any one who might drop in, including a (ous character of the roof itself, through Balti wanderer, was about forty feet long which the snow soaked only too easily, by thirty. It had no window, properly and, being thoroughly melted by the time speaking light, air, and, I may add, it got through the roof, fell everywhere snow, finding admission through a square into the apartment in large, black, dirty hole in the roof, with sides each about drops, so that it was somewhat difficult to six feet. Directly below this, but not so find a spot on which one could keep dry large, there was a corresponding hole in or clean. the floor, so that a sort of well ran down On the second day, when there was no to the ground-floor, and served to carry appearance of the snowstorm ceasing, off the rain and snow which are admitted and there was great probability of my by the hole in the roof. This is an in-having to spend a winter of eight months genious arrangement, and shows that the in Phe, I began seriously to consider human mind may have some invention what state I should likely be in after so even when it is not equal to conceive of prolonged a residence in such an aparta chimney. The room was just high ment. The prospect was by no means a enough to allow of a tall man standing pleasant one, and I resolved, if I had to upright beneath the beams; and the roof remain, to take up my abode in the halfwas about four feet thick, being com- covered balcony. My liquors were at posed of thorn-bushes pressed very close- their last ebb, and my tea was disappearly together, and resting on several large ing; but I could keep myself going in strong beams. Inside, the walls were coffee by means of roasted barley, and plastered with a kind of coarse chunam; there would be no want of milk, meal, the floor was composed of rafters and and mutton. Perhaps a knowledge of slabs of slate; and on the floor, resting the Tibetan language might prove more against one of the walls, there were two useful to me than that of English; and or three small stone fireplaces, which an intelligent being might find more constituted the only furniture, except one satisfaction as a Nímapa Lama, than as or two chests, which served as seats. either primate or prime minister of England in the present age.

The polyandric wife and mother of this house kept to the inner room; but there was a delightful trio which kept me company in the public apartment, and was composed of the aged grandmother and two fine children, a girl and boy of five and six years old respectively. They were delicious children, fair almost as northern Europeans, frolicsome and wild whenever the grandmother was away or not looking after them, and the next moment as demure as mice when the cat is in the room. They ate with great gusto enormous piles of thick scones covered with fine rancid butter. No young lions

To say that this was in itself a pleasant place of residence would be incorrect. The large aperture in the centre of the roof created a low temperature which required a fire to make it tolerable, but the smoke from the fire knew when it was well off, and showed a remarkable aversion to going out at the aperture. Consequently, there was the alternative of being starved with cold or being occasionally half-choked and blinded with the pungent smoke of birch and thornbushes. However, the smoke, after going up the wall, did collect pretty close to the roof, the inside of which it had covered with a thick layer of soot. That was not nearly so great an evil as the por-ever had a more splendid appetite, or roared more lustily for their food. The old woman kept them winding yarn and repeating “ Om mani pad me haun;" but the moment her back was turned they would spring up, dance about, open their sheepskin coats and give their little plump rosy bodies a bath of cold air; but when old granny, who was blear-eyed and half-blind, hobbled back, they were seated in their places in an instant, hard at work at “ Om mani pad," and looking as if butter would not melt in their mouths. Sometimes they would sit down beside me and gaze into the fire, with all the wisdom and solemnity of Búdha in their countenances; then the boy's naked

heavier kinds of work. As a result of this, it con

stantly happens that three or four brothers in a household take unto themselves conjointly one wife, whose offspring are divided by choice among her husbands. Such wives who succeed in living in harmony with three or four brothers are called accomplished," in recognition of their capacity for governing their households. In addition to labour in the fields, all such work as spinning, weaving, and other domestic duties, are expected of the women, and those who are ignorant of such arts are objects of universal ridicule. Adultery is not considered shameful; and when a married woman forms a liaison, she frankly informs her husband or husbands that such and such a one has become her ying-tuh" or gallant bachelor." The husband or husbands aake no objection; and husbands and wife, "averting their eyes" from the doings of each other, contentedly follow their own devices.'

66

"I am, sir, your obedient servant,
64 ROBERT K. DOUGLAS."

66

foot would noiselessly steal out until he these Zanskaries are the congeners of the caught a burning branch between his Celtic race, and the subject is well worthy toes, on which the girl would give him a of examination. I was not admitted into violent nudge, push him over, and they the room dedicated to religious purposes, would both jump up laughing and run but saw there were Budhist images, away. The grandmother too was inter- brass basins and saucer-lights similar to esting. She said she had seen seventy those used both by the Chinese and the years she did not know how many Indians. The young Balti who had taken more, and the Tibetans rarely know their refuge with us from the storm displayed own ages. There was between her and his honesty, though he was going in a the children that confidential relationship different direction from ours; for, on my we often see in Europe, and which, being giving him four annas (sixpence) for quite born of love, creates no fear; and she a number of the apricots of his country also found room in her affections for a which he had presented me with, he said young kitten, which drove Djeóla almost that was too much, and brought me more mad. Though nearly blind she plied her of his dried fruit, which must have been distaff industriously, and she showed her carried over a difficult journey of weeks. piety by almost continuously repeating I met several large parties of Baltis in the great Lama prayer. It is true she this part of the Himáliya, and was struck never got any farther than "Om mani by their Jewish appearance. Though pad," thereby getting over more repeti- Mohammedans, their language is Tibetions of it than would have been possible tan, and Nurdass had no difficulty in had she pronounced the whole formula;{talking with them. Here is another inbut let us hope the fraud on heaven was stance where a people, evidently not of a passed over. A less agreeable occupa- Tartar race, speak a Tartar language; tion in which she indulged was that of and I must again protest against the exfreeing her own garments and those of treme to which the philologists have emthe children from unpleasant parasites;ployed the clue of language. The Jews for, after doing so, she always carefully of China have entirely lost their own placed them on the floor without injuring them; for it would never have done to neutralize the effect of the prayer for the six classes of beings by destroying any of them. To the looker-on, this placing of parasites on the floor is apt to suggest foreboding reflections. But, to tell the truth, one gets accustomed to that sort of thing. Whatever care be taken, it is impossible to travel for any time among On the second morning after our arthe Himáliya without making the ac- rival at Phe the storm had entirely passed quaintance of a good many little friends. off, and a council of the villagers was It is impossible to describe the shudder-held to determine whether or ing disgust with which the discovery of the first is made; but, by the time you get to the five-hundredth, you cease to care about them, and take it as a matter of course. When our bedding and all our baggage is carried on the backs of coolies, there must be some transference of that class of parasites which haunt the human body and clothes; but they are easily got rid of entirely when the supply stops.

tongue, and their nationality has been recognized only by two or three customs, and by their possession of copies of the Pentateuch - which they are unable to read. Such matters are often as well treated by men of general knowledge and large capacity of thought as by the devotees of some particular branch of knowledge.

not we

could be got over the Pense-la Pass. I should have been delighted to remain in Zanskar all winter, though not in such an apartment as I have described, but was, in a manner, bound in honour to my servants to proceed if it were possible to do so; and the villagers were anxious to see us off their hands; for it would have been a serious matter for them had we remained all winter. So, with a strong body of bigarries and a number of ponies Though the children were so fair, the and cows, we started at nine in the mornmen of the house were dark and long-ing. The open valley presented a most featured, with almost nothing of the Tartar in their countenances; but their language is quite Tibetan, and I should say that we have here a distinct instance of a people who speak the language of an alien race and that alone. It will be curious if my supposition be correct that

lovely scene. Pure white snow rose up on either side of it nearly from the river to the tops of the high mountains, dazzling in the sunlight. Above, there was a clear, brilliant, blue sky, unspotted by any cloud or fleck of mist, but with great eagles occasionally flitting across it

Thus on the chill Lapponian's dreary land,
For many a long month lost in snow profound,
When Sol from Cancer sends the seasons
bland,

And in their northern cave the storms are
bound,

From silent mountains, straight with startling sound,

Torrents are hurled; green hills emerge; and, lo!

The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are

crowned,

Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling

flow.

Close to the river the snow had melted, | la Pass. A great glacier flowed over it, or was melting from the grass, displaying and for some way our ascent lay up the beautiful autumn flowers which had been rocky slopes to the right side of this uninjured by it; the moisture on these ice-stream; but that was tedious work, flowers and on the grass was sparkling in and when we got up a certain distance, the sunlight. Every breath of the pure and the snow was thick enough to supkeen air was exhilarating; and for music port us, we moved on to the glacier itwe had the gush of snow-rivulets and the self, and so made the remainder of the piping of innumerable large marmots, ascent. The fall of snow here had been which came out of their holes on the sides tremendous. I probed in vain with my of the valley, and whistled to each other. seven-feet-long alpenstock to strike the It was more like an Alpine scene in ice beneath; but every now and then a spring than in autumn, and reminded me crevasse, too large to be bridged by the of Beattie's lines describing the outbreak snow, showed the nature of the ground of a Lapland spring:· we were on. I fancy this was the most dangerous ground I rode over in all the Himáliya, for the snow over a crevasse might have given way beneath a horse and his rider; but several of the Zanskar men were riding and did not dismount, so I was fain to trust to this local knowledge, though I did not put any confidence in it. Not far from the top of the pass we came upon a beautiful little lake in the glacier, sunk within walls of blue ice, and frozen, but with the of its surface all melted. For by this snow which had fallen and the upper ice time the power of the sunbeams in the On reaching the last village, called rarefied atmosphere, and their reflection Abring, it was determined not to stay from the vast sheets of pure white snow, there, but to camp as high up on the pass was something tremendous. I had on as we could reach before nightfall, in blue goggles to protect my eyes,* and a order to have the whole of the next day double muslin veil over my face, yet all for getting over the deep snow with which the skin on my face was destroyed. Afits summit was covered. On ascending ter crossing this pass, my countenance from the larger valley, we passed through became very much like an over-roasted a number of picturesque small vales, and leg of mutton; and as to my hands, the then got on a more open tract, on one mere sight of them would have made a side of which, where there were some New Zealander's teeth water. On my birch-bushes, we camped at eve. My Indian servants the only effect was to tent had to be pitched on snow, and I blacken their faces, and make their eyes may say that for the next seven days, or blood-shot. The top of the Pense-la is until I reached Dras, I was very little off only 14,440 feet high, but it took us a long that substance; and for six nights my tent time to reach it, our horses sinking up to was either pitched on snow or on ground their girths in the snow at almost every which had been swept clear of it for the step, and the leader having to be frepurpose. At this camp on the Pense-la, quently changed. We have been told to darkness came on (there being only a pray that our flight should not be in the crescent moon in the early morning) be- winter; and certainly in a Himáliyan fore our preparations for the night were winter it would not be possible to fly concluded. My thermometer sank to 22°, either quickly or far without the wings and there was something solemn sug- of eagles. The deep dark blue of the gested on looking into the darkness and heavens above contrasted. with the peralong the great snowy wastes. My bigar- fect and dazzling whiteness of the earthly ries were very much afraid of bears, say-scene around. The uniformity of colour ing that the place was haunted by them; but none appeared. Starting early next morning, we passed The fiercest dog in the Himaliya will skulk away terthrough several miles of thick brush-rified if you walk up to it quietly in perfect silence with wood, chiefly birch and willow, just be- a pair of dark-coloured goggles on, and as if you meditated some villany; but to utter a word goes far te fore we approached the col of the Pense-break the spell.

*There was another use to which I found goggles could be put. Tibetan mastiffs were afraid of thern.

in this exquisite scene excited no sense congeries of mountains which must be of monotony; and, looking on the beau- difficult enough to cross at any time, but tiful garment of snow which covered the tenfold so after such a snowstorm as had mountains and glaciers, but did not con- just swept over the Himáliya. I felt ceal their forms, one might well ex-especially uneasy about those unknown claim places of which Mr. Heyde had said, they might be a little difficult to get From this point where we now were, I had proposed to go, in a southwesterly direction, over the Chiling Pass, to Petgam in Maru Wardwan, from whence it would not have been difficult to reach Islamabad in the south of Kashmir; but the Zanskar men declared that there was no such pass, no passage in that direction; and it was at least clearly

Especially striking was the icy spire of one of the two Akun (the Ser and Mer) peaks, the highest of the Western Himáliya, which rose up before us in Súrú to the height of 23,477 feet. I did not get another glimpse of it; but from this side it appeared to be purely a spire of glitter-evident that the habitationless villages ing ice, no rock whatever being visible, and the sky was

debited to a canine thief. The Himá-strictions; but the humble scholar is safe liyan marmots were larger than hares, to hold his own against those tricks of though proportionately shorter in the fashion which never reach him, those body. They were so fat at this season levelling influences of the great world to that they could only waddle, having fed which, in his seclusion, he is scarcely themselves up on the grass of summer in subject. We might indeed roam over preparation for their long hybernation in the bigger record of the world, and many winter. They undoubtedly communicate of the lanes and byways of the age in with one another by their shrill cries, which he lived, without finding him out, and have a curiously intelligent air as where he works like a mole in the learned they sit watching and piping at the gloom of his library; but once that the mouth of their subterranean abodes. lantern of patient and friendly research The marmot has a peculiar interest as is turned upon him, his very strangeness one of the unchanged survivors of that and novelty give him interest. The dimperiod when the megatherium, the siva-ness of him, unaccustomed to the light, therium, and the other great animals whose fossil remains are found in the Siwalick range, were roaming over the Himáliyas, or over the region where these now rise.

Shortly before reaching Súrú we had to leave the bed of the Súrú River, which takes its rise near Gúlmatongo, and had to make a detour and considerable ascent. The cause of this was an enormous glacier, which came down into the river on the opposite (the left) bank, and deflected the stream from its course. Splendid walls of ice were thus exposed, and here also there is likely to be a catacylsm ere long. Súrú is only a dependency of Kashmir, and there were more snow-covered mountain-ranges to be crossed before I could repose in the Valley of Flowers; but at this place I had fairly passed out of the Tibetan region, and without, so far as I am aware, having become either a Lama or a Bodhisavata. I may say that, while it has unrivalled scenery, its people also are interesting, and manage wonderfully well with their hard and trying life.

the timid movements, the hard ado he has to keep his obscure silent way amid the too much glitter and sensation of the surrounding crowd, all mark the perfectly novel individuality of the figure. He is new to us, yet so true, that, though we never perhaps saw another specimen of his kind, we recognize the portrait in a moment. Dr. Pattison has chosen a hero whom few biographers perhaps would have selected from the full ranks of the unrecorded; but his choice, if it does not supply any source of very warm interest or enthusiasm, at least affords a picture original and novel as well as true.

The name of Isaac Casaubon, one of the most learned men, and absolutely the first Greek scholar of his time, will probably recall to a great many readers the imaginary bookworm whom one of the greatest of living novelists has called after him; and perhaps some shadow of a feeling that the gentle old scholar had been wronged by the shadow of that selfish egotist thrown over him, has moved Dr. Pattison to vindicate his good name. The Casaubon of Geneva, of Paris, of London, is, however, very little like Mr. Casaubon in "Middlemarch." Scholarship, properly so called, is not, perhaps, in itself a widening or liberal pursuitthough we speak of a liberal education, Ir is a scholar, mild and dim, with and our fathers called letters humanity. stooping frame and inward-gazing eyes, In the nature of things, however, the that calls our attention; not loudly, for mere acquiring of knowledge for no parthe man is still, unused to commotion, ticular purpose, the pursuit of reading, as and scared by it like any frightened reading, for the information of one's own mouse among the autumn sheaves; yet, individual mind, without any immediate in his way, with force as characteristic as reference to the world or other minds, is the loudest soldier or statesman whose not an expansive or morally improving trumpet Fame has blown most strenu-process. A man whose warmest wish is ously. Nay, almost more so; for the great general and the great ruler must alike submit to certain conventional re

From Blackwood's Magazine.
ISAAC CASAUBON.*

* Isaac Casaubon. By Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln College.

to be left alone, to get rid of the interruption of friendly visits and social intercourse, and shut himself up with his books, must be liable more or less to the imputation of selfishness. Dr. Pattison does not claim any higher aims for his