ekin than to Calcutta as he wanders along the empty
streets under the frowning houses and indescribable temples of the Newar
town of Patn.

Everything seemed to have been blighted by time; besides all the old
temples, old houses, old gates, and old streets, there were numbers of
old people. Everything seemed to sympathise with everything else, and
had evidently come to the conclusion that there was nothing worth living
for, and the sooner they all took themselves off and quitted the bright
valley of Nepaul the better. And indeed it was difficult to realize the
existence of anything half so cheerful inside the town as the prospect
which met our view as we emerged from its gloomy entrance, and looked
upon the luxuriant plain, the glittering capital shining in its midst,
whose gaudy pagodas, hung round with bells and adorned with flags, were
very different from those just visited; the industrious population were
going light-hearted to their work as we rode through smiling fields, and
we ceased to wonder at Patn looking deserted, for it was evident that all
the cheerfully disposed inhabitants had flitted away, unable to bear its
depressing influence, and leaving behind them only the crabbed old people
at the corners of the streets, and the tattered beggars, who must make a
meagre livelihood out of the falling temples and 24,000 rotten houses of
the once handsome capital of Nepaul.

It was a clear frosty morning, and, as we rode down the gentle slope on
which the old city stands, the snowy range of the Himalaya burst upon us
with inexpressible grandeur. The Gosain-than, a mass of glistening snow,
looked contemptuously down upon the Jibjibia, itself covered with snow:
though 13,000 feet lower than the Gosain-than, the Jibjibia in turn
overtopped the Sheopoorie, which rises abruptly from the valley to a
height of 2000 feet. On a peninsula, formed by the junction of the
Bhagmutty and Bishmutty, stands the town of Katmandu, surrounded by a
high wall in which are four gates: to the east the snow-capped peaks
extend as far as the eye can reach; to the west the Dawalogiri, the
highest mountain in the world, is in clear weather distinctly visible; in
that direction the valley is shut in by lofty hills, the steepest of
which is crossed by the Chandanagiri pass.

The exhilarating effect of so glorious a scene seemed not to be lost upon
the inhabitants themselves, and we observed among them the same merry and
contented appearance