they were pasturing their cattle: I sent thither for food, and
procured a little meal at a very high price, a few fowls and eggs;
the messenger brought back word that Tungu was in Tibet, and that the
villagers ignored Kongra Lama. A large piece of yak-flesh being
brought for sale, I purchased it; but it proved the toughest meat I
ever ate, being no doubt that of an animal that had succumbed to the
arduous duties of a salt-carrier over the passes: at this season,
however, when the calves are not a month old, it was in vain to
expect better.

Large parties of women and children were daily passing my tent from
Tungu, to collect arum-roots at the Thlonok, all with baskets at
their backs, down to rosy urchins of six years old: they returned
after several days, their baskets neatly lined with broad
rhododendron leaves, and full of a nauseous-looking yellow acid pulp,
which told forcibly of the extreme poverty of the people.
The children were very fair; indeed the young Tibetan is as fair as
an English brunette, before his perennial coat of smoke and dirt has
permanently stained his face, and it has become bronzed and wrinkled
by the scorching sun and rigorous climate of these inhospitable
countries. Children and women were alike decked with roses, and all
were good-humoured and pleasant, behaving with great kindness to one
another, and unaffected politeness to me.

During my ten days' stay at Zemu Samdong, I formed a large collection
of insects, which was in great part destroyed by damp: many were new,
beautiful, and particularly interesting, from belonging to types
whose geographical distribution is analogous to that of the
vegetation. The caterpillar of the swallow-tail butterfly (_Papilio
Machaon_), was common, feeding on umbelliferous plants, as in