Next to the Peboun, you remark at Lha-Ssa, the Katchi, or Mussulmen, from Cashmere—their turban, their large beard, their grave, solemn step, their physiognomy full of intelligence and majesty, the neatness and richness of their attire,—everything about them presents an emphatic contrast with the peoples of inferior race, by whom they are surrounded. They have at Lha-Ssa a governor, to whom they are immediately subject, and whose authority is recognised by the Thibetian government. This officer is, at the same time, the local head of the Mussulman religion; so that his countrymen consider him, in this foreign land, at once their pacha and their mufti. The Katchi have been established at Lha-Ssa for several centuries, having originally abandoned their own country, in order to escape the persecutions of a certain pacha of Cashmere, whose despotism had become intolerable to them; and the children of these first emigrants found themselves so well off in Thibet, that they never thought of returning to their own country. The descendants still keep up a correspondence with Cashmere, but the intelligence they receive thence is little calculated to give them any desire to renounce their adopted country. The Katchi governor, with whom we got upon very intimate terms, told us that the Pelings of Calcutta (the English), were now the real masters of Cashmere. “The Pelings,” said he, “are the most cunning people in the world. Little by little they are acquiring possession of all the countries of India, but it is always rather by stratagem than by open force. Instead of overthrowing the authorities, they cleverly manage to get them on their side, to enlist them in their interest. Hence it is that, in Cashmere, the saying is: The world is Allah’s, the land the Pacha’s; it is the company that rules.” The Katchi are the richest merchants at Lha-Ssa. All the establishments for the sale of linen, and other goods for personal and other use, belong to them. They are also money-changers, and traffic in gold and silver: hence it is that you almost always find Parsee characters on the Thibetian coinage. Every year, some of their number proceed to Calcutta for commercial operations, they being the only class who are permitted to pass the frontiers to visit the English. On these occasions they are furnished with a passport from the Talé-Lama, and a Thibetian escort accompanies them to the foot of the Himalaya mountains. The goods, however, which they bring from Calcutta, are of very limited extent, consisting merely of ribands, galloons, knives, scissors, and some other articles of cutlery and ironmongery, and a small assortment of cotton goods. The silks and linens in their warehouses, and of which they have a large sale at Lha-Ssa, come from Peking by the medium of the caravans; the linen goods, being Russian, come to them much cheaper than they buy them at Calcutta.