to their deserts.  They give their children the names of filthy beasts, at the recommendation of their priests, that the devil may be loth to meddle with them.  They believe in one God in Trinity; the son having become a man and died, yet is now in heaven.  God equal with the father, yet man at the same time; and that his mother was a woman who is now in heaven:  And they compute the time of the death of the son nearly as we do the appearance of the Redeemer on earth.  They believe in a hell as we do, and burn lamps that God may light them in the right road in the other world:  Yet do they use divination after a ridiculous manner.  The country of Thibet produces several fruits of the same kinds with those grown in Europe, together with rice and wheat, and has abundance of cattle; but a great part of the land is barren.

The Jesuit fathers Andrada and Marquez went from Delhi in the country of the Great Mogul to Thibet along with a caravan of pilgrims that were going to visit a famous pagoda.  Passing through the kingdom of Lahore, they came to the vast mountains whence the Ganges flows into the lower plain country of Hindostan, seeing many stately temples by the way full of idols.  At the kingdom of Sirinagur they saw the Ganges flowing among snow, the whiteness of which is dazzling to the eyes of travellers.  At the end of 50 days journey they came to a pagoda on the borders of Sirinagur, to which multitudes resort to bathe in a spring, the water of which is so hot as to be hardly sufferable, and which they imagine cleanses them from sin.  The people here feed on raw flesh and eat snow, yet are very healthy; and the usual order of the sexes is reversed, as the women plough and the men spin.  Having rested at the town of Mana the fathers pursued their journey, almost blinded by travelling continually among snow, and came at length to the source of the Ganges, which flows from a great lake.  They soon afterwards entered the kingdom of Thibet, and were honourably received by officers sent on purpose from Chaparangue, the residence of the king of Thibet.  The king and queen listened to their doctrines with much complacency, and even admitted their truths without dispute, and would not allow them to return to India till they promised an oath to come back, when the king not only engaged to give them liberty to preach, but that he would build them a church, and was greatly pleased with a picture they left him of the Virgin and Child.

The fathers returned according to promise, on which the king built them a church and was afterwards baptised along with the queen, in spite of every thing the Lamas could say to prevent him.  From merchants who traded to this place from China, the fathers understood that it was 60 days journey from Chaparangue to China, 40 of which was through the kingdom of Usangue, and thence 20 days to China.  They likewise learnt that Cathay is not a kingdom, but a great city—­the metropolis of a province subject to the grand Sopo, very near China, whence perhaps some give the name of Cathay to China[19].  Perhaps this kingdom of Thibet is the empire of Prester John, and not Ethiopia as some have believed.