of a traveller. Here he remained some time, however, and then proceeded through the Delhi province to Rampoor, near the foot of the Kemaoon hills. On setting out from this town he enjoyed a complete view of the Himalaya mountains, covered with eternal snows, and forming the boundary between Hindostan and Tibet.
On arriving at Najebabad, a town built by Najeb ud Dowlah to facilitate the commerce of Kashmere, he found that the only caravansary in the place was occupied, and thought himself fortunate in being admitted into a cook's shop, where kabobs and beef-steaks were dressed in savoury taste for the public. A better place for observing the manners of the people he could scarcely have chosen. It was what a coffee-house is in London, the resort of all the newsmongers, idlers, politicians, and disbanded soldiers of the district. Here, while he was eating his dinner, he saw a boy enter, who inquired whether there were any travellers going to Kashmere or Jummoo, as the kafilah would depart next day. Upon inquiry, he found that this kafilah consisted of about one hundred mules laden with raw silk, cotton cloths, and ordinary calicoes for the Jummoo markets. By a banker, to whom he had been furnished with a letter, he was introduced to the merchants of the kafilah, who readily received him into their company. He now dropped the character of a Georgian, and represented himself as a Turkish merchant going into Kashmere to purchase shawls. To accompany him in this journey he hired a Kashmerian servant, "a fellow of infinite jest," whose memory was stored with a thousand stories, every one of which he embellished in the telling of it. He was otherwise an active and excellent servant.
With this kafilah he left Najebabad on the 14th of February, 1783, and on the 15th arrived at Lolldong, where the province of Delhi is separated from that of Serinagur, or Gurwal, by a small rivulet. On
