Large parties of women and children were daily passing my tent from Tungu, to collect arum-roots at the Thlonok, all with baskets at their backs, down to rosy urchins of six years old: they returned after several days, their baskets neatly lined with broad rhododendron leaves, and full of a nauseous-looking yellow acid pulp, which told forcibly of the extreme poverty of the people. The children were very fair; indeed the young Tibetan is as fair as an English brunette, before his perennial coat of smoke and dirt has permanently stained his face, and it has become bronzed and wrinkled by the scorching sun and rigorous climate of these inhospitable countries. Children and women were alike decked with roses, and all were good-humoured and pleasant, behaving with great kindness to one another, and unaffected politeness to me. During my ten days' stay at Zemu Samdong, I formed a large collection of insects, which was in great part destroyed by damp: many were new, beautiful, and particularly interesting, from belonging to types whose geographical distribution is analogous to that of the vegetation. The caterpillar of the swallow-tail butterfly (_Papilio Machaon_), was common, feeding on umbelliferous plants, as in England; and a _Sphynx_ (like _S. Euphorbiae_) was devouring the euphorbias; the English _Cynthia Cardui_ (painted-lady butterfly) was common, as were "sulphurs," "marbles," _Pontia_ (whites), "blues," and _Thecla,_ of British aspect but foreign species. Amongst these, tropical forms were rare, except one fine black swallow-tail. Of moths, _Noctuae_ and _Geometrae_ abounded, with many flies and _Tipulae. Hymenoptera_ were scarce, except a yellow _Ophion,_ which lays its eggs in the caterpillars above-mentioned. Beetles were most rare, and (what is remarkable) the wood-borers (_longicorns_ and _Curculio_) particularly so. A large _Telephora_ was very common, and had the usual propensity of its congeners for blood; _lamellicorns_ were also abundant. On the 11th of July five coolies arrived with rice: they had been twenty days on the road, and had been obliged to make great detours, the valley being in many places impassable. They brought me a parcel of English letters; and I started up the Lachen on the following day, with renewed spirits and high hopes. The road first crossed the Zemu and the spur beyond, and then ascended the west bank of the Lachen, a furious torrent for five or six miles, during which it descends 1000 feet, in a chasm from which rise lofty black pine-clad crags, topped by snowy mountains, 14,000 to 16,000 feet high. One remarkable mass of rock, on the east bank, is called "Sakya-zong" (or the abode of Sakya, often pronounced Thakya, one of the Boodhist Trinity); at its base a fine cascade falls into the river.