424               JOURNEY TO KACHEMIRE

remainder of the apparel was worthy of their head-geai-.
I rather think that four or five of these gentlemen wore
swords, but the others followed the ambassador without
staves or sticks. He entered into a negotiation with
Aureng-Zebe, and promised on the part of his master that
a mosque should be built in the capital, wherein prayers
in the Mahometan form should be offered; that the coin
should bear on one side the impress of Aureng-Zebe; and
that the Mogol should receive an annual tribute. But no
person doubts that this treaty will be totally disregarded
as soon as Aureng-Zebe has quitted Kachemire, and that the
King of Great Tibet will no more fulfil its stipulations than
he did those of the treaty concluded between him and
Chah-Jehan.

There was in the suite of the ambassador a physician,
said to be from the kingdom of Kassa} and of the Lamy
or Lama tribe; a tribe which is the depositary of the law
in Lassa as that of the Brehmens is iu the Indies, with
this difference, that the Brehmens of the Indies have no
Calife or Pontiff, which these people have, who is not
only recognised as such in the kingdom of Lassa, but
throughout all Tartary, and is honoured and reverenced
as a divine personage. The physician had a book of
receipts which I could not persuade him to sell; the
writing at a distance looked something like ours. We
induced him to write down the alphabet, but he did this
with so much difficulty, and his writing was so wretchedly
bad in comparison with that in his book, that we pro¬
nounced him an ignoramus. He was an ardent believer
in metempsychosis, and entertained us with wonderful
tales. Among others, he mentioned that when his Grand
Lama was very old and on the point of death, he as¬
sembled the council, and declared to them that his soul
was going to pass into the body of an infant recently
born. The child was nourished with tender care; and
when he had attained his sixth or seventh year, a large
! ,Lhasa, the capital of the U province of Tibet.