Page:Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet.djvu/187

Ch. II.] interwoven; frogs, watery insects, and dank air: one can hardly breathe. This continues five kos; towards the end there are sal and large forest trees. Two miles farther on we crossed the river which separates the Kuch Bahar country from that of the Deb Rajah, in sal canoes fastened together. I was now arrived at the foot of that chain of hills which stretches along the northern frontier of Bengal and separates it from Tibet. In old maps, I believe, they are called the Nagracut, in late ones the Tibet or Bod-la mountains. As none of the Company's servants, and I might almost say no European, had ever visited the country which I was about to enter, I was equally in the dark as to the road, the climate, or the people; and the imperfect account of some religious mendicants, who had travelled through it, however unsatisfactory, was the only information I could collect. We passed the forts of Bowani-ganj, and Chichakotta, lately destroyed, and arrived at some new houses, in one of which we were accommodated.

The house was thatched, the floor of lath of bamboo, and raised four feet from the ground; the walls of reeds, tied together with slips of bamboo; and the stair a stump of a tree, with notches cut in it./ It had much the look of a birdcage, and the space below being turned into a hogstye contributed little to its pleasantness. There was not a bit of iron or rope about it. The houses for the three next stages were in the same style. The head man of the village and some of the neighbours got tipsy with a bottle of rum. A female pedlar sojourned with him; good features and shape, fine teeth, and Rubens' wife's eyes; whole dress one blanket wrapped round her, and fastened over the shoulders with a silver skewer. She drank rum too. Men, women, and children sleep higgledy-piggledy together. The country at the foot of the hills, subject to