Thus far our expedition through the mountains has been very pleasant and interesting.  The scenery has been magnificent and the climate enjoyable, though the changes of temperature have been considerable.  We are now at Sultanpore, in Kuloo, at an elevation of about 4,000 feet above the sea.  But a few days ago we (the men of the party) scaled the Rotung Pass, which divides Kuloo from Lahoul, and attained in so doing a height of 13,000 feet, with a temperature low in proportion.  This pass is on the road from these provinces to Ladak and China, and I visited, on the other side of it, a new bridge over the Chandra, which will be a great convenience to traders.  Hitherto, if the traders used mules or other animals of this magnitude, they could cross the river with them only by making them swim; or, if sheep were their beasts of burden, by driving them over a twig bridge, through the meshes of which many fell into the river.  I crossed the twig bridge myself; and I found it about the most difficult job I ever attempted.  The new bridge will be completed in a few weeks.  This road, however, useful though it will doubtless be when improved, leads through Ladak, and the merchandise transported along it becomes subject to the exactions of the ruler of Cashmere.  The desideratum would be a road which would be clear of his territory altogether.

The people in these regions seem good-humoured and merry-hearted, producing for themselves all that they want; growing their own food, making their own clothes; not much given to exchanges, and extremely averse to labour.  I asked a manager of a tea plantation the other day how he was off for labour.  He said that he contrived to induce labourers to come to his plantation for a few days at a time, chiefly for the purpose of earning money enough to pay the Government assessment of their land; but his opinion was that, if there were no assessment, no labour would be procurable.  We have not yet come across much tea.  The plantations we have seen are on a very small scale, and in a nascent condition; but they are promising.  There seems no reason to doubt that the climate and a certain portion at least of the soil in this district are suited to the growth of tea.  The climate, too, does very well for the European constitution, though it is hardly as healthy as I expected to find it.  Both natives and Europeans are subject to fever at certain seasons, especially in the valleys; but I have no doubt that the latter may do well as employers of labour.  This place (Sultanpore) is only about 4,000 feet above the level of the sea, and I have little doubt that, were the state of cultivation and trade to justify the outlay, a cart road might be made to it without great difficulty from the plain.  This would greatly develop both its natural resources and its capabilities as a commercial route.

The state of the forests which we have encountered during our route has also engaged