May 19th, he left Kashmir, and on June 9th arrived at Leh, the capital of Ladak.
July 3d, he left Leh on a return journey to Kashmir.
On July 16th, he met Mr. Moorcroft on the banks of the river Himbabs, in the Dras Valley, and retraced his steps towards Leh with Mr. Moorcroft.
On August 26th, he reached Leh a second time. At the end of September Moorcroft returned to Kashmir, and Csoma remained at Leh with Mr. Trebeck, whom he afterwards accompanied to Srinaggur, where they arrived on November 26th, and Csoma joined Moorcroft and remained with him for five months and six days.
1823, May 22d, he took leave of Moorcroft in Kashmir, and on June 1st he arrived at Leh for the third time.
June 17th, he left Leh, and
On June 26th, he arrived at the Monastery of Yangla, in the province of Zanskar, where he spent sixteen months. This is the place where, as we shall find more fully described later on, Csoma laid the foundation of his acquaintance with the language and literature of Tibet; it was here that he resided, being confined (with the Lama, his teacher, and an attendant) to an apartment nine feet square. For more than four months they were precluded from stirring out by the state of the weather. Here he read from morning till night, sitting enveloped in a sheep-skin [[34]]cloak, with his arms folded, and without a fire. After dark he was without a light; the ground forming his bed, and the walls of the building his protection against the rigours of the climate. He was exposed here to “privations such as have been seldom endured” without complaining.
1824, October 22d, he left Yangla, and on November 20th arrived at Sabathú.
If we glance at the map we shall find that Csoma’s route was the same which, forty-two years later, was followed as far as Bokhara by his famous and enterprising countryman, Arminius Vámbéry. Csoma left no record of the hardships which he necessarily had to overcome in Central Asia; but if we scan the interesting pages of Vámbéry’s autobiography, we may surmise in some degree what sufferings, dangers, and hairbreadth escapes were the accompaniments of travelling in those inhospitable regions. Csoma’s lamentable reticence on the subject of his exploits and of what he experienced, deprives his biography of much that would have been most attractive. The still available correspondence, and the casual remarks of his friends and admirers, give us sufficient information as to the character of the man; but the full details, which otherwise make up the charm of the story of a life like his, are lost, and can never be made good.
In his letter to the political agent at Umbála, dated the 28th of November, quoted above, we find Captain Kennedy stating that a special introduction was brought by Csoma from Mr. Moorcroft. That letter was forwarded to the Government, and is dated Kashmir, the 21st of April 1823. This letter is worthy of being preserved, if only as a memento of the ill-fated writer. Mr. Moorcroft writes thus:—