“In this tour I have made a very curious collection of fossil shells (Ichthyolites), ammonites, and other petrifactions, which are chiefly valuable from the vast elevation at which they occurred, and from having myself found them in situ. I observed nothing very remarkable upon the nether side, except the cholera at Chepaul, in Joobul, at a height of almost 8000 feet, in spite of those theorists who would have restricted it to a lower limit, and a deodar 29½ feet in girth, and this is surely a prodigy in nature peculiar to those mountains. I never beheld such a sight as this enormous trunk, springing up like a mound to the height of almost 200 feet. The barometer afforded me the only practicable means of ascertaining this, and I imagine there are no others in such situations except to cut the tree down. On the northern frontiers of Kunawar I obtained an elevation of 20,000 feet without closing snow, and beheld, if not China itself, its frontier,—a scene of desolation and grandeur beyond my power to describe, for here language altogether fails. The country continued peaked, arid, and free from snow, yet every point had an altitude above my own level. The thermometer stood at 27°, but I was scorched by the sun’s rays. “I now turn to the Hungarian, who is far from the least remarkable of the many objects which have passed before me in this journey, and on whose account chiefly I trouble you with so long a letter. I found him at the village of Kanum, in his small but romantic hamlet, surrounded by books, and in the best health. He had not forgotten his reception at Sabathú, and was eager to manifest a feeling springing from gratitude. A year and more had passed since we met, and he seemed glad and proud to show me the fruits of his labours. He has been most persevering and successful, and were not his mind entirely absorbed in his studies, he would find a strong check to his exertions in the climate, situated as he is and has been for four months. The cold is very intense, and all last winter he sat at his desk wrapped up in woollens from head to foot, and from morning to night, without an interval of recreation or warmth, except that of his frugal meals, which are one universal routine of greasy tea; but the winters at Kanum dwindle to insignificance compared with the severity of those at the monastery of Yangla, [32] where Mr. Csoma passed a whole year. At that spot he, the Lama, and an attendant, were circumscribed in an apartment nine feet square for three or four months; they durst not stir out, the ground being covered with snow, and the temperature below the zero of the scale. There he sat, enveloped in a sheep-skin cloak, with his arms folded, and in this situation he read from morning till evening without fire, or light after dusk, the ground to sleep