rawn up in
line, to do military honours to the Pacificator of Kingdoms, who, perched
up, at the bottom of his palanquin, went through the ranks in a very
unwarlike manner. The Thibetian population, who were all on foot,
accompanied the caravan to a beautiful Chinese pagoda which was to serve
for our lodging. The same evening, the Mandarins of the Chinese garrison
and the Grand Lamas of the town, came to pay us a visit, and to offer us
some beef and mutton, butter, corn, candles, bacon, rice, nuts, raisins,
apricots, and other products of the country.

At Bathang, there is a magazine of provisions, the fourth from Lha-Ssa;
it is, like all the others, managed by a literary Mandarin, bearing the
title of Liang-Tai. The Chinese garrison, consisting of three hundred
soldiers, is commanded by a Cheou-Pei, two Tsien-Tsoung, and a Pa-Tsoung.
The annual maintenance of the Chinese troops, who belong to this post,
amounts to nine thousand ounces of silver, without reckoning the rations
of rice and tsamba. We observed, among the population of Bathang, a very
great number of Chinese; they are engaged in various arts and trades;
several of them, indeed, occupy themselves with agriculture, and make the
most of the Thibetian farms. This plain, which you find, as by
enchantment, amid the mountains of Thibet, is wonderfully fertile: it
produces two harvests each year. Its principal products are, rice,
maize, barley, wheat, peas, cabbages, turnips, onions, and several other
varieties of vegetable. Of fruits, you find grapes, pomegranates,
peaches, apricots, and water melons. Honey is also very abundant there.
Lastly, you find there mines of cinnabar (sulphur of mercury), from which
they extract a large quantity of mercury. The Thibetians get the mercury
in all its purity, by disengaging the sulphur by combustion, or by
combining it with slack-lime.

The town of Bathang is large and very populous, and its inhabitants seem
to be well off. The Lamas there are very numerous, as they are in all
the Thibetian towns. The principal Lamasery, which they call the Grand
Monastery of Ba, has for its superior a Khampo, who holds his spiritual
authority from the Tale-Lama of Lha-Ssa.

The temporal power of the Tale-Lama ends at Bathang. The frontiers of
Thibet, properly so called, were fixed in 1726, on the termination of a
great war between the Thibetians and the Chinese. Two days before you
arrive at Bathang, you pass, on the top of th