National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

GENERAL .INFORMATION FOR THE TRAVELLER.   25

Wines and spirits of various kinds suitable to European taste' are gradually becoming obtainable in the capital of Kashmir, and even in some of the larger towns of the Himalaya. •

Cigars occupy so much space that it is preferable to substitute tobacco, packed in tin-boxes. We found tobacco' (growing even without local cultivation) generally used by the natives; but it cannot be procured properly prepared anywhere in the the interior.

Candles and matches' can be obtained nowhere in the Himalaya. Soap of an inferior description is occasionally to be had in Tibet, and almost anywhere in Turkistan. But it will be found too alkaline for personal use.

Medicine Chest. A small portable medicine chest (easily procurable at any of the larger stations of India, but scarcely at the hill-stations) must be taken for any long trip, and is so much the more valuable as the traveller will only too often be requested to distribute medicines to native sufferers.

Breakfast and Dinner Service, and Cooking Apparatus. With reference to the former, as few articles as possible should be of porcelain or glass, the material best adapted being tin, or electrotyped ware. Such ware should, however, be bought at one of the larger stations of India, as it is rarely to be obtained in any of the shops existing at the hill-stations, where, to a certainty, the prices asked would be exorbitant.

The cooking utensils should be entirely of tin, not of tinned copper; tinning being

I Various kinds of native-made. spirits may be had in considerable quantities in the higher valleys of the Himalaya, as well as in almost any larger village of Tibet.

2 The Indians have occasionally a curious mode of .smoking. We saw them make two holes in the clayey ground at a short distance one from the other, connecting them, about two inches below the surface, by a small channel. The tobacco was put on one hole and lighted by a piece of charcoal; a man applied his mouth to the other and puffed away heartily. In the névé regions we even saw the Tibetans doing the same in the granular snow, which was first slightly compressed by the foot. The tobacco burnt tolerably well, when the coal was good, and the smoke was remarkable not only for its low temperature but also for being almost entirely free from ethereal oils.

' The Tibetans know how to make excellent tinder from various kinds of bark, which they frequently light by means of a burning (magnifying) glass, with which they are very generally provided. On one occasion, at the Sassar pass, at a height of 17,753 ft., we greatly astonished our companions by constructing a large lens from a piece of fine transparent glacier ice. We advised them to use it as a glass-lens, and, as a matter of course, ice being very

diathermanous, nothing prevented them from lighting their tinder with it.   ,

III.   4