him a visit, and to 
 put his credit with the rajah to the test. I wrote at 
 the same time to Lord W. Bentinck to inform him of 
 my design, and to beg of him to procure for me, in 
 the form most favourable to the success of this 
 negociation, a letter of introduction to Runjeet. I 
 shall have his answer in twelve days or a fortnight. 
 
 * Political agent at Loodheeana, subordinate to the Governor or 
 Resident of Delhi. (Author's note.) 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 331 
 
 Runjeet-Sing is not without resemblance to the 
 Pacha of Egypt. No doubt, Europeans in his service 
 are exposed to occasional injustice, but nothing very 
 grievous. When M. Allard has reason to complain 
 of Runjeet, he is not afraid to look coldly on him for 
 a month or two ; and he knows how to oblige the 
 rajah to reconsider the measure which had justly 
 offended or irritated him. Runjeet has a singular 
 tact in discovering suspicious adventurers, and getting 
 rid of such characters. 
 
 I have begged Lord William to entitle me Lord 
 Physician Victor Jacquemont, and to support the 
 title of hakim, I shall carry with me some pounds 
 of cantharides. Mr. Elphinstone, in his embassy 
 to Cabul, made himself adored for the Venetian 
 pills which he distributed. One of the most com- 
 mon diseases in the East is precocious impotence. 
 The Levantines know very well how to relieve 
 themselves from it, from time to time, by the use of 
 cantharides; but to the eastward of Persia such means 
 are unknown. 
 
 Whatever Dr. Wallich may have done, or caused to 
 be done, there will remain a sufficiency of novelties 
 for me to afford a pretence for a book on botany, 
 which will not merely be a flora, that is to say, a 
 description of the different species of plants in the 
 Himalaya ; and, if I am not mistaken, the book of 
 which I have an idea, not a very voluminous one, 
 will not be devoid of interest. I shall compare the 
 
33*2 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 vegetation of the Himalaya with that of the Alps, 
 the rocky mountains to the west of the Missouri, and 
 the lofty Cordilleras of equinoctial America. 
 
 Six months of geological observations, occupying 
 many pages of my journals, will permit me to produce 
 something different from the vulgar work, of which 
 many parts of the Himalaya have frequently been the 
 subject : that is to say, a local description. From the 
 whole of my observations, I think I shall be able to 
 conclude against the ideas generally admitted con- 
 cerning their primitive formation. I cannot deny 
 to M. de Humboldt the correctness of the observations 
 which he has made in the Cordilleras and in Europe ; 
 but I think the statement of my own will render his 
 very doubtful. A book of geology on the Himalaya, 
 or on the geology of the Himalaya, will be much more 
 sought after in England than in France ; and I pre- 
 sume that an English version would find a sale in 
 London. I think I shall give myself the trouble of 
 translating myself into that language, with some 
 variations, so that the English book may not be con- 
 sidered a mere translation, made by a translator at 
 so much a sheet. Perhaps I shall find something 
 besides trouble in writing in a foreign language? Even 
 now I should have the boldness to undertake such an 
 affair ; and certainly it will become still easier to me in 
 a few years. My English correspondence, of which I 
 often complain, will have been very useful to me. 
 
 Eating creates appetite. If I pass some years in 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 333 
 
 the Punjab it will not be without acquiring a perfect 
 knowledge of the quantity and quality of the Persian 
 requisite for the transaction of official matters ; and 
 amid the political changes which the future reserves 
 for our country, perhaps I shall for a time find some 
 advantageous employment in the East ! Laugh at me, 
 my dear Porphyre, and I will join heartily in the chorus. 
 But it is amusing to build aerial castles in a smoky 
 hut. 
 
 I have received the Annuaire die bureau des lon- 
 gitudes for 1829 ; but alone, and without any letters 
 in company. 
 
 I neither eat opium nor chew betel— no European 
 chews betel, very few eat opium. I have just accepted 
 a little present from Kennedy before leaving him ; it is 
 a hookha, of which I will make you a present on my 
 return, if it is not stolen between here and Paris. 
 You talk to me of cigars — the hookha is not por- 
 table, it is a rather complicated apparatus, weighing 
 three or four pounds ; but the smoke you draw 
 through it is so mild, so cool, and so perfumed, that I 
 predict you will keep one in your old age, and I hope it 
 will be my Himalayan one. I do not see why Sir John 
 Malcolm's departure should annoy you. No one here 
 knows Lord Clare, his successor ; but I shall arrive in 
 Bombay no less well recommended on that account. 
 
 To-morrow Kennedy goes back to Semla. I shall at 
 the same time go down into the plains with a new 
 acquaintance, who pleases me much : this is Mr. Fraser, 
 
334 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the viceroy of Delhi, a civil, judicial, and financial 
 officer of the highest rank. Mr. Fraser was in the 
 Punjab with Mr. Elphinstone, of whose embassy he 
 formed a part ; he is the person best informed con- 
 cerning the Seikh country. My meeting with him is 
 providential. The day after to-morrow he will continue 
 his route to Delhi, and I shall return hither, whence I 
 shall start again next day for Sharunpore, through 
 Nahun. I am not yet accustomed to the singular 
 attraction which I exercise over the English : its 
 effects often astonish me. I have what is much better 
 than the pleasures of self-love : the sincere attachment 
 to me which many evince. At Semla I frequently 
 saw an invalid officer, Kennedy's friend and pre- 
 decessor. He left us some days ago for Hyderabad 
 (the capital of central India), of which he has just been 
 appointed viceroy. Our hearts swelled as we said good- 
 bye. I shall be very melancholy to think that I may 
 never see that good and amiable man again. I shall be 
 gloriously feasted if I go to Hyderabad. The people 
 who please me most are the military men detached 
 from their corps, and employed for a long period in 
 political duties, or more frequently in political, civil, 
 judicial, financial, and military all at once. It is from 
 them that I obtain the best information about the 
 country. I seem like one of their comrades. 
 
 P. S. Umbala, in the country of the protected Seikhs, 
 quite at the top of the map. 9th February, 1831. 
 
 What things have happened, my friend, since the 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE- 335 
 
 commencement of this letter ! Do not be angry with 
 me for not finishing and despatching it to you sooner. 
 I was waiting from day to day, in order to have some 
 good news to send you — but none arrives from any 
 quarter. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Delhi, January \Qth, 1831. 
 
 How shall I begin, my dear father ? My last letter, 
 written at Semla and Subhatoo, was dated the 1st 
 November. The most recent news from Europe for 
 us folks in the Himalaya, came down only so far as 
 June ; and now I have just been reading the Debats 
 of the 8th August, and the Gazette de France of the 
 ] Oth, and I know the whole series of events that have 
 filled this interval. 
 
 It was towards the latter end of November, when at 
 Sharunpore, that I heard the first sound of the tocsin. 
 It was at night, after a long day's study, spent far from 
 Europe, and I was about to lie down and sleep on the 
 thoughts of the day, when a messenger arrived in my 
 camp at full gallop. He brought from a neighbouring 
 European habitation a Calcutta Gazette, printed in an 
 unusual form, bearing this title in large letters, 
 
 "THE NEW FRENCH REVOLUTION." 
 
 I accepted the chance of it at once, and bargained 
 for freedom at the price of some thousands slain and a 
 
336 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 month of civil war. The perusal of my bulletin soon 
 informed me that the Parisians had made better con- 
 ditions. Not that the slain were wanting ; but it only 
 required three days' fighting to crush the counter-revo- 
 lution at Paris. The great towns in her vicinity had 
 done like her; and, although my undigested chronicle 
 stopped at the 31st of July, without answering for even 
 the events which it related under that date, I slept 
 peaceably till morning, without fearing to be awakened 
 by fresh gun-shots. 
 
 This news had been brought to Calcutta by an Eng- 
 lish ship, which had sailed from Southampton on the 
 2nd of August. Since then, another has arrived from 
 Bourdeaux, having left that city : it entered the Ganges 
 with the tri-coloured flag, which was immediately 
 hoisted by all the other ships of our nation moored in 
 the river. I was at Meerut, the largest military station 
 of the English in India, when the flood of news which 
 she brought, arrived there. Friends and strangers all 
 came to congratulate me on being a Frenchman ; I 
 defy M. de Lafayette, in America, to have shaken more 
 hands in one day than I did. My host, a cavalry 
 colonel, who was the only one of his regiment that 
 escaped at Waterloo — not without a ball through his 
 body — wept for joy as he embraced me. Enthusiasm 
 had put the rigid etiquette of English manners to the 
 route ; the sauve qui peut still lasts ! I might throw 
 my passports, and letters of introduction, into the fire, 
 change my name, and, preserving only my French 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 337 
 
 tionality, and set out for Cape Comorin — there is not 
 an European in India that would not receive me with 
 open arms. These enjoyments are new to me ; I cannot 
 describe them. All shades of political opinion among 
 my hosts are confounded in the same feelings of admi- 
 ration, love, and gratitude to the French name ; and as I 
 am the only one that bears it, I receive proofs of these 
 feelings from all sides. 
 
 All the civil and military officers of this province 
 joined in giving me a fete on the last day of the year 
 just ended. Of course, a constitutional and moreover an 
 English fete was a banquet, and you may guess that I 
 did not escape from this enthusiasm without a speech ; 
 but I was wound up to the same pitch as my hosts, and 
 words cost me nothing. 
 
 The following, among many others, is the best, I 
 think, of my English improvisations : do not forget 
 that it came after several toasts and furious cheers in 
 favour of France and plenty of bottles of Champagne. 
 
 " Gentlemen, I have no words to express to you the 
 tumultuous feelings of happiness that excite in my 
 heart your hearty cheers for the prosperity of my coun- 
 try. If any thing can console me for being so far from 
 it when I might have shared in the dangers and in the 
 glory of my fellow-citizens, it is certainly the present 
 circumstance of my sitting a guest at your banquet ; it 
 is the sublime spectacle of your enthusiastic sympathy 
 for the righteous victory of my countrymen in a holy 
 cause. I shall remember always with the deepest emo- 
 
 vol. i. z 
 
338 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 tion this memorable, this most poetical occurrence of 
 my life. These British acclamations for the liberty of 
 France, resounding in this far distant land of Asia, at 
 the gates of Delhi, will awake in my grateful heart as 
 
 long as it breathes, a poetical echo of admiration. 
 
 Here I resume these glorious colours which adorn 
 alike your breasts in this patriotic meeting, and which 
 wave over us, mixed by your friendly hands, with the 
 noble colours of free England. Gentlemen, let us hope 
 they may be never divided ! Too long indeed they were 
 opposed to each other! — Both then waved over vic- 
 tories unparalleled hitherto in the records of history. — 
 Mournful were those victories, which proved often ruin- 
 ous to the conquerors as well as to the conquered ! — 
 Gentlemen, it is not as the symbol of the military glory 
 of my nation that the tricolour is so dear to me. — I am 
 a man before I am a Frenchman ; I do not cherish the 
 recollection of a glory bought by the miseries, by the 
 oppression of all the continental nations of Europe, and 
 by the political servitude of France herself. I admire — 
 but I lament that glory which united all the people of 
 Europe in a feeling of hatred for the French name, 
 and which finally made, twice, the deserted eagle and 
 the independence of my country a prey to the storm of 
 European popular revenge. The gallic cock which 
 surmounts the tricolour banner of the 28th of July 
 brings to me no such recollections : it is not a bird of 
 prey, a symbol of conquest ; but a national and spirited 
 emblem of industry, of watchfulness, and of strength 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 339 
 
 also, and of undaunted courage. Iniquitously attacked 
 by the Prussian eagle during the domestic struggles 
 of our first revolution, it drove it fiercely back to 
 the Rhine. — Had it stood there — had it not under- 
 gone its imperial metamorphosis, and flying over 
 the frontier, inflicted desolation on the people of 
 
 Europe for the wrongs of their kings ! Gentlemen, 
 
 believe me that those feelings which I have so feebly 
 expressed to you through a foreign language, but which 
 live so warm in my heart, are shared in by the 
 immense majority of the generation to which I belong, 
 and which now assumes the political power in my 
 country. — Believe me, that equally proud of British 
 friendship, equally convinced that the union of France 
 and England, the leaders of modern civilisation, would 
 prove a blessing to both, and countenance everywhere 
 the generous efforts of liberty, and secure throughout 
 Europe the steps of social improvements and promote 
 human happiness — believe me, Gentlemen, that all 
 my countrymen would rise with me and rapturously 
 propose with me the toast I beg to offer : France and 
 England for the World * !" 
 
 It, of course, costs my modesty as an author a great 
 deal to add, that flattering murmurs several times in- 
 terrupted me, and that these agreeable murmurs 
 swelled more than once into a thunder of applause — but 
 as an impartial historian, I am forced to confess it. 
 
 * The above speech is in Jacquemont's original English (T.) 
 
 z2 
 
340 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Do not from that, my dear father, form an un- 
 favourable opinion of the literary good taste of my 
 friends ; but recollect the place, the circumstances, 
 the Great Mogul near us, &c. &c. All to me was 
 like magic. 
 
 I had very seasonably disciplined myself to the fire 
 of speeches at Meerut which I chanced to visit at the 
 time of the grand military reviews, each of which was 
 followed by a dinner given to the inspecting general 
 officer. I was at all these parties without being able to 
 help it, and they seldom terminated without a toast to 
 the health and success of the traveller, &c. &c. " May he 
 sometimes forget among us that he is far from his native 
 country," &c. Every morning I made new resolutions 
 of insensibility for the evening, in order to speak better ; 
 but they always failed me at the hour of need, and yet 
 I did not regret them : for my thanks, receiving imme- 
 diate birth from the compliment which called for them, 
 were always favourably received. 
 
 I travelled in one day from Sharunpore to Meerut, 
 though the distance is eighty-four miles. My Meerut 
 friends arranged for me that which does not exist any- 
 where in India, relays of horses to the number of nine. 
 I arrived at dusk, so little fatigued that finding my 
 host, Arnold, ready to mount his horse for a ride, I 
 asked a tenth horse of him, and accompanied him 
 without delay. My friendship with that excellent man 
 is really an odd thing. We both live in a very 
 different order of ideas. The exterior of our ex- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 341 
 
 istence has no greater resemblance. He is a brilliant, 
 superb cavalry officer, dotingly fond of his profession 
 and of the magnificent corps which he commands. 
 But you know it is my fate to please the English. I 
 suffer it to take its own course, for I really am not 
 aware that I have any thing to do to attract it : this 
 kindness to me seems spontaneous. 
 
 It is three days' march, about forty miles, from 
 Meerut to Delhi, which I galloped over with my 
 "fidus Achates" between breakfast and dinner on 
 the 15th of last December. — The evening before, I had 
 received your letters, Nos. 16 and 17 (15 is still on its 
 way with its companions, Beaumont's book, &c. &c.) 
 and one from Lord William Bentinck, in answer to 
 mine from Semla, in which I expressed my wish to 
 visit Cashmere, and requested his diplomatic good 
 offices with Runjeet Sing to open the gates to me. 
 From Lord William's letter, I hoped, on my arrival 
 here, to find the resident disposed to second me vigor- 
 ously. But he has received only the most limited 
 powers for that purpose ; and as he had arrived at the 
 residence of Delhi from that of Hyderabad, only a 
 fortnight previously, was but ill-informed concerning 
 the relations of his court with that of Runjeet-Sing, and 
 alarmed at his own responsibility, he seemed to be afraid 
 to act on my behalf even in the narrow circle which had 
 been traced for him. I consequently again wrote to the 
 Governor-general. The answer which I received from 
 him to my second letter is a great proof of his esteem. 
 
342 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 He has authorised the resident to do for me what has 
 been invariably refused to every British officer who has 
 of late years made similar requests. 
 
 By order of the Governor-general, the resident has 
 introduced me officially to the minister of Runjeet-Sing 
 accredited to him. He has explained to him, which is 
 very difficult in Persian, what I am, the nature and 
 object of my studies, the friendship of the English 
 Government for me, the protection with which it has 
 surrounded me while travelling in their dominions, the 
 personal interest which the Governor-general takes in 
 me, and his wish to see me succeed in extending my 
 researches into the regions subject to the absolute 
 power of Runjeet-Sing, &c. &c. In short, this little 
 but delicate negociation was conducted with all possible 
 address and success. I spare you the Persian superla- 
 tive with which the resident thought proper to load me, 
 in order to give the Seikh minister a high idea of my 
 importance : I was nothing less than the well of science, 
 the vehum lucens of the chevalier Antoine Lafont, 
 luisant le vrai y jaillisant la verite*. I think, in- 
 deed, that I may certainly rely upon being graciously 
 received by Runjeet-Sing. M. Allard, his French com- 
 mander-in-chief, has already taken upon himself to send 
 me firmans for all the officers under him who com- 
 mand on the frontier. He enjoins them to obey my 
 
 * Le ver luisant, le vrai principe du mouvement des invisibles 
 et des visibles : par le Chevalier Ant. Lafont. Paris, 1824, 4to. 
 — triple distilled nonsense. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 343 
 
 wishes, and escort me from Loodheeana to his head- 
 quarters at Lahore. I shall set out in a few days. 
 
 I should have regretted all my life not having availed 
 myself of this admirable opportunity of visiting a cele- 
 brated country, inaccessible to European travellers since 
 Bernier, in 1 663 ; for Forster only saw by means of a 
 disguise which compelled him to look at nothing. 
 After the despotic prince who, by terror, at present 
 maintains order there, the anarchy which for a century 
 desolated it will certainly revive, and render imprac- 
 ticable every undertaking similar to that which I 
 am about to attempt with so many probabilities of 
 success. It is to the happy chance which brought 
 about the friendly relations I have formed and keep 
 up with the Governor-general of India, that I am 
 indebted for the flattering prospect now smiling upon 
 me. No Asiatic friendship could recommend me, 
 better than that, to the king of Lahore. 
 
 Lord W. Bentinck always finds time to write me long 
 letters when my interest requires it, and always with 
 his own hand, although he has secretaries, who have 
 also their secretaries. Yet what does he owe me? — 
 A passport once for all, and no more. It is not the 
 same with the gentlemen at the Jardin des Plantes, 
 whom I had reason to think attached to me by other 
 obligations. However strange this may appear to you, 
 it is not less true that I have not received a single line 
 from them since my departure from Paris. You have 
 announced to me some paltry additions to my allowance : 
 
344 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 but what use is my knowing it, if I only know it 
 through you ? Is that an authority for me to demand 
 more extended credit in this country ? The only 
 funds I dispose of in this country are those which I 
 brought with me ; they expire with the year just com- 
 menced. Prudence would perhaps urge me to set out 
 for the nearest sea-port, instead of going to the distant 
 regions of Cashmere ; but I considered the opportunity 
 offered me of visiting them, as an urgent circumstance, 
 for a century might elapse before it could be afforded 
 to another traveller. When this letter reaches you, I 
 must absolutely have the means of returning sent to 
 me. I should like to see those people, who will perhaps 
 blame me for undertaking this journey, exposed to the 
 fatigues and privations which await me. The pleasures 
 of Cashmere ! The delights of an enchanting climate ! 
 Oh ! many fine things might be said of it for those who 
 remain comfortably seated at their fire-sides in Paris ! 
 The tales of the west about the east are truly absurd ! 
 Ask Colonel Fabvier what Greece is ; I will tell you 
 some day what Cashmere is. 
 
 It is not impossible I may have a companion in 
 Mr. William Fraser, the commissioner at Delhi, which 
 means the head of the civil, judicial, and financial admi- 
 nistration of that province. Mr. Fraser is a man of fifty, 
 who, but for some eccentricities of character, would hold 
 a higher office than the one he occupies : he would be 
 resident, with two hundred and fifty thousand francs 
 a-year, instead of one hundred and fifty thousand, the 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 345 
 
 salary of his present appointment. I am only acquainted 
 with him from having seen him for two days at Subhatoo, 
 at Kennedy's, in the month of November last. He was 
 on his return hither from the mountains, whither his 
 health had forced him to emigrate during the frightful 
 rainy season. He pleased me extremely, and I pleased 
 him no less. In order to enjoy each other's company 
 longer, we agreed to travel together two days, each out 
 of his way — and when we parted we were firm friends. 
 This man, possessed of great qualities and talents, to 
 which every body in India does justice, but who is 
 generally considered a misanthrope, I found the most 
 sociable person in the world. He is a thinker, who finds 
 nothing but isolation in the intercourse of words with- 
 out ideas, miscalled conversation by the society here, 
 which he therefore very seldom frequents. He has tra- 
 velled much but always alone, because, as he told me, he 
 never met a companion to his taste. The only singu- 
 larity which I can find in him is a complete monomania 
 for strife. When there is a war anywhere, he forsakes 
 his tribunal and goes to it. He is always the first at a 
 storming party, an amusement in which he got two good 
 sabre cuts on his arms, a pike-thrust in his loins, and an 
 arrow in his neck, which nearly killed him. At this 
 price he has always been able to extricate himself from 
 the actions in which he has thrust himself, without being 
 obliged to kill a single man- This he related to me as 
 the finest part of his history, known besides to all in 
 this country, as is also his humanity. The emotion of 
 
34<6 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 danger is the most voluptuous to him : that is the 
 theory of what is called his madness. Of course, with 
 this form of courage, Mr. Fraser is the most pacific of 
 all men. You would take him for a quaker, notwith- 
 standing his large black beard. 
 
 I did not find him at Delhi on arriving there from 
 Meerut. His duties during winter are ambulatory ; he 
 had been gone, ever since the 1st of December, to judge 
 appeals in civil and criminal causes, as well as from the 
 "financial decisions of the magistrates and collectors of 
 the different districts of his court. He is now transact- 
 ing his business at Hansi. He wrote to me from thence, 
 a few days ago, to confide to me a thought of his, which, 
 since our separation, he tells me has never left him : 
 namely, to request my permission to accompany me in 
 my journey beyond the Sutledge. The condition on 
 which he will acccept what he is pleased to term this 
 great favour, is the sincere assurance on my part that 
 such an arrangement is quite agreeable to me. I gave it 
 to him with perfect sincerity; and with the same absence 
 of flattery I told him that he was the only man of my 
 acquaintance in India that I would desire as a travelling 
 companion. The reason why he is so desirable a com- 
 panion is, that being endowed with a superior mind, 
 enriched by long experience in the different branches 
 of Indian administration, he has a multitude of facts 
 to tell me, doubts to remove, and enigmas to solve, con- 
 cerning the mechanism of that singular government. 
 His mode of life has familiarised him, more perhaps than 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 347 
 
 any other European, with the customs and ideas of 
 the natives. He has, I believe, a true and profound 
 knowledge of their domestic existence, which few 
 others could possess. What information may I not 
 expect from his conversation? Hindoostanee and 
 Persian are like his mother-tongue to him ; I shall there- 
 fore derive the greatest advantage from his knowledge 
 of those languages. — And if at the corner of some wood 
 
 a band of ambushed rascals 1 should do my best, no 
 
 doubt ; but a little assistance is not to be despised, and 
 I should receive the most vigorous aid from such a 
 companion. — Although I have very little faith in the 
 chapter of accidents, and have rendered you sufficiently 
 incredulous, the imperturbable coolness of my friend 
 may, perhaps, serve as a protector to your imagination 
 against the disagreeable chances of possibility. 
 
 Mr. Eraser has asked Lord William Bentinck for 
 leave of absence for ten months. He will, no doubt, 
 obtain it ; but the kindness of the Governor-general to 
 him will be confined to permitting him to absent him- 
 self from Delhi. He has reason to hope, however, that 
 his hospitable intercourse with several Seikhs of high 
 rank, and his name also, which is as well known on the 
 other side of the Sutledge as on this, will ensure him a 
 good reception from Runjeet-Sing. Besides, he will 
 leave me as soon as his junction with my caravan 
 appears to throw political obstacles in its way. 
 
 I forgot to tell you the conditions of our joint expen- 
 diture. In truth, I have not thought of speaking 
 
348 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 to him on the subject; it being well understood that, 
 as I am the poorer of the two, I shall regulate them 
 as I please. I have seven hundred francs a month to 
 spend this year. If I think proper to stipulate that 
 my companion shall incur no greater expense than 
 this, he will passively submit. I might have only a 
 hundred francs a month ; and if such were the case he 
 would cheerfully agree, if I wished it, to limit his ex- 
 penditure to this trifling sum. 
 
 The aerial castles which I had amused myself with 
 building in Cashmere, on receiving the first overture 
 from M. Allard, when I was in Kanawer, are almost 
 entirely vanished. All that I can expect from Runjeet 
 Sing is a Turkish dress and a horse, — two things I 
 little need, and which are always given in the East to 
 persons of distinction on their first appearance at any 
 prince's court. Perhaps, — but that is uncertain, and 
 not less so whether I should think proper to accept 
 it, — perhaps Runjeet, as a mark of his royal favour, 
 may grant me a few rupees a day at the charge of the 
 towns and villages through which I shall pass. This 
 also is done in the East. M. Allard, who is expecting 
 me at Lahore, will there determine upon every thing 
 for me, and each decision of his will present more 
 aspects than one. 
 
 My intention, — but God disposes, — is to enter 
 Cashmere by the northern road, that which leads to 
 Peshawar through Attock, and return through Inde- 
 pendent Tartary, through Ladak, of which I have 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 349 
 
 already seen some little, or else by an infinitely more 
 direct route which ends at Rampore the capital of 
 Bissahir, situated on the banks of the Sutledge, five 
 days' march above Belaspore, the name of which 
 pleases you so much. 
 
 Semla will be on my road from Delhi. Lord and 
 Lady William, the Major-general of the army, Colonel 
 Fagan, and a number of other people of my acquaint- 
 ance, will be there to make me forget the miseries of 
 my laborious pilgrimage in the enchanting vallev, &c, 
 &c. ; not to speak of my former host Kennedy, who 
 will expect me there at the end of September. 
 
 All my collections are here, and in a most satisfactory 
 state of preservation. They are all so well poisoned that 
 they have nothing to fear from the ravages of the insects 
 engendered by the climate ; moreover they are carefully 
 packed, and ready to take their departure for Paris. 
 Were it not for the expense, I should perhaps make them, 
 with the grace of God, begin their travels to-morrow, 
 on the Jumna and Ganges ; but the cost prevents me, 
 and it is perhaps so much the better for their safety ; for 
 after all, shipwrecks are very common on these rivers, 
 as is proved by the high rate of insurance on their 
 navigation. Having resolved on leaving my collec- 
 tions here, until I increase them with the products of 
 my campaign in Cashmere, every one offered his house 
 to receive them. I preferred the military store-house, 
 where it is impossible that I shall not find them again, 
 ten months hence, just as I place them now, unless 
 
A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the powder blows up — or, what is not more probable, 
 unless the English cease to be masters of Delhi. 
 
 But a few words about my journey from Subhatoo. 
 There are some very pretty girls there, — a remark 
 I have very seldom had occasion to make to you 
 since I have been travelling in this countrv. They 
 form a little corps de ballet, which has to me all the 
 appearance of being one of the regal acts of magnifi- 
 cence of my friend Kennedy, the least jealous of 
 sultans, and a good friend besides. 
 
 I there left the king or rajah of your favourite 
 village, Belaspore, a very hopeful young scoundrel, 
 who used to amuse himself last summer by causing the 
 into his paltry empire to be trodden to 
 death by one of his elephants ; and who, being tired 
 of his prime minister, hung him that he might have 
 another. His subjects revolted and drove him away. 
 The fugitive prince came to demand forces from 
 Kennedy, to reduce them. He was far out of his 
 reckoning. Kennedy without ceremony told him he 
 :ved to be hanged himself; and, moreover, that 
 he would take care he did not hang any body else. 
 Lord William has only to make a stroke of his pen to 
 efface these kingdoms. 
 
 I had seen the valley of Pinjoor, in company with 
 
 Mr. Fraser. I therefore came over the crests of the 
 
 mountains from Subhatoo to Xahun ; but not 
 
 without accident. I was riding up a tolerably wide 
 
 but very steep path. My steed, like a true moun- 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 851 
 
 taineer, was peaceably stepping upon the brink of 
 the precipice, when on a sudden the ground gave way 
 under its hind legs. The poor animal made sundry 
 attempts with its fore feet; and after hesitatir.. 
 
 lids fell backwards. A proof that I lost my 
 senses is, that I had no idea of my danger. A miracle 
 had placed a small, thorny, stunted tree, twenty or 
 thirty feet below ; and I found myself perched upon 
 it, without having the slightest rnsciousness of the 
 manner in which I had been carried there. In my 
 passage. I only received a contusion on my head, no 
 doul: _ that of the horse as he fell upon 
 
 me. As for the latter, I looked down to the v.: 
 for his remains, but the miracle was double : twelve or 
 fifteen paces below me there was another iieh 
 
 had stopped him in his fall. He waited very peace- 
 ably, like myself, till my peop. :o release him. 
 With ropes, gentleness, and patience, in less than an 
 hour :e both fished up again. We must be. 
 in miracles, for animal magnetism cannot explain this. 
 
 X.. ':, is the capital of Sirmour, a petty kingdom 
 in the mountains, which for the last forty years has 
 been merci.. pped by the Seikhs, the Gorkhas, 
 
 and the English. The rajah has, nevertheless, two 
 hundred thousand rupees a year. His lit: one 
 
 the handsomest in India, is seated on the brow of 
 
 a mountain, which overlooks on all sides deep, humid 
 
 va/ ered with thick i It was in one 
 
 _ - met the rajah, who had come 
 
352 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 three miles from his residence to receive me. The 
 moment I perceived him, I alighted from my horse ; he 
 at the same time descended from his elephant, and we 
 advanced gravely towards each other on foot. We 
 embraced each other on either shoulder, like uncles on 
 the stage ; and, after exchanging every other form of 
 Indian politeness usual on such occasions, the rajah 
 invited me to mount his elephant, and climbing up 
 after me, we took the road to Nahun. Several other 
 elephants followed ours, carrying the viziers and other 
 great officers of the modest crown of Sirmour. Some 
 fifty horse, armed and dressed in the most picturesque 
 manner, pressed round us; the foot were much more 
 numerous, and bore silver maces, banners, halberds, 
 the fan, the royal parasol, &c. &c. I had never, till 
 then, seen any thing so like the groups which a Euro- 
 pean imagination delights in placing in an Indian 
 landscape. 
 
 The rajah was a handsome young man of two and 
 twenty, elegant in his manners, like the Indians of 
 high rank in the plains ; open, active, and communi- 
 cative, like the inhabitants of the mountains. He 
 pleased me so much that I remained two days in his 
 capital, spending the greatest part of that time with 
 him. From the bungalow, which he has built for the 
 convenience of English travellers, and which he imme- 
 diately placed at my disposal, I went each morning, 
 sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, to see him 
 in his palace. He received me there with all the pomp 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 353 
 
 ef his court ; the morning was spent in conversation, 
 to which we admitted (and it often became matter of 
 discussion) those courtiers whose rank gave them the 
 right to sit on the royal carpet, near the prince's 
 throne or arm chair, and mine. In the afternoon the 
 rajah came, with all his cavalcade, to pay me a visit ; 
 examining all things about me, asking the use of 
 each, and admiring the faculty of locomotion belong- 
 ing to Europeans. AVe then remounted his elephant 
 together, and went to take a ride about the town or 
 its environs ; at night he set me down at my own door. 
 I liked this evening ride, because, being alone on the ele- 
 phant, we were at liberty to say every thing we pleased 
 to each other. On these occasions, I gave him a little 
 course of lectures on morals and political economy, 
 which would assuredly have been very little to the 
 taste of his ministers. Every year, about five or six 
 English travellers go to Nahun, in order to seek 
 health in the mountains. My young protege, not- 
 withstanding his politeness, has not succeeded in seeing 
 more than one or two of them, and it was only to 
 exchange formal compliments with them. Nothing, 
 it is true, is so rare among the natives of India as 
 the slightest inclination to become sociable ; but the 
 English never try to discover it, nor do they cultivate 
 it if it chance to exist. This is the reason why they 
 remain such complete strangers to the people whom 
 they govern. The climate of Nahun is very healthy ; 
 but at certain seasons of the year the forests in the 
 
 VOL. I. A A 
 
354 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 neighbouring valleys cannot be passed through with- 
 out exposure to an almost certain death. The use of 
 tobacco and bitter and generous wines, is recom- 
 mended as a preservative. My old port from Semla 
 flowed plentifully ; and Kennedy, when I left him, 
 made me accept a hookha to smoke after the fashion of 
 the country. These precautions succeeded perfectly, 
 and I returned to the plains of India in all the in- 
 tegrity of my mountain health. 
 
 I cannot tell you, my dear father, with what feel- 
 ing of melancholy I found myself once more on 
 the sandy and desolate plains of Hindoostan. They 
 are covered in some places with tall, yellow, withered 
 grass ; elsewhere with a poor, thorny, whitish shrub, 
 which gives the same sad and wild aspect to the whole 
 of India and Persia. You often pass near the ruins of 
 a village, consisting of a mound of clay, interspersed 
 with fragments of earthenware, and tombs scattered 
 around. Sometimes you will pass, twice in a single 
 day, through a considerable city, whose buildings and 
 mosques are still standing, and which, though perhaps 
 erected less than a century ago, no longer contains a 
 single inhabitant. I reached Sharunpore by forced 
 marches, in order to abridge this tedious part of my 
 journey. 
 
 I have just been reperusing your last two letters, 
 16 and 17; they both relate to mine from Benares; 
 so that one must wait a whole year between a question 
 and its answer ! Be it so ! 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 355 
 
 You wish me to become somewhat of a Sanscrit 
 scholar. You think that being in possession of a great 
 number of the roots of that language, its study would 
 be easy to me. You are mistaken. In the first place, 
 in the Hindoostanee that I speak, that of the upper 
 provinces, the proportion of Persian is much more 
 considerable than that of Hindoostanee. I write in 
 Persian characters ; and the system of writing, which 
 after all is but a rather illegible short-hand, is suffi- 
 ciently difficult to make me dispense hitherto with 
 using the Nagaree characters, which are very like 
 the Sanscrit. The Sanscrit syntax is horribly diffi- 
 cult, and the system of compounding words. 
 
 But on my return to Paris, I shall say, like the fox, 
 " they are sour," with this difference, that I shall be 
 sincere in saying so. The Sanscrit will lead to nothing 
 but the knowledge of itself. As for Persian, my con- 
 tempt for that language is unbounded; and I am per- 
 suaded that every one who knows a little of it, and is 
 not paid six thousand francs a year for admiring it, 
 thinks of it as I do. I am availing myself of my stay 
 here to perfect myself in it. A young Brahmin comes 
 every evening to pass an hour with me ; we do not read, 
 as is usual, the eternal Gulistan of English students, 
 but the Persian Gazette of Calcutta, written in vile 
 prose, but such as is spoken. The English, who learn 
 Persian, begin by buying lace, and often die without 
 having a shirt. Hafez, Sadi, and other insipid and 
 
 a a 2 
 
356 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 tiresome poems of the same kind, are only useless lace 
 to us. 
 
 You ask me if I have gathered any of the beautiful 
 white roses of the environs of Delhi ? Be you suspi- 
 cious of those flowers which embalm the whole country. 
 I am still in search of them, without having seen any. 
 Malte-Brun, I perceive, has allowed himself some tra- 
 vellers' licences. The finest roses in the world are 
 those of Paris. Not that fine things are wanting round 
 Delhi, but roses are very scarce. 
 
 My manuscript is of a terrifying length. I often 
 think of the means of melting together, or skilfully se- 
 parating the many different subjects which are crowded 
 together in it. But this would be a difficult matter, 
 and I should not be able to attempt its execution until 
 I reached Paris. We will hereafter hold a council 
 together on it. I imagine that we now have with the 
 Duke of Orleans a little model of a government, quite 
 economical, if such can exist. However, I flatter myself 
 that my friends will obtain something from it for me. 
 I am going to forward a little memorial to support 
 them. 
 
 I am expecting your next letters with great anxiety. 
 I do not know the name of one of the killed at Paris ; 
 and my newspapers agree in saying that there were 
 several thousands. Fortunately I do not see near our 
 house any public building which may have attracted the 
 battle to its neighbourhood. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 357 
 
 Adieu for to-day. I am writing to you wrapped up 
 in shawls and blankets, and my feet in carpets. The 
 sun is however very hot, but the air in the shade is so 
 cold, that there is sometimes a little ice in the morning, 
 and the wind makes the temperature appear a great 
 deal sharper than it really is. There are no fire-places 
 in the houses, at least in that of my host, an old general, 
 who is otherwise without fear, but is singularly afraid 
 of fire in his house. I owe him a dreadful cold which 
 is just over. I forgot to tell you that they have made 
 me a present here of an assortment of medicines which 
 I shall philanthropic-ally distribute among the Seikhs, 
 Cashmerians and others, according to circumstances. I 
 have been advised to carry with me greater quantities of 
 those abominable cantharides pills ; stimulants of that 
 description being the most necessary to the Orientals, 
 whom debauchery very often reduces to premature 
 debility, of which the poor devils complain without 
 shame. Dysentery is making great ravages here, 
 especially among the natives. One of my people was 
 attacked, but I succeeded in saving his life. Nine 
 out of ten die of this disease in the hands of the 
 English doctors. The great thing in the complaints 
 of this country is to take them in time. For my own 
 part I scarcely think of them, but am nevertheless 
 always ready to give them a good reception. Make 
 yourself easy, therefore. You talk to me about the 
 plague : it is unknown in India. Adieu ; for you to be 
 as well as I am, is all that I wish vou. 
 
358 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Camp at Panniput, January 29(h, 1831. 
 
 Here have I begun a new campaign. Four days ago 
 I left Delhi ; to-morrow I shall be at Kurnal on the 
 frontiers of the protected Seikhs, and about the 21st 
 of February I shall reach Lahore. The exercise and 
 irregularity of my travelling life, together with its 
 frugality, have already restored me to my mountain 
 health. Fraser returned to Delhi ten days ago ; he 
 doubts whether the leave of absence which he has 
 requested will be granted him. Yesterday I received 
 a very friendly message from him at Samalkha, where 
 I was encamped. With his letter there were two ele- 
 phants and two trusty and good-looking servants, whose 
 services Fraser begged me to accept as far as Umbritsir ; 
 a useful reinforcement to the two poor starved camels 
 which carry my tents. It moreover adds singularly to the 
 pomp of my caravan. My host, at Delhi, who was the 
 general of the division, has also given me a strong escort : 
 this is necessary for the security of my slender baggage 
 during the night. All this nearly justifies the bahadur, 
 with which the Delhi engraver has gratified me on the 
 plate I ordered from him for my herald at arms, a servant 
 whom I have just added to my establishment, which 
 you may easily suppose, notwithstanding this increase, 
 to be the worst in India. Your arithmetic will enable 
 you to discover the cause of this inferiority. 
 
 Good night. I am encamped here in one of the 
 most celebrated fields of battle in India. It is late ; I 
 leave you for dinner — a sad affair, nothing but an old 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 359 
 
 peacock, but which only cost me a shot this morning. 
 God preserve you from such a roti, and from brackish 
 water to drink ! 
 
 Camp at Kumal, February 3i*d, 1831. 
 
 The rain has kept me here two days, and I have 
 availed myself of them to liquidate some little of the 
 arrears of my correspondence. I yesterday despatched 
 a packet containing a long letter to the Jardin, and 
 another for Madame V. de Tracy. To-day I am 
 writing the memorial which vou engaged me to draw 
 up to serve as corpus petitionis to the solicitations of 
 my friends in my behalf. I will endeavour to despatch 
 it hence to-morrow ; and in the leisure of my march 
 to Umbritsir, where I shall have a new opportunity 
 of sending a courier, I shall finish paying the rest 
 of my epistolary debts, informing you at the same 
 time to whom I have written ; for letters get lost 
 here. Three days ago the courier was attacked and 
 robbed in broad daylight near Panniput. Other 
 districts through which he must pass on his way 
 to Calcutta are in the same state of confusion. A poor 
 naked man running on foot laden with a bundle of 
 letters is quite a prize to these robbers. Although I 
 have two sentries all night near my little tent, I think 
 myself very happy in the morning when I find under 
 my head the cushion on which I rest, and my shirt on 
 my back. You would not believe the stories of 
 robbers that I could relate to you, since it is not very 
 long ago since I put no faith in them myself. 
 
360 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 Six days on foot and horseback in the open air have 
 completely restored me to my wonted state ; and I have 
 recovered the enjoyment of my mountain health. Like 
 a true Mussulman, I have made a vow of absolute absti- 
 nence from spirituous liquors. I live pretty much like 
 the natives, and I find after several experiments that 
 it is the regimen which agrees with me best. I have a 
 three months' beard, which is three inches long. With 
 wide calico trousers, a green dressing-gown, and a large 
 black fur cap, I shall make a very decent Afghan, if 
 it is thought necessary that I should undergo such a 
 metamorphosis at Loodheeana, which would moreover 
 be very convenient. The dogs in this country bark after 
 a Christian ; the buffaloes and cows present their horns, 
 and lower their heads before him ; the horses on the 
 road are frightened, turn their heels towards him, 
 and kick at him if he approaches them. But the bipeds 
 of our species make magnificent obeisances to him. 
 It is through love of these obeisances that Europeans in 
 British India persist in retaining their national dress, 
 which gives them as a compensation, bites, kicks, 
 gores, &c. &c. 
 
 Adieu, my dear father ; remember me kindly to my 
 friends. Tell Porphyre that I have already a square 
 metre of manuscript all quite ready for him, and that I 
 will add another centiare from hence to Umbala. 
 Adieu, once more. 1 embrace you with all my heart. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 
 
 361 
 
 TO M. VICTOR DE TRACY, PARIS. 
 
 Delhi, January 12<A, 1831. 
 
 It was on descending from the Himalaya that I 
 learned, in the month of November last, the glorious 
 events of July. So it is all over with divine right and 
 legitimacy, the granted charter and the other absurdi- 
 ties of our old political system ! What admiration this 
 victory excites among our former enemies, whose guest 
 I am in these distant regions ! What nation has ever 
 awakened the concert of enthusiastic and grateful 
 feelings which rise on all sides for the French name ! 
 What a regeneration! what glory! 
 
 It was at Delhi that I resumed the colours of 
 liberty! What a remembrance for the rest of my 
 days! If this great drama has a development worthy 
 of its first scenes, it will not only produce a beneficent 
 political revolution in the greater part of the European 
 states, but it will also entirely change the political 
 relations of nations with each other. Envy and hatred 
 have been their bane hitherto: good will and good 
 faith will henceforth preside over them. 
 
 I have just read the French papers to the 12th of 
 August, and in the last of these journals I saw with 
 pleasure your name in the commission charged to report 
 on the proposals of M. Berard. I do not understand 
 the proceedings of the Chamber, I confess : its members 
 seem to forget that a revolution separates them from 
 
362 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the last session. Moderation in victory is a fine thing, 
 but I dread the excess of a good thing. 
 
 I honour the Chamber of Deputies of November, 
 1827, for its address to the king. The principle of the 
 re-elections of the voters for this address, being so 
 faithfully executed, makes the Chamber of 1830 in 
 some measure the same assembly as that of 1827 : and 
 perhaps after all we must not be surprised if, under 
 the conditions of its existence, being elected under 
 the double vote, and the minimum of age being forty 
 years, it is not more vigorous. 
 
 Nevertheless, it appears to me to have but little 
 understood the immensity of the power which the 
 revolution of July 29th has placed in its hands. A 
 revolution is never made in legal form. 
 
 Samalkha, near Panniput, January 28th, 1831. 
 
 I was unable to conclude this letter at Delhi, though 
 detained there much longer than I expected ; for I was 
 so overwhelmed with business that I had no leisure left 
 to write to you. I am now taking advantage of those 
 moments of leisure which occur on my march through a 
 monotonous and uninteresting country. 
 
 Since the day I wrote to you from Delhi, I have 
 seen the English papers up to the 24th of August. 
 Though all their intelligence from France is not equally 
 agreeable to me, I cannot on the whole help feeling 
 satisfied. 
 
 Have you not, like me, the melancholy conviction 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 363 
 
 that there are men who are unfortunately born desti- 
 tute of every moral feeling? What education could 
 supply this deficiency? Abolish capital punishment 
 if you like, but substitute perpetual imprisonment 
 for it. If your bill passes in France, I am per- 
 suaded that it will not be long before a similar one 
 will be proposed in England ; and the influence which 
 we are called upon, I think, to exercise on the political 
 destinies of Spain and Italy, might cause the same 
 principle to be adopted there. When all the European 
 governments have thus become quakers internally, war 
 will appear a very strange and horrible thing. You 
 are still young enough to see the dawn of this new 
 age. 
 
 Keep for me what you write. Some day or other 
 I shall again be your guest at Paray ; there I shall love 
 to follow the course of events which have taken place in 
 our country since my absence, and to read the accom- 
 plishment of those projects of which we have so often 
 conversed together. However elegant my little tent 
 may be with its coloured canvass, and however com- 
 fortable it may appear to me, in the middle of a, plain of 
 arid sand, heated by a burning sun, I would willingly 
 desert it, I assure you, to go and chat by your fireside. 
 But I am not taking the road thither ; and from the 
 plan laid down for my journey, you may conclude I do 
 not suffer from the mal du pays. I am going to 
 Lahore, and Attock, to visit the banks of the Hindoo- 
 Koh, and then to Cashmere j and I think of returning 
 
364 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 to India by Ladac, or some other province of western 
 Tibet. I thought it incumbent on me to visit a 
 celebrated region, the entrance to which is closed 
 against British travellers, by the jealousy of Runjeet 
 Sing. You know, on the contrary, what chances of a 
 favourable reception await me. I have neglected no 
 means of making them more certain : my father will 
 tell you how. He will also tell you that in this affair I 
 have rather consulted zeal than prudence. My credit 
 from the Jardin des Plantes expires with the present 
 year, and I cannot expect to return to Delhi before the 
 1st of November next. Thus, I have no means of 
 returning to Europe at present. But I have the firm 
 persuasion that the minister of the interior will grant 
 them to me as a matter of urgency, since urgency alone 
 makes me contract the necessity of them. I should, after 
 my return to Europe, have regretted all my life having 
 had an opportunity of visiting these celebrated and 
 mysterious regions, without availing myself of it. 
 Good night, my dear friend ; I hope to write you a 
 few lines more from Panniput, where I intend to 
 encamp, I recollect having written to you ten months 
 ago from that celebrated place. I look back with 
 satisfaction at the time which has since elapsed, because 
 I feel that it has been well employed. Adieu. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 365 
 
 TO M LLE ZOE NOIZET DE SAINT PAUL, ARRAS. 
 
 Delhi, January \&th, 1831. 
 
 My dear Zoe, — I wish I could write you a volume ; 
 but I have scarcely time to send you a few lines. Ask 
 my father about me ; I wrote an endless letter to him. 
 
 You ask me for a flower ; I send you three : one is 
 an anemone, which I found last May among the snows 
 at the source of the Jumna, the most sacred place on 
 earth according to the Hindoo faith ; the second is 
 a primrose, a tolerably exact specimen of the humble 
 stature of the Alpine plants of Tibet. I found it only 
 once blooming at a height greater than the summit of 
 Mont-Blanc. Until the whole of my collections have 
 reached Europe, you will be able to boast that you 
 possess, in that humble primrose, a plant gathered at a 
 greater elevation than any of those actually existing in 
 European museums. I add another rarity in the third 
 flower, which I found in Tibet at a still greater eleva- 
 tion : you will recognise it to be a violet. Accept a 
 fourth, which will be the last ; it is one of the pacific 
 trophies of my first campaign against the Emperor of 
 China. It enamelled the ground on which I fought 
 his most tea-ijic majesty's forces (consisting of a few 
 horsemen, whose commander I gave myself the in ex 
 pressible satisfaction of seizing by his long plaited 
 tail). I doubt not that your knowledge of botany 
 extends as far as the myosotis ; but if I presume too 
 
366 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 much upon it, I must inform you that several species 
 of the same genus exist in Europe, and that one of 
 them, extremely pretty and very common by the water 
 side, is called in English, the Forget-me-not. 
 
 The field of battle where I gathered it does not 
 deserve to be remarked in a military point of view ; 
 but it is seventeen thousand feet above the level of 
 the sea, being three times higher than the passes of 
 the Alps, which Hannibal and Bonaparte have ren- 
 dered so famous ; so that my victories rank consider- 
 ably above the victories of those two conquerors. You 
 are at liberty to give these plants any specific name 
 you please, because they are all entirely new, as well as 
 all those I have brought from Tibet. 
 
 If we are destined not to see each other again, 
 preserve this little flower as a remembrance, and always 
 recollect its name — Forget-me-not. 
 
 TO M LLE ZOE NOIZET DE SAINT PAUL, ARRAS. 
 Camp of Panniput, January 29th, 1831. 
 
 You are, my dear Zoe, the favourite sultana of my 
 thoughts. I write to nobody so often as I do to you. 
 My friendship alone would explain this ; but I suspect 
 that there exists another reason : I long for female 
 society. When I leave the deserts to stop at a British 
 settlement, I meet those of my own sex, sometimes 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 367 
 
 full of merit and learning. But there is absolutely 
 nothing to be said of the European ladies one meets in 
 India : they may be accomplished wives and mothers, 
 but they are nothing else. They read nothing but the 
 Mirror of Fashion, a stupid periodical, principally 
 devoted to the toilet, something like the Journal des 
 Modes. They have, it is true, all the external qualities 
 required in good society, but nothing more ; and their 
 husbands seem to be perfectly satisfied with the 
 small talents they possess. You have probably heard of 
 the domestic life of the English ; well ! what is said of 
 it is not truer than a proverb. There exists scarcely any 
 reasonable intercourse between husband and wife, in 
 this the so much boasted English private life. They meet 
 at meal times, and only during the active part of that 
 operation ; for when they have done eating, the ladies 
 are politely turned out by John Bull, who feels per- 
 fectly at his ease when they are gone. Then the bottle 
 begins to circulate round the mahogany table ; and if 
 anything is to be made of an Englishman, now is the 
 time. Meanwhile the poor women remain in the 
 drawing-room, amusing themselves as well as they 
 can, till the arrival of the " lords of the creation," who 
 sometimes keep up this circulation of the bottle so 
 long, that when they enter the drawing-room, they 
 find it deserted, and the lights extinguished. 
 
 People of fashion do not now remain long at table 
 after the cloth is removed ; but what can you talk 
 about to an English lady ? If she attempted to join in 
 
368 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 a serious conversation, she would be immediately set 
 down as a blue-stocking, which is a grievous affront. 
 You are playing a fool's part if you are not slightly 
 acquainted with the people whom they may talk about; 
 for things are out of the question, except those which 
 may be collected from the Mirror of Fashion. God 
 preserve me from ever having an English wife! 
 
 Thomas Moore is not only a perfumer, but a liar to 
 boot. I am now pursuing the same route that Lalla 
 Rookh formerly did; and I have scarcely seen a single 
 tree since I left Delhi. I am encamped here on the 
 celebrated field where the fate of India has been several 
 times decided: it is a vast plain, covered with jungles, 
 and full, they say, of tigers; but I have only seen a 
 few peacocks, one of which I shot. I am sorry I did 
 so, because it is truly a pity to destroy so graceful a 
 creature, and because, to colour my crime with a 
 pretence of utility, I have ordered my majesty's cook 
 to make a mulligatawny of it for my dinner. Now the 
 ver\ worst of chicken would have been superior to it. 
 I have not the heart to kill large animals which are 
 inoffensive. 
 
 I managed so well with my horse and my two 
 elephants yesterday, that I was obliged to walk the 
 whole stage, lost in the jungle ; but I feel all the 
 better for it. It is incredible how greatly my consti- 
 tution is strengthened after a few days of a solitary, 
 frugal, active, and wandering life. My little band has 
 a much better look than when I left Calcutta. I have 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 869 
 
 men of the upper provinces, much taller and hand- 
 somer than the Ben^alese; and lately at Delhi I added 
 a sort of lackey or herald, called chroprassy, because 
 he wears, like our old uncle *, a broad red belt 
 from the right shoulder to the left side, and a large 
 plate of copper, with a Persian inscription, signifying 
 " M. V. Jacquemont, a very mighty lord." My name 
 is engraved in Roman characters, which is the most 
 imposing of all, as nobody can read it. This man 
 superintends and directs the pitching of my tents, and 
 the grazing of my camels ; on the road he follows me, 
 carrying my gun, and immediately seizes any person 
 I may point out to him, even though it should be the 
 magistrate o( a village, o( whom I want any thing. 
 Moreover, I have infantry of the most regular kind, 
 consisting of a Serjeant, a corporal, and eight men. 
 Robbers are so plentiful, and so strongly protected by 
 the indulgent justice ot^ the British, that these my 
 forces are not too numerous. 
 
 Adieu, my dear Zoe ; this letter is longer than 
 I intended, for I have many others to write less 
 agreeable than this. I hope to receive in Cashmere a 
 letter from you in English, in answer to mine from 
 Tibet. I enclose in this, one of the emerald feathers 
 from the egret of the poor peacock, shot this morning 
 on that historical spot the plain of Panniput. To- 
 
 * M. Nonet de St. Paul, major- general of engineers, knight 
 commander of St. Louis. 
 
 VOL. 1. B B 
 
370 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 morrow I shall reach Kurnal, on the frontiers of the 
 British dominions, and those of the protected Seikhs; 
 thence to Loodheeana, on the banks of the Sutledge, 
 there are eleven or twelve days' march. I hope to be 
 at Lahore on the 20th of February, with a beard three 
 inches long, and quite prepared to look like an Afghan 
 gentleman, and to play the part of one. Adieu, my 
 dear Zoe. Forget me not. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT, THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Loodheeana, February 16th, 1831. 
 
 My dear Father, — I arrived here the day before 
 yesterday, and am warming and drying myself at the 
 British political agent's, being faithful this time to my 
 hygeinic principle of a bad breakfast and an execrable 
 dinner. I am perfectly well. All goes on capitally for 
 my expedition into the Punjab. The rajah will be- 
 come to me, that which he often is from caprice, very 
 amiable. M. Allard is loudly calling for me : his 
 horsemen are here at my orders. Nevertheless I shall 
 stay here a few days, to learn how they make the 
 Cashmere shawls, of which country Loodheeana is the 
 out-parish. My host, Captain Wade, is a clever, well- 
 informed man, and his society is equally profitable and 
 agreeable to me. He is the king of the frontier, and 
 an excellent fellow. We visit together the workshops 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 371 
 
 of the weavers and dyers, on foot, and like plain, 
 homely people, which is seldom the case in India. 
 To-morrow or next day, I shall be introduced to two 
 ex-majesties, Shah-Shoudjah and his brother, each 
 formerly, by turn, king of Cabul or Afghanistan. 
 They live here as pensioners on English charity, which 
 owed them nothing. One of them has had his eyes 
 put out, a ceremony which an Ex of the East seldom 
 escapes. 
 
 Adieu! — I leave you to make myself black from 
 head to foot, majestically mount an elephant, and go 
 and dine with the colonel of the garrison, who does 
 me the honour to give a grand dinner on the occasion of 
 my passing through this place. I shall have the courage 
 to drink nothing but milk, whilst the champagne is 
 going its rounds. But health before all things. Good 
 night, I embrace vou. 
 
 TO MADAME FANNY DE PERCY, PARIS. 
 
 Loodheeana, February 22nd, 1831, on the 
 banks of the Sutledge. 
 
 It is a long time, my dear Fanny, since I wrote to 
 you ; but if you knew the extent of correspondence 
 I have to get through, you would not be surprised at 
 the scarcity of my letters. 
 
 Lord William Bentinck has just sent me the French 
 bb2 
 
372 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 papers of the months of July and August 1830 ; they 
 contain the latest news I have received from Europe. 
 I have been informed by these papers of the change of 
 situation of some of my friends, and many other things 
 besides; but I would willingly give all this news for 
 a few lines from Porphyre or my father. 
 
 There are two ex-majesties here, who preserve the 
 title, and before whom I did not appear without taking 
 off my shoes ; these are Shah-Zeman and Shah-Shoud- 
 jah his brother, formerly kings of Cabul, Afghanistan, 
 and Cashmere, and great sovereigns twenty years ago. 
 The British Government sent them a magnificent 
 embassy, and sought their alliance, at the period when 
 the presence of General Cardanne at Teheran raised 
 some suspicion in the cabinet of Calcutta with regard 
 to the views, generally not very pacific, of your friend, 
 the great man, as Courier used to say. Mr. Elphin- 
 stone, the British ambassador, disputed for a fortnight 
 with the grand master of the ceremonies, and the 
 chamberlains of Shah-Shoudjah, about the etiquette of 
 his presentation to the king. The latter agreed at last 
 to exact from Mr. Elphinstone only thirty-nine bows; 
 while he himself, the king, would show his nose at the 
 window, the ambassador remaining with his whole suite 
 in the court-yard, at a distance of three or four hun- 
 dred paces. 
 
 His ex-majesty has the most magnificent black beard 
 I ever saw ; and I found him a very gracious personage. 
 A pensioner on British generosity, to which in truth 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 373 
 
 he has no claim, Shah-Shoudjah lives here in freedom, 
 but under the surveillance of the British political 
 agent, my present host. By this officer I was con- 
 ducted to a private audience of the shah, with whom I 
 spent an hour conversing about Cashmere, whither I 
 am going, and where he formerly made war, from 
 Cabul, his country — from his mountains, of which he 
 spoke to me with affecting eloquence. Do you recol- 
 lect that the women broke open the doors of the hotel 
 Sinet, to see the Tunis envoy's handsome secretary? 
 I know not what they would do if Shah-Shoudjah went 
 to Paris : the national guard would not be sufficient to 
 preserve public order, he is so handsome ! The old 
 emperor, Shah-Zeman, has had his eyes put out ; he 
 spends his time in devotion, which however does not 
 prevent his having a large seraglio. He related to 
 me his pilgrimage to Mecca, which he undertook after 
 his fall, and after he became blind. There is a nume- 
 rous colony of Cashmerians here, who manufacture 
 shawls similar to those of their own country, but 
 generally of an inferior quality. Were I richer I 
 would bring you a couple, or rather from Cashmere 
 itself, where I shall be in two months ; but I must not 
 think of it. 
 
 I am well, very well. Adieu, my dear friend. 
 
374 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 TO M. PORPHYRE JACQUEMONT, PARIS. 
 
 Loodheeana, on the banks of the Sutledge, 
 February 23rd, 1831. 
 
 My dear Porphyre, — If you knew how I write in 
 the open air, often on my knee, on a tomb, or any thing 
 else I can find, you would not be surprised at the want 
 of coherence in my letters. 
 
 On the l6th instant, I wrote to our father a short 
 letter from this place ; and I liquidated all my cor- 
 respondence before I cross the Sutledge, which alone 
 separates me from the Punjab ; but I have apprised 
 all my correspondents, that when I have once passed 
 it, silence ! I answer no one. 
 
 Lord William has just sent me the Constitutionnels 
 for the months of July and August, up to the 26th. 
 My head is still confused with them. I am a royalist to 
 excess, although there are here and there things which 
 hardly please me. In other respects, it is quite delight- 
 ful : we are all honourable now. For instance, our father 
 is an honourable metaphysician, you are an honour- 
 able captain, I am an honourable traveller, Frederic is 
 an honourable merchant ; in short, were we nothing 
 that we are, we should be honourable married men, or 
 at least honourable bachelors. That strange Hungarian 
 original, whom I met in Tibet, wrote to me one day 
 in English on an immense sheet of paper : " Sir, I have • 
 the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the letter 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 3J5 
 
 which you did me the honour to write to me. yesterday, 
 and I have the honour to be, &c. &c." I sent him to 
 the devil with his honour, and replied with friend- 
 ship, that he was out of his senses. What should 
 I say to la grande nation, which collectively is the 
 honourable French people ? What a farce ! — Adieu ; 
 I shall perhaps write to you again to-morrow. William 
 Fraser sends me word from Delhi that his affairs with 
 the powers at Calcutta are taking a bad turn, and 
 that he despairs of joining me in the Punjab. I am 
 sorry for it. 
 
 An English ship is, for the first time, going up the 
 Indus and the Ravee, to carry a present of Norman 
 and Flemish horses to Lahore, which the king of 
 Great Britain is sending to Runjeet Sing. On the 
 other hand, my arrival at Loodheeana is known at 
 Lahore and at Umbritsir ; and the report prevalent 
 in the bazaar (literally, in the market, which corre- 
 sponds with the talk of the cafes and streets with us) 
 is, that my arrival at the same time as the British 
 envoy is not without design. They make me out to 
 be a sort of secret minister from the king of France, 
 deputed to the rajah. As a traveller, like me, does not 
 answer the description of any these people have seen 
 before, I am exposed to all sorts of absurd interpreta- 
 tions. Kennedy writes me that his petty rajahs, whom 
 I saw last year, take it for granted that I am one of 
 the Governor-general's aides-de-camp. Well ! there is 
 no great harm in that. Runjeet knows very well who 
 
SjG A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 I am. M. Allard writes me from Lahore that this 
 rajah (Runjeet) talks of the pleasure that he shall 
 have in seeing me — flummery — he is a perfect old 
 fox. Adieu, till to-morrow. I embrace you with all 
 my heart. 
 
 TO M. ACHILLE CHAPER. 
 
 Loodheeana, on the banks of the Sutledge, 
 February 24th, 1830. 
 
 I often think of you, my friend, but seldom write 
 to you, because, at the distance which divides us, the 
 ordinary dimensions of a letter would not satisfy me, 
 and I want leisure to converse with you at sufficient 
 length, to make you acquainted with my internal and 
 external existence. I recollect, however, that I wrote 
 to you last summer from Tibet. Has my letter reached 
 you ? I entered India again on the 4th of October, 
 through the eternal snows of the Himalaya, and 
 resumed my researches on its southern slope. On the 
 15th of November, I left the mountains. A month 
 after I returned to Delhi, where I was detained by 
 my affairs till the end of January. Now I am jour- 
 neying towards Cashmere. To-morrow, or next day, 
 I shall cross the Sutledge ; but although I shall enter 
 a country absolutely independent of the British power, 
 and which is even deemed hostile to it, I shall not lose 
 all the advantages of British protection. It is a sort of 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 377 
 
 court coquetry with the Governor-general, that induces 
 Runjeet Sing to allow me to enter his dominions ; a 
 favour which the cabinet of Calcutta had hitherto 
 invariably refused to ask of this prince, for other 
 travellers. In the Punjab, therefore, I shall not only 
 be encompassed by perfect safety, but meet with 
 kindness and distinction. The rajah sends his prime 
 minister's son to meet me. I shall let them do as 
 they like tili I get to Lahore; but there I shall beg 
 Runjeet Sing to release me from these tiresome 
 honours, and to allow me to pursue my journey incog. 
 with only one of his household servants, who will 
 serve me as a guide, and command respect in case 
 of need. 
 
 My intention is to visit not only Cashmere, but the 
 whole of the unknown part of the Himalaya, which 
 extends from the Sutledge to the Indus, and to re- 
 enter India through Tibet again. On my return 
 from this expedition, I shall have completed half of 
 a general work which will embrace the whole Hima- 
 laya from the Indus to the Burrampooter ; and my 
 most ardent desire would be to continue this work — 
 two years will suffice to finish it. I have written to 
 the Minister of the Interior to inform him of my 
 project, and to request the means of executing it. I 
 think it would do some honour to the spirit of scientific 
 enterprise of our nation. A concourse of fortuitous 
 circumstances offers me a crowd of advantages to 
 favour its accomplishment, such as no other traveller 
 
378 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 could expect. Every thing helps me, even my French 
 nationality. It is doubtful whether Runjeet Sing's 
 jealous mistrust would have granted to an English 
 traveller that which he allows me ; and, again, the 
 personal kindness of the Governor-general follows me 
 everywhere in the provinces subject to his authority. 
 Add to this, a condition which is generally wanting 
 in this country to those who lead the laborious 
 and active life which I do — perfect health ; lastly, 
 a correct knowledge of the two languages, Hindoo- 
 stanee and English. I prefer concentrating my 
 labours on a space so magnificently marked out by 
 nature, to scattering or losing myself in the vastness 
 of all Asia. If my project is well received, I will 
 give up the thought of seeing Persia and Asia Minor. 
 I am now well informed enough about those countries, 
 to be convinced that the plan of the journey in the 
 Himalaya, which I am now carrying into execution, 
 promises more results than any other. 
 
 I do not suffer from the solitariness of my life. 
 Whatever consolation or happiness I may have found 
 in friendship, when I was near my friends, it is only 
 since my lot has been cast so far from them, that I 
 have become properly acquainted with all the delicious 
 charm of that feeling. No, I am not alone ! If your 
 thoughts follow me they will sometimes meet me. 
 Ah! how often I have secretly conversed with you 
 since we parted. Since that day I have received but 
 one letter from you ; I keep it near me, with several 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 379 
 
 others equally dear to me ; and when I am annoyed, I 
 reperuse these letters always with a new pleasure. I 
 have a great deal to praise in the men of this country 
 (I mean the English). I almost always find some 
 sympathy in them, and sometimes a lively one. I have 
 seen few of them who are not cordially inclined towards 
 me, and whom the world would not call my friends ; 
 and I give this sacred name to two men, whom I did 
 not know till I came to this country. They have won 
 my heart, and given me theirs. I cannot tell what it is 
 in them that has captivated me. They are both twenty 
 years older than myself, and both unhappy ; one from 
 his situation, the other on account of his disposition. 
 
 I would speak to you of the scenes that surround 
 me ; but their interest disappears in my eyes, before 
 the grandeur of the spectacle presented by France. It 
 was in descending from the Himalaya into the plains 
 of India that I received from a Calcutta newspaper the 
 first news of those great events. Since that time, 
 other vessels have arrived from Europe, which have 
 brought the continuation of the particulars ; and a 
 courier of the Governor-general, who is now near 
 Delhi, has just delivered me the series of Constitu- 
 tionnels for July and August. 
 
 The reading of these papers has left a painful 
 impression on my mind : the fatigue of living a month 
 in twenty-hours; and such a month! Shall I confess 
 to you, my friend, that the details of the reality have 
 
380 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 destroyed the brilliant vision which I had forjned of a 
 still purer and greater glory ? 
 
 The ordinances of the 25th of July attacked the 
 rights of the whole nation. But their attack was more 
 direct on certain classes : the richer and better in- 
 formed, who had the exclusive privilege of the electoral 
 right, and whose easy circumstances and education 
 caused them more particularly to enjoy the liberty of 
 the press. It was therefore the part of the richer and 
 more enlightened class to be the first in this contest ! 
 It appears to me that during the three days they kept 
 behind the people. I have read the lists of the killed, 
 and have found but one name that I knew. 
 
 This is not enough ! a single name is not sufficient ! 
 It is the people that have achieved the revolution — the 
 people rather than we ; and yet it was rather our duty 
 to achieve it than that of the people. It was against us 
 rather than against the people that war was declared. 
 
 The courage and moderation of the people are 
 admirable; but the victory would have been still more 
 glorious, had it been won by other hands, by ours. 
 Then it would have borne a character of political 
 morality. 
 
 Among the victims, I see a great number of poor 
 mechanics, inhabitants of the Faubourgs. The killed 
 and wounded show very well to what classes the 
 majority of the combatants belong. Among them 
 were unhappy mechanics, destitute of all political 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 381 
 
 education, and who no doubt could not even read. 
 The liberty of the press should not have stood in need 
 of the support of such defenders. I repeat, I honour 
 their courage, I bless it, since it has probably saved us 
 from a civil war at least ; but, if I am not strangely 
 mistaken as to the deplorable ignorance that still 
 afflicts the lower ranks of society, it was only a feeling 
 of unreflecting hatred which armed the people against 
 the Government. 
 
 After that great victory, I dreamt of a new era 
 in political honesty, a new species of intercourse 
 between nations, and a new eloquence for the tribune 
 
 and the press 1 created an Utopia! The Consti- 
 
 tutionnel has miserably overturned it. It still speaks 
 of the necessities of the times. What means this 
 jargon ? We still continue to wallow in the mud of par- 
 liamentary phraseology; and this corrupted language 
 is but the symbol of ideas which are not very pure. 
 
 I know not the fate of M. Victor de Tracy's motion, 
 on the abolition of capital punishment. If it is re- 
 jected, and the ministers of the 25th of July are con- 
 demned and executed, they will inspire the small 
 number of the sincere men of their party with the 
 same interest which we have for the memory of 
 those noble youths who died for liberty in 1822. God 
 forbid that I should compare the action of the former 
 with that of the latter! but both have fallen the victims 
 of a defeat, after an attack upon the law. The 
 martyrs for liberty had in their favour the internal 
 
382 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 feeling, the consciousness of the justice of their cause, 
 of the morality of their action, and assuredly that 
 was not the motive of * * * 's rashness. But M. de 
 Polignac's life has been uniform ; it is absurdly conse- 
 quent upon the principle of the absolute Government 
 of France by a single family. It is possible that he 
 thought he was acting for the best : he has violated 
 the law ; let him be punished. I hate him ; but I 
 have some pity for him. Let us take care not to say 
 "Blood for blood!" 
 
 Popular insurrections have commenced in the 
 Netherlands. Their beginning is not glorious. But 
 this is owing to the cowardice of the middle classes, 
 who have taken no part in the movement. The 
 future prospects of Spain seem melancholy ; the 
 van-guard of Spanish civilisation consists of scarcely 
 a few thousand men ; and this little force is four or 
 five centuries in advance of the rest of the nation, 
 which remains too far behind them, to understand 
 their manoeuvres or to support them. It is the same 
 with Italy. 
 
 It was at Delhi that I resumed the tri-coloured 
 cockade. The ancient capital of Timour, which has 
 been for twenty-eight years in the power of the 
 English, is occupied by a strong European garrison. It 
 is also the metropolis of a vast political, judicial, and 
 civil residency. All the officers of the British 
 Government joined, on the 30th of December last, in 
 inviting me to a patriotic dinner in commemoration of 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 383 
 
 the French revolution. The British cannon accom- 
 panied our cheers for the victory of freedom. Strange 
 music for the descendant of Timour, who could hear 
 it from his palace! For my part I never heard any 
 which awoke in me such enthusiasm. 
 
 Adieu, my dear and amiable friend ; I must return 
 to Loodheeana, from which my thoughts were already 
 very far. I have notes and collections to arrange, 
 workshops to visit, and a thousand other things to do 
 besides. Adieu — speak of me to my friends with the 
 feelings which you know that 1 entertain for them. 
 Adieu ; I love you, and embrace you with all my 
 heart. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Loodheeana, on the banks of the Sutledge, 
 February 25th, 1831. 
 
 My dear Father, — Maharajah Runjeet Sing is an 
 old fox, compared to whom the most skilful of our 
 diplomatists is a simpleton. At Loodheeana I ex- 
 pected to find the passports which had been promised 
 me by his minister at Delhi, but they had not yet 
 arrived. Runjeet had written to the British political 
 agent residing at Loodheeana (my present host); 
 and though all the while protesting the pleasure he 
 should have in seeing me, he was attempting to begin 
 over again an affair already concluded, and to gain 
 
384 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 time with me. I might have cut the matter short, 
 and gone on ; but as we every day expected a new 
 courier from him, I exercised my patience. This 
 courier is at last arrived. The rajah, or to speak 
 more politely, the maharajah, sends the son of his 
 prime minister to receive me on the frontier, that is 
 at Falour, on the further bank of the Sutledge. 
 Runjeet himself has marked my stages to his capital, 
 where I shall entreat him to deliver me from those 
 importunate honours. Umbritsir, the sacred city of 
 the Seikhs, is on my road; my travelling companion 
 will do the honours there. As the country from 
 this place to Lahore is nothing but a great plain, 
 cultivated in a uniform manner, I shall not have 
 much to see in it, and shall avail myself of this 
 circumstance to live as much as possible with my 
 spy. I say spy, because one of his duties is to 
 despatch a messenger every evening to the rajah, to 
 inform him of what I have been doing during the 
 day; whether I have gone on foot, or on horseback, 
 or on an elephant ; whether I have hunted or drawn ; 
 whether I am satisfied or otherwise, &c. &c. I do not 
 know what particulars he may favour the rajah with. 
 You may fancy me on the road to Lahore, starting 
 at day-light on horseback, with my young companion 
 prancing away near me, and a respectable troop of 
 horse following us, the elephants in the rear, and 
 some servants on foot. At each halt, the chief men 
 in the place come to pay their respects to me, being 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 385 
 
 introduced by the minister's son ; and their respects 
 are not without rupees. They will be very agree- 
 ably surprised at seeing me touch their offering, 
 without pocketing it. On the road I go on con- 
 versing with my companion, he in Persian, and I in 
 Hindoostanee, but which will grow more and more 
 Persian every day. I here increase my house by a 
 chair and a carpet, as I have a thousand visits to 
 expect from people who are of sufficient rank to sit in 
 my company, and not to walk on the ground bare- 
 footed. M. Allard writes me frequently, that he longs 
 to embrace me; and for my own part I feel very much 
 disposed to like him. There is another European at 
 Lahore, called Ventura, an Italian, who has served in 
 our armies, and who has on this side the water a great 
 reputation for skill and bravery. He commands Run- 
 jeet's infantry ; M. Allard being at the head of the 
 cavalry. His letters give me an idea that he possesses 
 literary knowledge and taste. 
 
 You can ask at the library of the Institute for the 
 " Account of Kaubul by Elphinstone : " you will find 
 a great deal of information about the country whither 
 I am going ; for Mr. Elphinstone returned from his 
 embassy to Peshawer through the country of the Seikhs, 
 which Runjeet was at that time far from being in 
 entire possession of. 
 
 The two ex-majesties of Cabul, who are here, 
 received me with less ceremony than one of them, 
 Shah Shoudjah, imposed on Mr. Elphinstone, twenty- 
 
 vol. i. c c 
 
386 A JOUKNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 two years ago. These Afghans are magnificent men. 
 I paid Shah Shoudjah a very long visit, because he 
 delighted me by relating the wonders of his moun- 
 tains of Cabul and his ex-paradise of Cashmere. 
 
 Morning 26th. 
 
 I have this moment received the following lines from 
 M. Allard. 
 
 " Maharajah has just ordered the son of the fakhir 
 Ezis-el-Din, to start with thirty horsemen to meet you. 
 We hope, therefore, to embrace you soon. The young 
 fakhir, Shah-el-Din, sets out at the same time as these 
 few words ; but the horseman who will be the bearer of 
 them will be two days before him on the road, in order 
 that you may be in readiness to cross the Sutledge when 
 this young nobleman arrives at Falour," &c. 
 
 I hold myself ready, therefore, to start the day after 
 to-morrow, and these lines are the last I shall write to 
 you from British India. M. Allard has an agent here 
 who speaks Hindostanee and Persian equally well : I 
 shall take him to Lahore with me, in order to perfect 
 me in the pronunciation of the occasional diabolical 
 Arabic consonants, which are more rare in Hindoo- 
 stanee than in Persian, and of a less guttural sound. 
 I hope to write to you from Lahore in less than a 
 fortnight, and to give you a good account of Runjeet. 
 
 There was a little ice this morning, but it is the 
 •last cold of winter, and the sun is already very hot at 
 ten o'clock. 
 
 I have still the same horse which has carried me 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 
 
 from Calcutta to the foot of the Himalaya : he con- 
 tinues to justify the reputation of a bad temper 
 enjoyed by sorrels. But I am grown more cunning 
 than he, and since I left Benares he has not thrown 
 me once. Judges of horses make theories in which 
 I do not at all believe. They say that an Arab of 
 ordinary size would have some trouble to carry a man 
 of mine. Well, my tattoo is much under the size of an 
 Arab ; he often does hard work, and was never behind 
 hand ; not once has his foot slipped since he has had 
 the honour of carrying my majesty ; never ill — never 
 lame — never galled. I consider myself, moreover, 
 a very good horseman : of a species, however, which 
 I confess, is not very classical. I am quite used to my 
 long beard, and I know nothing so comfortable. I 
 really believe that we are wrong in depriving ourselves 
 of this ornament, which, if you like, you may call 
 natural ; and that many toothachs proceed from the 
 nakedness of our jaws. 
 
 Lord W. Bentinck, and Lord Dalhousie, the com- 
 mander-in-chief, are, at present, the one at Murat, the 
 other at Kurnal, on their way to Semla. The baggage 
 of the former is carried by a hundred and three ele- 
 phants, thirteen hundred camels, and eight hundred 
 waggons drawn by bullocks. Two regiments, one of 
 cavalry, and the other infantry, serve as his escort : yet 
 I am going to Lahore with only one waggon and a 
 couple of camels. 
 
 No French ships since the arrival ot the Gang . 
 
 c c 2 
 
588 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 which left Bourdeaux on the 11th of August; no 
 departures either : I presume, therefore, that the enor- 
 mous quantity of letters which I have written for six 
 weeks past, and sent to Chandernagore under cover to 
 Sir E. Ryan, who is to forward them to M. Joseph 
 Cordier, are arrived at that place without having yet 
 been forwarded to Europe. 
 
 It is impossible to talk of politics, for I should never 
 leave off. In a list of prefects, I see Dunoyer and 
 Chaper side by side; I am writing to both. 
 
 Adieu, my dear father : speak of me kindly to those 
 of my friends to whom I have not had time to write. 
 Adieu ; I have health, courage, and hope. Write 
 me very long letters, and let Porphyre follow your 
 example. 
 
 TO M. JACQUEMONT THE ELDER, PARIS. 
 
 Camp near JuUindar, in the Punjab, 
 March 4th, 1831. 
 
 My dear Father, — The day before yesterday I took 
 leave of my amiable host of Loodheeana, Captain Wade, 
 mounted my elephant, and, surrounded by a troop of 
 Seikh cavalry, crossed the Sutledge. A squadron 
 drawn up on the right bank of the river received me, 
 on my landing, with military honours, and escorted 
 me to my tent, near which it remained under arms, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 389 
 
 till the arrival of my Mehmandar* , fakhir Shah-el- 
 Din, who soon came, accompanied by several officers. 
 Wade had given me a lesson in Seikh etiquette, and I 
 repeated it without difficulty. The young fakhir took 
 the greatest interest in the conversation : he used the 
 most suppliant forms to put into my hands a heavy bag 
 of money, while a number of his attendants marched 
 past my tent, depositing at the door a large basket of 
 fruit, and a vase of cream or preserves. This was a 
 present from the rajah. I begged Shah-el-Din to write 
 to him to express my thanks, giving him to understand, 
 however, that I expected no less from his hospitality. 
 
 In the evening I had a fete of a more quiet 
 description. I took a long excursion on the level 
 banks of the Sutledge, without being attended by the 
 importunate honours which I dreaded. No inquisitive 
 face came to spoil the landscape : I felt as free as on 
 the banks of the Niagara. On my return to the camp, 
 my mehmandar's secretary having come to receive 
 orders for the morrow, I appointed the hour of depar- 
 ture, and the place for the next encampment. I made 
 this journey on an elephant, and alone, according to my 
 taste. This solitude, however, is comparative ; for I 
 was not without half-a-dozen servants on foot, and as 
 many horsemen : but in the East, such is the grandeur 
 of Self, that it easily absorbs a dozen men and horses. 
 
 Fakhir Shah-el-Din, as I had not invited him to 
 
 A Persian word, literally the guardian of hospitality. 
 
3{)0 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 travel in company with me, marched two or three miles 
 in the rear with the squadron. On arriving at the 
 camp, I was not long in receiving a message from him. 
 He wished to know when it would be convenient for 
 me to receive him. He soon arrived, with his com- 
 pliments of the day before, a fresh bag of *money, and 
 provisions of all kinds. In the evening I paid him a 
 visit ; a civility which he had a right to expect from 
 me, but perhaps not so early. He exhausted himself 
 in the superlatives of Persian gratitude. I soon with- 
 drew, as I had come, to the sound of trumpets. Were 
 it not for my long beard, which continually tells me that 
 I am a grave personage, my seriousness would not have 
 stood the proof of this music ; but I kept my counte- 
 nance till my return to my camp, when I shut myself 
 up in my tent, in order to laugh at the sublime part 
 I am playing, and again take possession of my own 
 identity. In India, it is the custom in speaking of 
 one's-self to say ice, — a form of no great modesty ; 
 bnt since I have passed the Sutledge, I speak of myself 
 only in the third person, as follows : the sahib, (that 
 is the lord) is not tired — the lord is charmed at seeing 
 your lordship — express the lord's respects to the king — 
 the lord invites your lordship to mount the lord's 
 elephant, &c. There are more lords in a quarter of 
 an hour in my Seikh conversation, than in all Racine's 
 tragedies. 
 
 This morning I came to encamp near this ancient 
 city, travelling on an elephant, which for a certain 
 
-LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 391 
 
 cause I find more convenient than a horse. The 
 cause I do not know how to tell you. I will tell it to 
 you, however, because I have promised to be candid. 
 The confidence of noble souls is sometimes ill-requited. 
 But with my certificate of clariss hnu s et doctissimus 
 r/r, I hope soon to have forgotten the dancing girls of 
 Loodheeana. 
 
 Fakhir Shah-el-Din came yesterday to hear my news, 
 and offer his compliments in the usual form; that is to 
 say, with another bag of money, the superlatives of yes- 
 terday, and provisions ad infinitum. He presented to 
 me, at the same time, the governor of the city, a long 
 grey-beard of the old stamp, who related to me the 
 war between Lord Lake and the Mahrattas, when they 
 took refuge in the Punjab. The governor had an 
 endless retinue ; and in order to turn my visiters out 
 politely, I proposed to my mehmandar to take a ride 
 through the city on my elephant. I told the long- 
 beard that I was in despair that I could not have him 
 for a companion. 
 
 I am now returned. Never did any one receive so 
 discordant a serenade as the clatter with which the 
 Julindur musicians are now regaling me. Through 
 my cloth walls, I do not escape a single note, and I 
 am not yet Alcibiades enough to take pleasure in such 
 music. I pass the time in writing to you, because I 
 could not do better in waiting till this din ceases : 
 for, since they play by the king's orders, the least I 
 can do is to bear it patiently. 
 
392 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 But, you will say, what is there in the bags that you 
 are collecting? — a hundred and one rupees, or about 
 two hundred and fifty francs. If Runjeet Sing thinks 
 himself obliged to treat his friends in this fashion, I 
 can easily understand why ,he is reluctant to receive 
 visits. I ask myself where this attention on his part 
 will end? At Lahore, perhaps; but certainly not 
 before. Now as there are six days' journey from 
 hence to Lahore, I shall collect, before I arrive there, 
 six hundred and six rupees, to add to the three 
 hundred and three which I have deigned to pocket 
 since the day before yesterday. Till now I had always 
 detested the slowness of travelling in India, but Run- 
 jeet Sing has arguments which would reconcile me to 
 the speed of a tortoise. Here am I become as covetous 
 as if I were rich : it is from a refinement of avarice 
 that I regret not having more of those large Spanish 
 doubloons which I brought to Calcutta ; I would 
 have offered them to him as a nuzzer, on the day of 
 my presentation, whereas I shall be obliged to give 
 him some Indian pieces of gold, to which he will pay 
 but little attention. 
 
 I know not whether it is through an optical illusion, 
 but the Punjab and its inhabitants please me much. 
 Perhaps, you will say, that it is because 1 see them 
 through a shower of gold; but the unsophisticated 
 Seikhs of this country have a simplicity and open honesty 
 of manner, which a European relishes the more, after 
 two vears' residence or travelling in India. Their 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 393 
 
 fanaticism is extinguished, and such is their tole- 
 rance, that Runjeet's grand vizier (my mehmandar's 
 father) is a Mussulmaun, and his two brothers are 
 Mussulmauns, and all are equally in the good graces 
 of the Seikh monarch. 
 
 Lord William will soon be at Semla. Runjeet will 
 send my mehmandar's father to compliment him. 
 Wade will conduct the Seikh ambassador from Lood- 
 heeana to Semla, and will afterwards come to Lahore, 
 bearing in return the Governor-general's compliments 
 to the rajah. I received another letter from Lord 
 William before I left Loodheeana : he promised me the 
 French papers for September ; and I expect to receive 
 them at Lahore with letters from you ; for I know that 
 a Bourdeaux ship which sailed in September, is just 
 arrived in Bengal. So adieu till then, if I do not resume 
 this gossip before, to speak to you of the holy city 
 of the Seikhs, Umbritsir, which I shall soon pass 
 through. 
 
 Lahore, \'2th March. 
 
 I skip the holy city, to arrive the quicker at Lahore. 
 Yesterday, at two leagues from the latter city, I met 
 M. Allard and two other French officers, MM. Ven- 
 tura and Court, who were coming to meet me in a 
 calash and four. We all alighted, and I gave M. Allard 
 a rude embrace. He introduced me to his brother 
 officers, and we all got into the carriage. An hour 
 after, having crossed a wild country, covered, like the 
 
39^ A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 environs of Delhi, with the ruins of Mogul grandeur, 
 we alighted at the entrance of a delicious oasis, con- 
 sisting of a large parterre of carnations, irises, and 
 roses, with walks of orange trees and jasmine, bordered 
 with basins, in which a multitude of little fountains 
 were playing. In the centre of this beautiful garden 
 was a little palace, furnished with extreme luxury and 
 elegance. This is my abode. Breakfast served up on 
 plate awaited us in the hall. I spent the day in 
 wandering with my new friends through the walks of 
 the garden, and suffering myself to be stifled with their 
 caressses. You may imagine the excess of our curiosity 
 on both sides. Night came, however, very quickly, and 
 we were obliged to part ; for M. Allard's residence and 
 that of M. Court are more than two leagues from my 
 habitation, and people scarcely ever travel at night in 
 the environs of Lahore. I remained alone, in the 
 enchantment of my new residence, which is quite like 
 the fairy palaces of the Arabian Nights' Entertain- 
 ments. 
 
 In the evening, my mehmandar, who had informed 
 the king of my arrival, came to bring me his majesty's 
 congratulations and presents ; the latter consisted of 
 exquisite grapes from Kabul, delicious pomegranates 
 from the same country, a collection of the choicest 
 fruits, and, lastly, a purse of five hundred rupees. A 
 splendid dinner was served up to me by torch-light, by 
 a host of servants richly dressed in silk. I had courage 
 to take as usual only bread, milk, and fruit. I ought 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 395 
 
 to be grateful to this regimen, for permitting me to 
 come to Umbritsir on horseback, without the least 
 inconvenience. 
 
 This morning I was awakened bv M. Allard and 
 M. Ventura, who were going to the king, from whom 
 they had received, at midnight, a summons to attend 
 him this morning. You must know that I enjoy I 
 know not how) such celebrity at Lahore, that every 
 body longs to see me, and Runjeet is not the least 
 curious among them. It is in order that he may enjoy 
 a foretaste of this pleasure that he desires a visit from 
 those gentlemen at so unusual an hour. He knows that 
 they spent the day with me yesterday; and he will be 
 fully acquainted with me by the time I am presented 
 to him. This will, no doubt, take place to-day, or 
 to-morrow at the furthest. Adieu ! I leave you, that 
 I may Persia nize a little more the insolent com- 
 pliments I intend paying him, and those which I 
 shall not refuse myself in his presence. M. Allard 
 said just now that I knew everything — that I had seen 
 everything — that I was acquainted with the whole 
 earth ; and such being the persuasion of the respectable 
 public of Lahore, I shall take very high ground even 
 with the king. Too much honour cannot be done 
 to a man like me — that is the point whence I must 
 start. 
 
 L ■ ■ M i ch 16th. 
 
 I have several times spent a couple ot hours in con- 
 versing with Runjeet " dt omni p i et qu 
 
396 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 dam aliis." His conversation is like a nightmare. He 
 is almost the first inquisitive Indian I have seen ; 
 and his curiosity balances the apathy of the whole of 
 his nation. He has asked a hundred thousand questions 
 to me, about India, the British, Europe, Bonaparte, 
 this world in general and the next, hell, paradise, the 
 soul, God, the devil, and a myriad of others of the 
 same kind. He is like all people of rank in the East, 
 an imaginary invalid ; and as he has a numerous 
 collection of the greatest beauties of Cashmere, and 
 the means of paying for a better dinner than any one 
 else in this country, he is generally annoyed that he 
 cannot drink like a fish without being drunk, or eat 
 like an elephant and escape a surfeit. Women now 
 please him no more than the flowers of his parterre, and 
 for a good reason — and this is the cruellest of his afflic- 
 tions. He had the decency to call the function which he 
 complains of being weak, a digestive one. But I knew 
 what stomach meant at Lahore, when in the king's 
 mouth ; and we conversed minutely about his com- 
 plaint, but the words were well wrapped up on either 
 side. To prove how much reason he had to complain, 
 the old roue^ the day before yesterday, in full court, 
 that is in the open field, on a fine Persian carpet on 
 which we were seated, surrounded by some thousands 
 of soldiers, sent for five young girls of his seraglio, 
 whom he made to sit down before me, and concerning 
 whom he smilingly asked my opinion. I had the 
 candour to say that I thought them very pretty, which 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 397 
 
 was not a tenth part of what I thought of them. He 
 made them sing, mezza voce, a little Seikh air, which 
 their pretty faces made me think agreeable ; and told 
 me that he had a whole regiment of them, whom 
 sometimes he ordered to mount on horseback for his 
 amusement ; and he promised to afford me an oppor- 
 tunity of seeing them. 
 
 The four Frenchmen (two of them by the way are 
 Italians,) who are at the head of his armies, which 
 they have trained very well in the European discipline, 
 often excite his suspicions, although he has had ten years' 
 experience of their probity and devotion to himself. 
 He sometimes suspects that they are Englishmen or 
 Russians ; and the poor fellows, whom, however, he 
 pays very well, and does not use badly, are compelled 
 to be very circumspect, in order to preserve his confi- 
 dence. I spoke to him so as to keep up the semi- 
 officiality of the British character which I had 
 brought with me. It is of all titles the best in the 
 estimation of a pagan like Runjeet. I eulogised the 
 strength, honesty, and pacific policy of the Government 
 of Calcutta ; and Runjeet, when I had done, said, that 
 the Governor-general and he were but two hearts in 
 one body. In sum, he pleases me extremely ; and 
 when I am not at court, he lavishes the highest 
 encomiums on me. Yesterday, in my absence, he 
 lauded me as a demi-god, and greatly amused himself 
 at the expense of one of his courtiers, who wanted to 
 bring me some remedy of his own for a cold in my 
 
398 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 head, which makes me sneeze very violently and 
 frequently. 
 
 Yesterday morning, I had a prescription written in 
 Persian, which I sent to the rajah with some very 
 innocent drugs, for he has had me beset day and night 
 to obtain them. Observe, however, that he will take 
 care not to use them himself, but will amuse himself with 
 making his friends and servants take them. To-morrow 
 he will tell me a hundred lies about their effects, and 
 will ask me for more. 
 
 Nothing can be more ridiculous than the reports in 
 the city about my interviews with the king. The 
 latter takes care to inform me of them, and is the 
 first to laugh at them with me, though I have no 
 doubt he takes me for a spy. He appears, however, 
 perfectly satisfied as to my nationality. When I left 
 him, after my first audience, he exclaimed, that I 
 certainly was not an Englishman. An Englishman, 
 he said, would not have changed his posture twenty 
 times; he would have made no gestures while talking ; 
 he would not have spoken in such a variety of tones, 
 high and low; he would not have laughed at proper 
 times, &c. 
 
 I shall go to Cashmere, and anywhere else, I please. 
 The king will have an eye to my safety everywhere. 
 I shall enjoy the same security as in the British 
 territory. 
 
 This pattern of an Asiatic king is, however, no saint : 
 far from it. He is bound by neither law nor honour, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 399 
 
 when his interests do not enjoin him to be just or 
 faithful ; but he is not cruel. He cuts off the nose, 
 ears, and a hand of very great criminals ; but he never 
 puts any to death. He is passionately fond of horses, 
 quite to madness ; and he carries on a murderous and 
 expensive war against a neigbouring province, in 
 order to obtain a horse, which has been refused him 
 either as a gift or a purchase. He has great bravery, 
 a somewhat rare quality amongst the princes of the 
 East ; and although he has always succeeded in his mili- 
 tary undertakings, it is by perfidious treaties and nego- 
 ciations alone, that from a simple country gentleman 
 he has become absolute king of the Punjab, Cashmere, 
 &c, and is better obeyed by his subjects than the 
 Mogul emperors in the zenith of their power. A Seikh 
 by profession, a sceptic in reality, he every year pays 
 his devotions at Umbritsir ; and, what is very singular, 
 these devotions are paid at the tombs of several 
 Mohammedan saints ; yet these pilgrimages offend 
 none of the puritans of his own sect. 
 
 He is a shameless scoundrel, and cares not a bit 
 more about it than Henri III. formerly among us. It 
 is true that between the Indus and the Sutledge, it is 
 not even a peccadillo to be a scoundrel. But what 
 horribly offends the morality of these good people is, 
 that the king, not content with the women in his own 
 seraglio, often fancies those of others ; and what is 
 worse, those which belong to everybody. In spite of 
 the mystery which the orientals, even of the lowest 
 
400 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 class, throw over their intrigues, whether purchased or 
 not, Runjeet has often exhibited himself to the good 
 people of Lahore, mounted on an elephant, with a 
 Mussulmaun courtesan, amusing himself with her in 
 the least innocent manner. Although he is only 
 fifty-one, he is now reduced to the scandalous resource 
 of old debauchees, and complains of it without shame. 
 
 He is about to quit Lahore ; and has directed M. 
 Ventura to proceed to Moultaun with ten thousand men 
 and thirty pieces of cannon, for the purpose of collect- 
 ing the tribute from the distant provinces of his empire. 
 M. Allard will no doubt soon have a destination of the 
 same kind. Runjeet will find some analogous occu- 
 pation for himself; for he is a Bonaparte in miniature, 
 and cannot remain in one place. In a few days we shall 
 decamp from Lahore. At my audience of leave, I 
 shall receive some new presents, and a dress of 
 honour, which will be a very handsome dressing- 
 gown, made of Cashmere shawls. I intend this 
 for you, my dear father, in your great days of real 
 essences. My military chest is grown very weighty 
 with his highness's rupees. I have wherewith to go 
 to Cashmere and remain there four months, without 
 further curtailment of my wretched credit at Calcutta. 
 At all events, M. Allard opens an unlimited one for 
 me in Cashmere. Then, in orderto return to Semla, 
 I shall have to cross some districts of Kanawer, the 
 king of which, as you know, is one of my friends, and 
 will willingly lend me some hundreds of rupees, if 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 401 
 
 unforeseen accident should cause me to arrive in his 
 dominions without money. Like a man of foresight, 
 I wrote to Kennedy, and Murray (the political agent at 
 Umbala), to let all the mountain rajahs under their 
 controul know that, in six months, I shall come and 
 knock at some of their doors. It is probable that he 
 of Belaspore will be the first whom I shall honour 
 with my company. 
 
 Yesterday, our countrymen, my hosts, gave me a 
 splendid fete at my palace — for palace it is — with 
 accompaniment of dancing and singing Cashmerian 
 girls, &c, one of whom would have passed for very 
 pretty, if not even for very beautiful, in any country. 
 I do not know how it happened, but in the dusk of the 
 evening, when the servants lighted up the saloon, I 
 found myself tete-a-tete with this opera-princess ; my 
 hosts had maliciously retired with the rest of the band 
 into the garden ; — maliciously and charitably. They 
 understand hospitality like Kennedy, at Subhatoo. At 
 the dessert, I had for a moment forgotten my frugal 
 regimen, and had drunk a glass of champagne to the 
 health of M. de Lafayette, which is a very curious 
 thing at Lahore. 
 
 The general's flag has been lucky in this country. 
 M. Allard, eight years ago, caused it to be adopted in 
 the armies under his command. The Seikhs are a 
 good sort of people, but no conjurors : Runjeet only 
 knows that it was Bonaparte's flag, whom he is fond of 
 persuading himself that he resembles. 
 
 VOL. I. D D 
 
402 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 I have just received a letter from the Jardin des 
 Plantes, and it is the first ! It is dated the 19th of 
 May, 1830; acknowledges the receipt of my No. 1, 
 2, 4, and 5 ; approves of what I have done, and what 
 I propose to do ; and informs me that from the 1st 
 of January, 1830, my salary has been increased two 
 thousand francs. It is, moreover, written in very kind 
 and obliging terms ; signed Cuvier, Cordier, Jussieu. 
 It was forwarded to me by Messrs. Eyries, brothers, 
 merchants at Havre, who remind me that they are the 
 agents of the Jardin, and offer me their services if they 
 can be useful to me. They would have done much better 
 if they had sent me a letter of credit for two thousand 
 francs a year on some good Calcutta house, since the 
 Jardin appears to have made no arrangement with 
 M. Delessert for him to send me supplementary 
 credits. However, I know that the money is at my 
 disposal somewhere, and that it will belong to me 
 wherever it is ; and I shall find some means of getting 
 at it in case of need. I have to-day answered these 
 gentlemen, and Messrs. Eyries also. 
 
 For four months, at least, from the present time, it 
 will be difficult for me to write to you ; so do not be 
 uneasy if, after the present letter, you have to wait half 
 a year. Be assured that I am going into the terres- 
 trial paradise with a good stock of health : in less 
 than a month I shall breathe the salubrious air of the 
 mountains, whence I shall not descend into the plains 
 of Hindostan till the beginning of winter. Adieu, 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 403 
 
 then, my clear father, adieu ! The only thing that vexes 
 me is to be deprived of news from you for so long a 
 period. I embrace you and Porphyre, with all my 
 heart. 
 
 Lahore, March 18th, Evening. 
 
 To-day I had my audience of leave of Runjeet Sing, 
 to which I was conducted by M. Allard. I spent, for 
 the last time, a couple of hours in conversing with that 
 extraordinary man. He gave me the khelat or dress of 
 honour, and that too of the most distinguished kind : 
 it costs five thousand rupees, or twelve thousand 
 francs. It consists of a pair of magnificent Cashmere 
 shawls, lie de vin ; two other less beautiful Cashmere 
 shawls, and seven pieces of silk stuff or muslin, the 
 latter of extraordinary beauty : eleven articles in all, 
 which number is the most honourable. Add to this, 
 an ornament, according to the fashion of the country, 
 of badly-cut precious stones. 
 
 And, in addition to the value of this present, a purse 
 of eleven hundred rupees ; which, together with the 
 sums before received, make two thousand four hun- 
 dred, which is more than a year's salary from the Jardin. 
 
 Nor is this all. The king is going to give me some 
 people to take care of me ; horse and foot soldiers to 
 watch over my safety ; one of his secretaries, in order 
 that I may send letters to him occasionally ; camels to 
 carry my tents and all my baggage to the foot of the 
 mountains ; and, lastly, carriers to do it, when the 
 beasts of burthen can advance no further. Lastly — for 
 
404 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 there will be lastly s till to-morrow, — at the salt-mines, 
 where I shall arrive in ten days, I shall receive a purse 
 of five hundred rupees, and at Cashmere, one of two 
 thousand. 
 
 Lastly, to conclude ; if any thing takes my fancy at 
 Cashmere, the king has recommended me to inform 
 him of it, in order that he may satisfy my desire. 
 
 Of course we parted very good friends. What I was 
 afraid of, was being detained longer at Lahore, or in the 
 Punjab; and in fact, the minister came to ask me if it 
 would be agreeable to me to accompany the king in a 
 hunting excursion, on which he is going in a few days, 
 and that too in a manner which solicited an affirmative 
 answer. But, from the very first, I took very high 
 ground with Runjeet : I answered unceremoniously in 
 the negative ; so that my diplomatist insisted no 
 farther. M. Allard, who was several times condemned 
 to the honour which the king destined for me, con- 
 gratulates me extremely on having escaped it. 
 
 Runjeet asked me if I should continue to wear the 
 European dress. I told him that I should, since he 
 honoured it so much. I shall only leave it off to 
 return from Cashmere to Semla, if I effect my return 
 through Independent Tartary. 
 
 It is now M. Allard's turn. He is taking the inven- 
 tory of my menage and stable ; and he has, without 
 my being able to decline it, been making such additions 
 as he judged necessary for my convenience. I shall 
 carry away with me a charming recollection of Lahore. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 405 
 
 I wish you could assist me in returning M. Allard's 
 kindness. He has a younger brother, about my own 
 age, who has served in France. He sent for him, fifteen 
 months ago, to enter into the maharajah's service, and 
 at some future period to take his own place ; but the 
 climate has been so adverse to him from the first year, 
 that M. Allard has sent him home this winter. This 
 young man is now at Calcutta, on the eve of sailing 
 for France. What will become of him there ? As a 
 claim to the favour of Government, I think he might 
 put forward the honourable distinction of his brother's 
 services at the extremity of Asia; and of the celebrity 
 he has gained for our nation among a people who were 
 almost entirely ignorant of us. I shall write to our 
 friends to recommend him, and Porphyre must help 
 him as much as he can. 
 
 Adieu, my dear father ! It is midnight ; I am falling 
 asleep. The first letter will be from Cashmere. 
 
 Put Runjeet's Cashmere shawls forward, in order to 
 help in winning those charitable (female) souls, who 
 would wish their name to fill up the blank in a 
 certain notarial act, which you gave me at parting. 
 Adieu ! I embrace you. 
 
406 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 TO M. PORPHYRE JACQUEMONT, PARIS. 
 
 Lahore, March 2\st, 1831. 
 
 My dear Porphyre, — There is such a principle of 
 inaction in a caravan, that if it stops ten days anywhere, 
 it becomes very difficult for it to resume its march. 
 Thus you see lam still at Lahore, though on the 18th I 
 received my audience of leave from the king. But, on 
 the day of departure, a crowd of little affairs always 
 come, and to necessitate an adjournment, there is 
 baggage to arrange, divide, and load differently, if 
 new means of transport are employed — workmen who 
 promise, and keep their word no better than ours, &c. 
 &c. However, I shall review my little army to- 
 morrow, and the day after I shall cross the river. 
 
 If you have read my letter to my father, I hope you 
 are satisfied with Runjeet-Sing. I have just turned 
 his purses of rupees into a bill at sight for two thou- 
 sand five hundred rupees on Cashmere, whither I 
 likewise carry a royal mandate for two thousand rupees ; 
 and I unfurnish my chest for fear of accident, since, 
 in ten days, and while on my journey, I shall receive 
 another five hundred rupees from the king. 
 
 If you reckon properly, you will see that all this 
 amounts to five thousand rupees, or about twelve 
 thousand five hundred francs, which I intend to reserve 
 and send to Calcutta, where it will accumulate at the 
 rate of eight per cent, per annum. 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 407 
 
 I cannot tell you, my friend, with what pleasure I 
 receive this money, because it is the first of which the 
 free disposal belongs to me. I consider myself as but 
 the steward of my allowance from the Jardin ; but 
 these twelve thousand five hundred francs are a wind- 
 fall, and I consider quite charming this terne in the 
 lottery without having purchased a ticket. I sadly 
 curtailed your fortune, my dear Porphyre, by my 
 voyage to America, and I must repair the breach with 
 his highness's rupees ; or, if you prefer it, in case you 
 marry, you must let me make your wife's corbeille. I 
 shall put my khelat into it, and it will gain you a fine 
 reputation of conjugal munificence. But in six weeks, 
 •you will attain the terrible age of forty, which is 
 rather late to take the leap. So let me restore you 
 your shares in the ship General Foy, and keep my 
 superb shawls, to tempt the infinitely beautiful, good, 
 amiable, and rich young ladies who may not have any 
 aversion for me. 
 
 Have I not seen in the English papers, that our late 
 Spanish funds had resuscitated from the nominal 7 or 
 nothing, to 25 ? It would be singular if you were to 
 sell them at 40 ! After all, it would still be a bad 
 speculation, for, since the 24th of March, 1824, of 
 mystifying memory, we have received no interest for 
 that money; but as, at that very time, I thought it lost, 
 I think that, in finding it again, we have a gratuitous 
 gain. 
 
 My new mehmandar is a most desirable man. He is 
 
408 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET, 
 
 the man of business of the king's favourite ; which 
 favourite is a very great Seikh lord, who possesses the 
 sovereignty of the greater part of the Himalaya moun- 
 tains, of which Runjeet has the political possession. It 
 is exactly as if I had the king's favourite with me. He 
 will let me want for nothing, and will not leave me till 
 I quit Runjeet's dominions; and I think of remaining 
 two or three months in the valley of Cashmere. 
 
 I have a sufficient escort of cavalry to have nothing 
 to fear from the Akhalis, or immortals, a species of 
 fanatics or armed beggars — the more dangerous, as 
 their sacred character renders them very respectable, 
 at the same time that their indolent life forces them 
 to rob for subsistence. 
 
 On the road from Peishawer to Cashmere, another 
 fanatic, a Syed, that is to say, a pretended descendant 
 from the Prophet, is playing the devil at the head of ten 
 or twelve thousand bandits of the same species as him- 
 self ; and it is probable that Runjeet, whom he has pro- 
 voked for several years, will, at no distant period, decide 
 upon vigorously giving him chase. But I shall always 
 stay in the rear of the line of military operations. If 
 the Syed caught me, he would cut my throat on the 
 spot, for the glory of God. 
 
 I am rather losing sight of our politics. It is no 
 great harm, for they seem to me to be going all wrong. 
 
 I yesterday received a farewell letter from Calcutta, 
 from that distinguished and amiable man, whom I 
 chanced to meet in the Himalaya, Mr. Inglis, a very 
 
LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 409 
 
 rich Canton merchant, who is on his return thither 
 to play at losing or winning millions. He promises to 
 write to me frequently from that country, with which 
 he is admirably acquainted. He is almost a friend. If, in 
 a couple of years, Marlot receives a chest of Chinese 
 plants, addressed to me, he must not be surprised j for 
 I have given Mr. Robert Inglis his address, and he 
 has promised me a present of that kind. 
 
 Adieu, my dear friend. I embrace you with all my 
 heart. 
 
 end or vol. r. 
 
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