were about to
proceed to the capital of Thibet. We made, without loss of time, all our
necessary preparations. First we had to pay a visit to Kounboum, in
order to purchase provisions for four months, since, on the whole route,
there was not the least hope of finding any thing to buy that we might
want. Upon a careful calculation, we found that we should require five
bricks of tea, two sheep's paunches of butter, two sacks of flour, and
eight sacks of tsamba. Tsamba is the name given here to barley-meal, the
insipid article which constitutes the ordinary food of the Thibetians.
They take a tea-cup half filled with boiling tea; to this they add some
pinches of tsamba, and then mix these materials together with the finger,
into a sort of wretched paste, neither cooked nor uncooked, hot nor cold,
which is then swallowed, and is considered breakfast, dinner, or supper,
as the case may be. If you desire to cross the desert to Lha-Ssa, you
must perforce resign yourself to tsamba; 'tis to no avail the French
traveller sighs for his accustomed knife and fork, and his accustomed
knife and fork dishes: he must do without them.

Persons, full of experience and philanthropy, counselled us to lay in a
good store of garlic, and every day to chew several cloves of it, unless
we wished to be killed on our way by the deleterious vapours, that
emanated from certain elevated mountains. We did not discuss the merits
of this hygeianic advice, but adopted it with absolute confidingness.

Our residence in the valley of Tchogortan had been in a high degree
advantageous to our animals, which had become fatter than we had ever
before known them; the camels, in particular, were magnificently stout;
their humps, made firm with solid flesh, rose proudly on their backs, and
seemed to defy the fatigues and privations of the desert. Still, even in
their improved condition, three camels were not enough to carry our
provisions and our baggage. We accordingly added to our caravan a
supplementary camel and horse, which lightened our exchequer to the
extent of twenty-five ounces of silver; moreover, we hired a young Lama
of the Ratchico mountains, with whom we had become acquainted at
Kounboum, and who was admitted into our party in the capacity of
pro-cameleer. This appointment, while it raised the social condition of
Samdadchiemba, diminished also the fatigues of his functions. According
to this new arrangement, the little caravan was disposed