s character, and showed us what we should have to endure on his
account.

The day after the passage of the Pouhain-Gol, when we had been marching
for a part of the night, we remarked, on one of our camels, two great
packages, carefully enveloped in wrappers, which we had not before seen.
We thought, however, that some traveller, who had not been able to find
room for them on his own sumpter animal, had asked Charadchambeul to take
charge of them during the journey; and we, accordingly, quietly pursued
our way, without, at the time, recurring to the circumstance. When we
reached our encampment for the night, so soon as the baggage was taken
down, we saw, to our great surprise, our Lama of the Ratchico mountains
take the two packets, envelope them mysteriously in a piece of felt, and
hide them in a corner of the tent. There was evidently something here
which required explanation; and we accordingly desired Charadchambeul to
inform us what was this new luggage that we saw in the tent. He
approached us, and in a whisper as though fearing to be heard, told us
that during the night Buddha had bestowed on him a special grace, in
enabling him to find on the road a good thing, and then he added, with a
knavish smile, that at Lha-Ssa, this good thing would sell for at least
ten ounces of silver. We frowned, and required to see this same good
thing. Charadchambeul, having first carefully closed the door of the
tent, uncovered, with infinite emotion, his pretended godsend. It
consisted of two great leathern jars, full of a sort of brandy, that is
distilled in the province of Kan-Sou, and which is sold at a high price.
On these two jars were Thibetian characters indicating the well known
name of the proprietor. We had the charity to reject the thought that
Charadchambeul had stolen these jars, during the night; and preferred to
suppose that he had picked them up on the road. But our pro-cameleer was
a casuist of very loose morality. He pretended that the jars belonged to
him, that Buddha had made him a present of them, and that all which now
required to be done was carefully to conceal them, lest the previous
proprietor should discover them. Any attempt to reason such a worthy as
this into morality and justice, would have been simply lost labour and
time. We therefore emphatically declared to him that the jars were
neither our's nor his, that we would neither receive them into our tent
nor place them on our camels during t