their use, both internally and externally. From the Tant-La mountains to Lha-Ssa, the ground constantly declines. As you descend, the intensity of the cold diminishes, and the earth becomes clothed with more vigorous and more varied vegetation. One evening, we encamped in a large plain, where the pasturage was marvellously abundant, and as our cattle had been for some time past on very short commons indeed, we determined to give them the full benefit of the present opportunity, and to remain where we were for two days. Next morning, as we were quietly preparing our tea, we perceived in the distance a troop of horsemen galloping towards our encampment at full speed. The sight seemed to freeze the very blood in our veins; we stood for a moment perfectly petrified. After the first moment of stupor, we rushed out of our tent, and ran to Rala-Tchembé. “The Kolo! the Kolo!” cried we; “here’s a great body of Kolo advancing against us.” The Thibetian merchants, who were boiling their tea and mixing their tsamba, laughed at our alarm, and told us to sit down quite at our ease. “Take breakfast with us,” said they; “there are no Kolo to fear here; the horsemen you see yonder are friends. We are now entering upon an inhabited country; behind the hill there, to the right, are a number of black tents, and the horsemen, whom you take to be Kolo, are shepherds.” These words restored our equanimity, and with our equanimity returned our appetite, so that we were very happy to accept the invitation to breakfast with which we had been favoured. We had scarcely taken up a cup of buttered tea before the horsemen made their appearance at the door of the tent. So far from being brigands, they were worthy fellows who came to sell us butter and fresh meat; their saddles were regular butchers’ stalls hung with joints of mutton and venison, which rested on the sides of their horses. We purchased eight legs of mutton, which, being frozen, were easily susceptible of transport. They cost us an old pair of Peking boots, a Peking steel, and the saddle of our defunct mule, which luckily could also boast of Peking origin. Everything coming from Peking is highly prized by the Thibetians, more especially by that portion of the population which has not advanced beyond the pastoral and nomadic life. The merchants who accompany the caravan take care, accordingly, to label every package “Goods from Peking.” Snuff is especially an object of earnest competition among the Thibetians. All the shepherds asked us whether we had not snuff from Peking. M. Huc, who was the only snuff-taker of our party, had formerly possessed a quantity of the precious commodity, but it had all departed, and for the last eight days he had been reduced to the necessity of filling his snuff-box and his nose with a frightful mixture of dust and ashes. Those who are devotees of snuff, will at once comprehend all the horrors to poor M. Huc of this deplorable position.