of Hindus; and he thence returned into India, landing on its weft coaft, in the port of Sanyanpoor, fituated, I fuppofe, towards or in the Cutch or Sinde

countries.

XIV. From this port he journeyed to Balkh (where he alfo mentions Hindus being fettled) and to Bokhara, at which he notices having viewed the famous Derjab of KHAJA CHESTEE, and the loftieft minar or spire he has ever seen. From this place, after twelve days journey, he arrived at Samarkand, which he describes as a large city, having a broad river flowing under it: and thence our traveller arrived, after a ten days journey, at Budukhfhan, in the hills around which rubies are, he fays, found; whence he travelled into Cashmir; and from that paffing over the hills towards Hinduftan, he came to the Gungowtri, or "Decent of the "Ganges," where there is, he observes, a ftatue of BAGHIRATHA; at which place the river may, he says, be leaped over: and he further notices, that thirty cofs. to the fouthward of Gungowtri there is a fountain, or fpring, called the Jumnowtri or Yumnowtri, which he defcribes as the fource of the Jumna or Yamuna River.

XV. Our traveller, leaving this part of the country, came in a fouth-eaft direction into Oude, and went thence into Nepaul, the several towns in which he defcribes, inclufive of its capital, Catmandee, where flow, he observes, the four rivers of Naugmutty, Bishenmutty, Roodrmutty, and Munmutty; and at feven days journey beyond which, he notices a station called Goffayn-thaun, where MAHADEO took poison and flept, as related in the Hindu books; from which place (described by him as a fnowy tract) he returned to Catmandee, and went thence in another direction into Thibet, croffing in his way to it the Cofa river by a bridge compofed of iron chains; and obferving that at Leftee, the third day's journey beyond the Cofa, is the boundary of Nepaul and Thibet, where

guards

guards are ftationed on both fides; whence, in another day's travelling, PRAUN POORY arrived at Khaffa, a town within Bhote or Thibet; (for by the former name the natives often understand what we mean by the latter;) hence he proceeded to Chebang, and from that to Koortee, where paffes are given; and then croffed over the hills (called in that country Lungoor) into the plain of Tingri, beyond which one day's journey is Gunguir; and at the end of the next fangee, (from fangu,) which means, he says, a bridge over a river there after which our traveller proceeds to notice the other diftances and ftations of each munzel, or day's journey, (with other particulars, the insertion of all which would render this addrefs too prolix,) till he reached Lahaffa, and the mountain of Patala, the feat of the DELAI LAMA, whence he proceeded to Degurcha, which he mentions as that of the TAISHOO LAMA; and then, in a journey of upwards of eighty days, reached to the lake of Maun Surwur, (called in the Hindu books Mánafaróvara;) and his defcription of it I fhall here infert in a literal tranflation of his own words.

XVI. "Its circumference (i. e. of the lake of "Maun Surwur) is of fix days journey, and around it "are twenty or five-and-twenty Goumaris, or "re

ligious ftations or temples, and the habitations of "the people called Dowki, whofe drefs is like that of "the Thibetians. The Maun Surwur is one lake; "but in the middle of it there arifes, as it were, a

partition wall; and the northern part is called Maun "Surwur, and the fouthern Lunkadh, or Lunkdeb. "From the Maun Surwur part iffues one river, and "from the Lunkadh part two rivers: The first is " called Bráhma, where PURESRAM making Tupifya, "the Brahmaputra iffued out, and took its course to "the eastward; and of the two ftreams that iffue "from the Lunkadh, one is called the Surju, being "the fame which flows by Ayóddyà, or Oude; and

the

the other is called Sutroodra, (or, in the Puránas, « Shutudru, and vulgarly the Sutluje,) which flows "into the Punjaub country; and two days journey "weft from the Maun Surwur is the large town of "Teree Ládac, the former. Rajahs of which were "Hindus, but have now become Mahommedans. "The inhabitants there are like unto the Thibetians. "Proceeding from Ládac, feven days journey to the fouthward, there is a mountain called Cailafa Cungri, "(Cungur meaning a peak,) which is exceedingly "lofty; and on its fummit there is a Bhowjputr or Bhoorjputr tree, from the root of which sprouts or gufhes a fmall ftream, which the people fay is the fource of the Ganges, and that it comes from Vaicont'"ba, or heaven, as is alfo related in the Puránas;

although this fource appears to the fight to flow "from the fpot where grows this Bhowjputr tree, "which is at an afcent of fome miles; and yet above "this there is a ftill loftier fummit, whither no one goes but I have heard that on that uppermost pinnacle there is a fountain or cavity, to which a Jagui fomehow penetrated; who, having immerfed "his little finger in it, it became petrified. At four "days journey from Cailafa Cungri is a mountain "called Brábmadanda, or BRA'HMA's staff, in which "is the fource of the Aliknundra Ganga; and five "or fix days journey to the fouth of that are fi"tuated on the mountains the temples dedicated to CEDARA, or KEDARNAUTH and BUDRANAUTH; and "from these hills flow the ftreams called the Kedar

Ganga and Sheo Ganga; the confluxes of which, as "well as of the Aliknundra, with the main stream of "the Ganges, take place near Kernpraug and Deopraug, in the vicinity of Serinagur; whence they "flow on in a united stream, which iffues into the plains of Hinduftan at the Hurdewar."

་

XVII. PRAUN POORY went back from this part of the country into Nepaul and Thibet, from the ca

pital

pital of which he was charged by the administration there with difpatches to the Governor General, Mr. HASTINGS, which he mentions to have delivered in the prefence of Mr. BARWELL, and of the late Meffrs. BOGLE and ELLIOTT; after which our traveller was fent to Benares with introductory letters, to Rajah CHEYT SING and to Mr. GRAHAM, who was at that time the refident; and fome years afterwards Mr. HASTINGS bestowed on him in jaghire, the village of Affapoor, which he continues to hold as a free tenure; though he is still fo fond of travelling, that he annually makes short excurfions into different parts of India, and occafionally as far as Nepaul.

XVIII. The name of the other Hindu Fakeer, or Brábmechary, (whofe picture reclining, in his ordinary position, on his bed of iron spikes, accompanies this,) is PERKASANUND; and he affumes the title or epithet of PURRUM SOATUNTRE, which implies felf-poffeffion or independence; and as his own relation of his mode of life is not very long, I deliver an English translation of it, as received from him in Auguft, 1792; only obferving that the Jowalla Mookhi, which he mentions to have vifited, is not the one on the Cafpian, but another; for there are at the leaft three famous places known to the Hindus under this general denomination; one near to Naugercote, another (whither: PRAUN POORY went) in the vicinity of Bakee, and the third (as I have been informed by Lieut. WILFORD) at Corcoor, to the eastward of the Tigris; but whether it be the first or laft of thefe Jowalla Mookbis that PERKASANUND vifited, his narrative is not fufficiently clear to enable me to diftinguish; neither are his general knowledge and intelligence at all equal to PRAUN POORY'S, which may account for his observation as to the difficulty of reaching the Maun Surwur lake, whither not only PRAUN POORY, but other Fakeers, that I have seen at Benares, profefs to have nevertheless penetrated; so that my prefent notice of PERKASANUND

to

to the Society, is principally on account of the strange penance he has thought fit to devote himself to, in fixing himself on his fer-feja, or bed of fpikes, where he constantly day and night remains; and, to add to what he confiders as the merit of this ftate of mortification, in the hot weather he has often burning around him logs of wood; and in the cold feafon, water falling on his head from a perforated pot, placed in a frame at fome height above him; and yet he feems contented, and to enjoy good health and fpirits. Neither do the fpikes appear to be in any material degree diftreffing to him, although he uses not the defence of even ordinary cloathing to cover his body as a protection against them but as the drawing exhibits an exact likeness as well of his perfon as of this bed of feeming torture, I fhall not here trouble the Society with any further description of either, and conclude by mentioning, that he is now living at Benares, on a small provifion that he enjoys from government.

P. S. Had my official occupations, whilft at Benares, admitted of my paying due attention to PRAUN POORY's narrative of his travels, the geographical information they contain, or rather point to, as to the fource of the Ganges, Jumna, and other principal rivers, might have probably admitted of a fuller illuftration, and greater degree of accuracy, from a farther examination of that Sunyaffy, aided by the important affiftance which I might in that cafe have obtained on this part of the fubject from Lieutenant WILFORD, who has, through his own unwearied exertions, and chiefly at his own expence, collected a variety of valuable materials relative to the geography of the north of India; at the fame time that, by a zealous application to the study of Hindu literature, joined to an intimate acquintance with whatever the Greeks and Romans have left us, on their mythology, or concerning the general events of former ages, as far as their

knowledge