“We find indeed detached volumes and piles of papers in many of the other villages, as Sungnam, Skuno, and Nissung; and in Piti, in Ladak, where those works are sheltered, beautiful paintings and casts as large as life adorn the monasteries, leaving us wondering at the origin and antiquity of such remains in regions wild in aspect and sterile in production. Additional interest is thrown over those mighty scenes of the Himalayas in the curious fact, which has recently come to my knowledge, of the discovery in an obscure spot of Kunawur of a relic of the Romish missionaries’ work on Tibet, the Speculum Veritatis, bearing a date of 1678. This curious record was picked up by the Rev. Mr. W., whom I met with in my travels, and then little thought that so precious a fragment would have found its way into his hands, judging from an observation on first meeting him on the northern face of the Himalaya. The fragment of literature acquired by Mr. W. (which I suspect is part of Andrada’s mission) has been sent to Mr. Csoma for elucidation, and I expect soon to hear of its contents. “In all this, I have only been able to trace a margin of a new and gigantic map; we must look to the central plateau of Tartary for that knowledge which we have seen indicated elsewhere, and a grander field as regards natural aspect and configuration could not be selected, an aspect barren, it is true, but interesting from the grandeur of its barrenness, and concealing under its rugged and forbidding features, resources the most varied and estimable to science, literature, and art. To speak of those positive advantages in respect of climate and production even within our territory: such is the aridity of the interior of Kunawar that the roots of the rheum palmatum, which I dug up from amidst patches of snow on the slope of the pass in the Himalayan chain in the end of June, were already dry and pulverisable the following month, and moist opium received from Kotgarh in July became brittle and fit to be powdered in August, while in Calcutta this is impracticable in the driest season without the aid of adventitious heat.