however, whether the metals enumerated | Sikkim, and Bhotan, with their Himáliya, above are to be found in the country to on the south; and the Chinese province any great extent, though there is no rea- of Yunnan on the east,-it is about as son to suppose that some of them may well lifted out of and defended from the not be so. A most serious want is that world as any country could be; and alof fuel. It is quite unlikely that there is though Lassa is about the same latitude any coal, and wood is extremely scarce. as Cairo and New Orleans, yet the great On the east side there are great forests elevation of the whole country (which here and there; but, on the elevated may be roughly called a table-land of plains of the west, the Tartars have to from fifteen thousand to sixteen thoudepend for their fires almost entirely on sand feet high) gives it almost an arctic furze and the droppings of their flocks. climate. The great cluster of mounThis must create a serious obstacle in tains called the Thibetan Kailas (the the way of working mines, and of a min-height of which remains unascertained, ing population existing at such a height; and some of the peaks of which may be but if only gold exists up there in great even higher than Gaurisankar) well deabundance, it is an obstacle which might serves to be called the centre of the be profitably overcome by the resources world. It is, at least, the greatest cenof modern science. tre of elevation, and the point from There is no less reason to believe that whence flow the Sutlej, the Indus, and Eastern Tibet abounds in the precious the Brahmaputra; while to Tibet, meanmetals. The Abbé Desgodins writes ing by that word the whole country in that "le sable d'or se trouve dans toutes which Tibetan is spoken, we may asles rivières et même dans les petits ruis-cribe most of the rivers of the Panjáb, and seaux du Thibet oriental;" and he men- also the Jumna, the Ganges, the Irrawadtions that in the town of Bathan, ordi, the Yang-tse, and even the Hoang-Ho, Batan, with which he was personally ac- or great Yellow River. The pass at quainted, about twenty persons were reg- Shipki, over which I crossed, is one of ularly occupied in secretly washing for the lowest of the passes into Chinese gold, contrary to the severe laws of the Tibet. There is another and more difcountry. At other places many hun-ficult pass close to it, about 12,500 feet dreds engaged in the same occupation. high; but the others are of great height, He also mentions five gold-mines and and the Mana Pass, between Tibet and three silver-mines as worked in the Gurwhal, is 18,570 feet. Though Lassa Tchong-tien province in the upper Yang-is the capital of the whole country, Teshu tse valley; and in the valley of the Meykong River there are seven mines of gold, eight of silver, and several more of other metals. He also mentions a large number of other districts, in each of which there is quite a number of gold and silver mines, besides mines of mercury, iron, and copper. It is no wonder, then, that a Chinese proverb speaks of Tibet as being at once the most elevated and the richest country in the world, and that the mandarins are so anxious to keep Europeans out of it. If the richest mineral treasures in the world lie there, as we have so much reason to suppose, there is abundant reason why strangers should be kept out of it, and why it should be kept sacred for the yellow religion, for supplications and prayers. The area of Tibet is partly a matter of conjecture, and the best geographers set it down as between six and seven hundred thousand square miles, with a very conjectural population of ten millions. With Mongolia on the north; Turkestan, Kunáwar, and the mountainous dependencies of Kashmir on the west; Nepal, Lambu, said to have a population of about fifty thousand, is the capital of the western division of Chinese Tibet, and is the residence of the Bogda Lama, the highest spiritual authority after the Grand Lama. The young persons of Shipki had none of the shamefacedness of the women of India. They would come and sit down before our tents and laugh at us, or talk with us. It was quite evident that we were a source of great amusement to them. They were certainly rather robust than beautiful; but one girl, who had come from the other side of Lassa, would have been very good-looking had she been well washed. This Tartar beauty had a well-formed head, regular features, and a reddish-brown complexion. She was expensively adorned, and was probably the relative of some official who thought it best to keep in the background. In fact, she was very handsome indeed, lively and good-humoured; but there was the slight drawback that her face had never been washed since the day of her birth. Another 368 THE ABODE OF SNOW. not a young girl belonging to Shipki tempted of its zemindars, or proprietors of land, some of our Namgea men into a mild pay a tax amounting to £5 yearly to the flirtation; but whenever they offered to government, and the remainder pay touch her it was a matter of tooth and smaller sums. nails at once. with the people on the subject of relig- exactly the typical Tartar countenance, Mr. Pagell's conversation about two thousand, and they have not The population numbers ion was well enough received, though his though with clearly-marked Tartar charstatements were not allowed to go uncon-acteristics, and there were two or three troverted, and his medical advice was strangers among them whose features much preferred. In talking with us, the were purely Turanian. men were rather rude in their manner, Shipki have a striking resemblance to the and, after staying for a little, they would country Chinese of the province of ShanThe people of suddenly go away, laughing, and slap- tung, and they were large, able-bodied, ping their persons in a way that was far and rather brutal in their manners, from respectful. Both men and women wore long tunics being apparent. The village is separated trace of Chinese formality or politeness and loose trousers, a reddish colour into several divisions; the houses are being predominant, and also large cloth not close together, and the steep paths Tartar boots; but duing the heat of the between them are execrable, being little day many of both sexes dispensed with more than stairs of rock with huge steps. the boots, and some of the men ap- The gooseberry-bushes, however, gave a peared with the upper part of their bodies pleasant appearance to the place, and the entirely naked. All the men had pigtails, unripe berries promised to reach a conand they wore caps like the ordinary siderable size. Of course the whole disChinese skull-caps, though, from dirt and trict is almost perfectly rainless, and the perspiration, the original colour and orna-air is so dry as to crack the skin of Euromentation were not distinguishable. The peans. It must get very little sun in women had some pig-tails, some plaits, winter, and be excessively cold at that and were richly ornamented with tur- season; but in summer the climate is quoises, opals, pieces of amber, shells mild, and hottish during the day. The (often made into immense bracelets), corals, and gold and silver amulets; while the men had metal pipes, knives, and ornamented daggers stuck in their girdles. The oblique eye and prominent cheekbones were noticeable, though not in very marked development; and though the noses were thick and muscular, they were sometimes straight or aquiline. The bodies were well developed, large, and strong; but the men struck me as disproportionally taller than the women. The weather being warm, hardly any one appeared in sheepskins, and most of their garments were of thick woollen stuff, though the girl from beyond Lassa wore a tunic of the ordinary thick, glazed, black, Chinese-made flaxen cloth. We did not obtain permission to enter any of their houses, which were strongly built and roofed of stone, but saw sufficient to indicate that these were dark uncleanly habitations, almost devoid of furniture. thermometer outside my tent was 56o at sunrise; but it was 84° Fahr. at 2 P.M. inside the tent, with a breeze blowing through. Shipki is about ninety-five hundred feet high, which is a remarkable elevation for The bed of the Sutlej near so large a river. all events without going back to Kunáwar, and purchasing yaks of my own, I Finding it hopeless to pass Shipki, at determined to proceed to Kashmir, high up along the whole line of the western Himáliya; and, indeed, I did not manage to reach that country a day too soon, for I narrowly escaped being snowed up for the winter in the almost unknown province of Zanskar. acknowledged the hopelessness of attempting to proceed farther into the doMr. Pagell also minions of the Grand Lama, so we left Shipki on the afternoon of the 10th August; and though the thermometer had Shipki is a large village in the sub-dis- starting, we camped that night with it at been at 82° in our tents shortly before trict of Rongchúng, with a number of 57° before sunset in a pure bracing atterraced fields, apricot-trees, apple-trees, mosphere at the Shipki Rizhing, or Shipand gooseberry-bushes. It is watered by ki Fields, about twenty-five hundred feet streams artificially led to it from the gla- higher up on the Kúng-ma Pass, but on ciers and snow-beds to the south-west of the eastern side of it, and still within the the Kúng-ma Pass, where there are great Chinese border. Here we had a remarkwalls of snow and snowy peaks about able example of the courage and ferocity twenty thousand feet high. Twenty-four of the Tartars. On leaving the outskirts on being spoken to on this subject, admitted that he had observed that even at Lassa the pure Chinese did not take any milk; and he said the reason they gave for not doing so was, that milk makes people stupid. I fancy there is some truth in that assertion; but possibly the Chinese may have got the idea from the fact that the Tartars, who are necessarily and butter-milk, are a very stupid people. Sir Alexander Burnes mentions a similar opinion as existing in Sind in regard to the effects of fish. There, a fish diet is believed to destroy the mind; and in palliation of ignorance or stupidity in any one, it is often pleaded that "he is but a fish-eater." Yet this diet, more than any other, if our modern savants can be trusted, supplies the brain with phosphorus and thought, so it is calculated to make people the reverse of stupid. of Shipki, our coolies had plucked and taken away with them some unripe apples; and at the Shipki Rizhing, where there are no houses, only an empty unroofed hut or two for herdsmen, a solitary Tartar made his appearance, and observing the apples, declared that they were his, and, abusing the coolies for taking them, straightway fell upon the man in possession of them, tore that in-milk-drinkers and eaters of dried milk dividual's hair, and knocked him about in the most savage manner. Though there were over twenty of the Kunáwar men looking on, and several of them were implicated in the theft, if such it might be called, yet none of them ventured to interfere; and their companion might have received serious injury, had not Chota Khan, who was always ready for a fray of the kind, gone in and separated the two. Now this was between two and three thousand feet above the village, and I doubt if there were any other Tar- The next day we started before daytars about the spot, except one other man light, and camped again at Namgea who had come to see us off the premises. Fields. The view over Tartary, from the Ferocity is much admired in Chinese summit of the pass, was somewhat ob. Tibet; and in order to create it, the peo- scured by the rising sun, which cast on it ple are fond of eating what they ironical- a confusing roseate light; but the great ly call "still meat," or meat with maggots outlines of the rolling hills and windy in it. We heard also, that, to the same steppes were visible. I should be glad end, they give a very curious pap to their to try Chinese Tibet again, and in a more infants. Meat, cut into thin slices, is serious way; but meanwhile I had all the dried in the sun and ground into powder; Western Himáliya before me, from Lío it is then mixed with fresh blood and put Porgyúl to the twenty-six-thousand-feet into a cotton cloth, and so given to the peak of Nunga Parbat, besides the enfant terrible to suck. Mixtures such Afghan border, and I had satisfied my as this, combined with half-raw flesh, sun-immediate purpose by seeing some of the dried flesh, and, where there is cultiva-primitive Turanians, and looking on their tion, with girdle-cakes of wheat, buck-wild, high, mountain home. From The Spectator. DEAD DUTCH CITIES.* wheat, and barley, must make a pretty strong diet even for the seniors, and one well-fitted to produce endurance and courage. It is to be hoped the milk (of mares and other animals) which the nomad Tartars so largely imbibe, may have some effect in mollifying the ferocity of their spirits. It is very extraordinary that the Chinese, who are a Tartar people and must have descended at one time from the "Land of grass," should so entirely eschew the use of milk in every shape. For long there was a difficulty in getting even a sufficiency of that liquid for the use of the foreigners at the open ports in China; and I have heard of a ship-captain at Whampoa, on blowing up his comprador for not having brought him any milk, receiving the indignant answer "That pig hab killo, that dog hab weillo (run away), that woman hab catchee cheillo how then Voyage Pittoresque aux Villes Mortes du Zuidercan catchee milk?" A Lama at Kaelang, | zée. Par M. Henry Havard, Paris: E. Pion et Ci LIVING AGE. - VOL. X. 492 THE belief which one hears constantly expressed in French society that Prince Bismarck means to "accaparer" Holland before long, so that the German Empire may possess the two things wanting to complete its supremacy and secure its future, a fine seaboard and rich colonies, and that the stream of German emigration may be no longer for the sole profit of the United States and our Colonial Empire, has led to an uprising of curiosity in France concerning the rich and quiet country which has had a pretty good spell of prosperous obscurity. Dutch linen, Dutch pictures, and Dutch pottery have always been appreciated in France, but with no more local interest or association than the Japanese bibelots, which, though immensely fashionable, do not inspire people with a desire to read about Kioto. The summary of Voltaire, when he wrote, "Adieu, canaux, canards, canaille!" has done very well for the French people until now, when Holland has become invested with the attraction of a neighbour who feels a pain Just in the part where we complain. and M. Henry Havard's "Voyage Pittoresque" is in great demand. am to be the judge of the weather; that is to say, in case of a storm, I am to have the right to refuse to put to sea; and I am not to work on Sundays." The bargain was made, and the travellers set sail from Amsterdam, with the conscientious skipper, his wife, his child, and a young sailor lad, on the newest of seas, whose shores were once crowned with wealthy and powerful cities, to visit those cities in their silent, grey old age; "to see Medemblik and Stavoren before the grass has grown over their walls, and their names are effaced from the map of the Low Countries." scenes, which they do not understand, and revels in visions of the "Zee" when it was not a sea, but a vast plain covered with forests, in which "wolves and bears disputed the scanty resources of the chase with man ;" and of the "Y" as it shall be in the not far distant future, when "in the place of this liquid plain shall be flowery pasture for droves of the fine black and white cattle of Holland; when a simple canal shall replace the little sea, dried up by modern industry." The great dams of Schellingwoude, through whose immense gates five ships may sail abreast, delight him, he can compare them only with those of Trolhætta, in Sweden. The tjalk passes This picturesque voyage is very interesting and pleasant to follow, described The Dutch themselves know very litas it is, with frank enthusiastic admiratle of the silent cities on the Zuyderzee, tion, frequently touched with comical an ignorance which M. Havard attributes vexation because the author finds so few partly to their "exclusivisme de clocher," to share it. The phlegmatic and posior as we should call it, their parochial- tive Dutchmen try his temper severely; ism, and partly to the deterrent difficul- he flies for relief to the beauty of the ties of a voyage for which no regular provision exists, and whose primary requirements are troublesome. The traveller must hire a vessel and engage a crew. The vessel must be one which draws very little water, and yet large enough to live in, to cook in, and to carry sufficient provisions for twenty-five or thirty days; for, with the exception of bread and some fresh vegetables, which may be taken in occasionally during the voyage, he must not calculate upon the resources of the country. He must be especially careful to carry a plentiful supply of water; he will not find any in North Holland and Friesland which is not exceedingly unpleasant to the taste, and pernicious to the health of persons who are unaccus-through the dykes together with the little fishing fleet returning to the island of The question of a crew is not easily Marken, having discharged their cargo solved either, for the skippers of the of anchovies, and is fairly afloat on the Zuyderzee are accustomed to navi- gulf, which has no tameness or sameness gate its waters piecemeal, in conse-in the eyes of M. Havard -feasted on quence of certain regulations which its varying colour-and of whose shore expose them to new taxes if they he says: tomed to it. stray out of their beat; hence, there are many ships' crews who are born, who That uninterrupted flat band of verdure, live, and who die on the Zuyderzee, with-stretching itself out far beyond our sight, proont ever having sailed all around it. M. duces an impression full of tenderness, and Havard and his friend Mynheer Van rests one's mind. In the presence of that Heemskerck-who illustrates his book endless horizontal line, one feels no need of -procured a talk which drew only thought, no strength for action; a strange three feet of water, and whose skipper, feeling comes over one, a sense of supreme an austere Réformé, who had never made tranquillity takes hold of one; the mind sinks into reverie, and one understands how it is the complete voyage, but much wished that a race which has gazed on this spectacle to do so, made very simple conditions for centuries has subsided from its original with them. "With the help of God, and violence and impetuosity into a state of reflec a good wind," said the Réformé, "wetion and calm. In a short time we can disshall do well. I make two conditions. I tinguish the roofs of the houses, and the spire of the church of Marken; then the pretty villages perched upon slight eminences; lastly, the entire island, which looks like an immense green raft, adrift upon a grey sea. The houses become more distinct, their deep colour stands out strongly against the light blue of the sky; black, red, and green are the prevailing tones, and they lend strength, indeed almost violence, to the picture. What delight to the artist is this marvellous colouring of nature! In beholding such spectacles, we readily understand how it is that Holland has produced such great colourists. The island of Marken, where the men are No vain desire of unknown things One day Van Heemskerck was sketching the little church of Marken and the adjacent houses. An old man drew near, and gazed long upon my friend's work. At length he said, "You are painting my house. I was born there, and my father before me, there also my children came into the world, and a little while ago my grandson. I think the house is beautiful, because it is full of remembrances, but I never should have thought that another person would think it beautiful and worthy of being painted. You do it honour." The somnolence of Monnikendam equals its picturesqueness. The town is an assemblage of great trees and small houses, of red and green; the pavement is of yellow bricks, the façades, centuries old, look as if the sculptor had desisted. from his task but yesterday. Only the once splendid but now deserted church is older than the year 1515, when the ancient city was destroyed by fire; its vacant vastness would be a world too wide for the dwellers in the present city, where the arrival of the two strangers was a great event. The streets are deserted and the canals devoid of traffic. "The trees and the houses, alike bending forward, are reflected in the slumbering water, and seem to share its slumber. The demeanour of the inhabitants is marked by a majestic calm. Young and old, men and women, all seem half asleep, as though they were economizing life by There is nothing but the wonderful taking it slowly. Looking upon this contrasts and contradictions which time quietude, so nearly death, it is difficult to has worked out to remind the traveller believe that Monnikendam was one of of the Dutch and of Mr. Motley. The the twenty-nine cities of Holland when study of those picturesque histories of the Hague was only a burgh, and that it his would be impressive here, where enjoyed in that capacity privileges which there is no trace of the historic past in were denied to the seat of the governthe life of the people, except it be found ment." Of Vollendam and Edam we in the unexpected stores of ancient ob- have similar pictures, but in both instanjects of art, carefully kept indeed, but ces cheeses intrude, and lend at least hardly comprehended, Japanese por- some commercial vivacity to the sketch; celain and Delft vases, richly embroid- of Hoorn, and its grand monumental ered house-linen, of great age, and chests Eastern Gate, and beautiful old houses, and wardrobes rich with the priceless rich in carving and colour, a charming carving of the artists of the grand old description, of its historic glories a vivid days. The present is very quaint and résumé, and of its actual condition some peaceful, secluded and unknown. Of comical illustrations. Enkhuysen (Paul the Markmaars, who even at Amster- Potter's native place) is a spectacle of dam are held to be a kind of savages, M. desolation, and its inhabitants forced the Havard gives an attractive account. He strangers to depart, because M. Havard dwells particularly upon the respective was a Frenchman, and a fisherman from costumes of the men and women, which the town had once been imprisoned for are precisely similar to those worn three six months at Havre for a proven centuries ago, and are specially remark- offence! The once famous Medemblik able for their brilliant colouring. The is a mouldering tomb for the half-dead people have simple, cordial manners, not inhabitants, surrounded by monotonous, lacking dignity. Here is a characteristic endless grasslands. The municipal counanecdote: cil has recently sold the splendid wood |