the 17th century Kashmir continued to
be a great resort of Magian mystics and sages of various sects, professing
great abstinence and credited with preternatural powers. And indeed
Vambery tells us that even in our own day the Kashmiri Dervishes are
pre-eminent among their Mahomedan brethren for cunning, secret arts, skill
in exorcisms, etc. (_Dab._ I. 113 seqq. II. 147-148; _Vamb. Sk. of Cent.
Asia_, 9.)

NOTE 6.--The first precept of the Buddhist Decalogue, or Ten Obligations
of the Religious Body, is not to take life. But _animal food_ is not
forbidden, though restricted. Indeed it is one of the circumstances in the
Legendary History of Sakya Muni, which looks as if it _must_ be true, that
he is related to have aggravated his fatal illness by eating a dish of
pork set before him by a hospitable goldsmith. Giorgi says the butchers in
Tibet are looked on as infamous; and people selling sheep or the like will
make a show of exacting an assurance that these are not to be slaughtered.
In Burma, when a British party wanted beef, the owner of the bullocks
would decline to make one over, but would point one out that might be shot
by the foreigners.

In Tibetan history it is told of the persecutor Langdarma that he
compelled members of the highest orders of the clergy to become hunters
and butchers. A Chinese collection of epigrams, dating from the 9th
century, gives a facetious list of _Incongruous Conditions_, among which
we find a poor Parsi, a sick Physician, a fat Bride, a Teacher who does
not know his letters, and a _Butcher who reads the Scriptures_ (of
Buddhism)! (_Alph. Tib._ 445; _Koeppen_, I. 74; _N. and Q., C. and J._
III. 33.)

NOTE 7.--Coral is still a very popular adornment in the Himalayan
countries. The merchant Tavernier says the people to the north of the
Great Mogul's territories and in the mountains of Assam and Tibet were
the greatest purchasers of coral. (_Tr. in India_, Bk. II. ch. xxiii.)

CHAPTER XXXII.

OF THE GREAT RIVER OF BADASHAN.

In leaving Badashan you ride twelve days between east and north-east,
ascending a river that runs through land belonging to a brother of the
Prince of Badashan, and containing a good many towns and villages and
scattered habitations. The people are Mahommetans, and valiant in war.
At the end of those twelve days you come to a province of no great size,
extending indeed no more than three days' journey in any direction, and
this is called VOKHAN. The peo