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TSARANGESE VILLAGE GIRLS.
While treating of Tsarang, I may dwell a little on the natural beauties
of that place. Tsarang has but two seasons, namely, summer and
winter, and many are the natives that do not know even the names
of the other seasons. In summer, simple as is the contrast between
the verdant fields of luxuriant wheat, interspersed with patches of
white and pink buck-wheat, and the majestic peaks that keep guard
over the plain and look ever grand in their pure white robes of
perennial snow, the combination makes a striking picture. Throw
into the picture a buoyant army of butterflies, that flutter up and
down, keeping time, as it were, to the stirring melody of sky-larks,
which is now and then softened by the clear notes of a cuckoo, while
the fields below are resonant with the rustic melodies of joyous
damsels, and the tout ensemble becomes at once as enchanting as
it is archaic; and this is the picture of Tsarang in summer, when the
day is bright and warm. But more sublimely spectacular is the view
on its winter’s eve. The moment the sun begins to descend behind
the snow-covered mountains that rise about ten miles to the west of
the town, the equally snow-robed peaks that tower above the
eastern range become luminous masses of coral-red, as the last rays
of the sinking sun strike them. The ruby color gradually changes into
a golden-yellow, but that only for a moment, and it fades away to
reveal huge pillars of silver-white, shining out majestically against
the cloudless clear blue sky. The scene once more changes as the
dusk deepens, burying the peaks in faint uncertainty, and the moon
in her glory rises slowly from behind them, to spread again an
indescribable lustre of cold—if coldness has a color of its own—over
the mountain tops, which now look like a vision of celestial seas
hung in mid-air.
But Tsarang has its horrors as well as its charms, as when a snow
storm rages. The wind is often so strong that it blows away the tilled
surface of a farm, and in time changes it into a barren field of sand,
while the snow comes down in such abundance that it drifts itself
into huge mountains here and there on the plain. The cold is, of
course, intense on such occasions and nobody dares to go out. But
the scene on a moonlight night after a blizzard is worth seeing. The
sky is filled with clouds of dusty particles of snow, moving ever
onward like phantom armies, now thickening into ominous darkness
and then thinning into vapory transparency, through which one sees
struggling, the lustre of the grey steely moon. No scene so weirdly
harrowing can be seen anywhere else.
 CHAPTER X.
Fame and Temptation.
Since I had arrived in Tsarang early in May, 1899, nearly eight
months had sped by, and I found myself on the threshold of a New
Year, whose advent I observed with my usual ceremony of reading
the Sacred Text, and praying for the health and prosperity of my
Sovereign and his family, and the glory of Japan. The first day of the
year 1900 filled me with more than usual emotion. For was I not
then thousands of miles away from home, and was it not the second
New Year’s Day which I had spent on the heights of the Himālayas?
Yet I was hale and hearty, both in mind and body, and ready to
resume my journey, the end of which the future alone could reveal.
In order to give vent to my feelings of gratitude, not unmixed with
hope and fear, all deeply impressive, I ended the day by entertaining
the villagers of Tsarang, having previously provided for them a full
and liberal store of such viands and delicacies as were considered to
be most rare and sumptuous. I have already described how I had
been gaining fame and popularity among the villagers, my ascetic
conduct in the midst of unbridled licentiousness causing them to
respect me, and my generosity in the matter of medicines, of which
I still had a fairly large stock with me, making me much sought after
by them; and now, through my New Year’s treat, I seemed to have
reached a pinnacle of glory. For from that time onward I gradually
perceived that traps were being set for me, so that I might be tied
down to Tsarang for life. The arch-spirit in this conspiracy was my
own instructor Serab, who insisted that I should marry the youngest
of my host’s daughters, or rather who brought all his ingenuity to
bear upon assisting her to make a captive of my heart and person.
Fortunately my faith proved stronger than temptations, and enabled
me to remain true to the teachings of the Blessed One. Had I
yielded then, Tsarang would have had to-day one more dirt-covered
and grease-shining priest among its apathetic inhabitants, and that
would have been all.
But, things having come to the pass which I have described, it
became urgent that I should make haste in discovering some secret
passage into Tibet. But it was as dangerous for me in Tsarang as it
had been in Kātmāndu to disclose my real intentions, and whatever
discovery I might make for my own purposes, I had to make it in
some indirect and roundabout way. After having once more racked
my brains, I finally hit upon the plan of working upon the
weaknesses of the local people. The Tibetan Government had began
to levy customs duties even on personal valuables. It was a most
outrageous act; supposing one wanted to do trade with the
inhabitants of the north-west plain of Tibet, and to take thither a
stock of coral ornaments, or some useful knick-knacks imported from
Europe, how could one avoid being unjustly set upon and robbed of
the best part of one’s would-be profit, on first setting foot upon
Tibetan soil? Ah! there must be ways and bye-ways by which to
accomplish this, and to be absolutely safe from guards and
sentinels! Surely the plains might be reached, if one did not mind
three days of hard trudging over the trackless snow of the
Himālayan Range, to the north of the Dhavalagiri peak, and thence
to Thorpo? Having once got the villagers into the right humor, in
some such way, it was not necessarily a very hazardous job to keep
on tapping them for information. On the other side of that mountain
yonder, they would volunteer to tell me, there was a river which
might be forded at such and such a point, but which was
dangerously treacherous at others; or, that if not very cautious, one
might die a victim to the snow-leopard, while crossing over this or
that mountain. All these bits of information, and hosts of others,
were carefully noted down, and a synthetic study of these scraps
finally convinced me that the route I should choose was the one viâ
Thorpo; and so I decided. This meant that I had to retrace my steps
almost as far back as Tukje, or more accurately to Malba, a village in
the immediate neighborhood of Tukje. Nor was this retreat without
some advantages in itself, for it would have only been to court
suspicion and to run unnecessary risks for me to strike off into
pathless wilds in full view of the Tsarang villagers, who were sure to
come out in hordes to see me off on my departure, not only out of
respect for my person, but also from curiosity to know whither I was
bound after my lengthened stay amongst them. The route decided
upon, I could not however yet start on my journey, because the
season was then against me, the peaks and defiles on my way being
passable only during the months of June, July and August. The
mountains were not, of course, entirely free from snow even during
those three months, but for those thirteen weeks or so the traverser
would, as I was told, be secure as a rule from being frozen to death.
And therefore I bided my time.
To go back a little in my story, there came to Tsarang one Adam
Naring, the Chief of the village of Malba, whither I had to retrace my
footsteps. That was in October, 1899. Naring owned a yak ranch on
the north-west plains of Tibet, and he was openly privileged to have
free access thereto over the “King’s highway”. It was on his way
back from one of his periodic visits thither that he stopped at
Tsarang, and, as he put up at my host’s, I was introduced to him. He
had in his chapel, as he told me then, a set of Buḍḍhist Texts which
he had brought home from Tibet, and he was very anxious that I
should go with him to his house and read them over for the benefit
of himself and his family. The invitation was as unexpected as it was
opportune, and I accepted it. That was in October, 1899, as I have
just said, and if my acceptance of Naring’s invitation had no definite
motive at the time, it stood me in good stead afterwards. In the
meantime, however, Naring had gone to India on business, and it
was not till March, 1900, that I had tidings of his return to Malba. On
the 10th of that month I bade good-bye to Tsarang and its simple
inhabitants.
My stay in Tsarang was not entirely devoid of results; for while there
I succeeded in persuading about fifteen persons to give up the use
of intoxicants, and some thirty others to abandon the habit of
chewing tobacco. These were all persons who had at one time or
another received medical treatment from me, and whom I
persuaded to give pledges of abstinence as the price they were to
pay for my medicine.
Nearly a year’s stay in Tsarang had made me acquainted practically
with its entire population, and, on my departure, all these people
favored me with farewell presents of buckwheat flour, bread, maru,
butter, fried peaches—all in various quantities—while some gave me
kata and silver coins. At three in the afternoon of that 10th of March
I left my residence on horse-back, with my volumes of Buḍḍhist
Texts and other baggage loaded on two pack-ponies. The books I
have just referred to were given to me by one Nyendak, Lama-
Superior of the principal Buḍḍhist temple of Tsarang, in exchange for
my white horse, which had proved such a faithful animal on my
journey from Nepāl, and to which the priest had taken a great fancy.
The books were chiefly in manuscript, penned by a Sakya Paṇdiṭ,
and altogether were worth at least 600 rupees.
On reaching the outskirts of the village, I found about one hundred
persons waiting for me, and to each of these I gave the ‘double-
handed blessing’. The parting was not easy, and time sped on. It
was now five o’clock, and I left my well-wishers in tears behind me.
Reaching the village gate, by which I had come in some eleven
months before, I turned round to take a last look at Tsarang, and
prayed in silence for the safety of the villagers and their ever-
increasing faith in Buḍḍhism. Before the darkness set in I arrived at
Kimiyi, and there put up for the night. The next day’s journey
brought me back to Tsuk, a village on the Kālīgaṅgā, where I spent
the evening in preaching at the request of the inhabitants. At my
departure the following morning about twenty people came forward
and asked me to give them the ‘hand-blessing,’ which they obtained
with perfect willingness on my part. My instructor, Serab Gyaltsan,
had left Tsarang a little time previous to my departure, but I had the
good fortune to come upon him at Tsuk, and to have an opportunity
of thanking him for what I owed him as a pupil of nearly a year’s
standing before I bade him a most heartfelt farewell.
The close of the third day after leaving Tsarang brought me to the
mountain-village of Malba and to the residence of Adam Naring, who
happened, however, to be away from his home just then. But the
village Chief’s father, Sonam Norbu by name, who probably had
heard of me from his son, was there to welcome me, and I was
given the freedom of the family chapel, which consisted of two
neatly furnished apartments, the innermost of which contained a
fine set of Buḍḍha images, as well as the Tibetan edition of the
Sacred Text and other volumes of ecclesiastical writings, while the
windows of the front room commanded a charming view of a peach
orchard. I may note here that the altitude of Malba being much
lower than that of Tsarang, the soil in the former place yields two
different crops in the year, wheat coming first and then buckwheat.
Adam Naring owned a fine tract of land for these crops. Five or six
hundred yards beyond his residence was the Kālīgaṅgā river, gliding
serenely along with a fresh green wall of small pine-trees to set off
its waters. Towering behind and above the emerald grove stood a
range of snow-capped peaks, the tout ensemble making a view
delightful for its primitive joys and natural beauty.
My old friend expressed his desire that I should make my stay
indefinitely long, so that he might have the benefit of my reading for
him the whole of the Sacred Texts; but I could only encourage him
with an ambiguous reply, as I had come to Malba only to wait for the
time when the snow-covered mountains should become passable. In
the meantime I spent my days in reading, and making extracts from
the Sacred Texts, and in so doing I could not help often recalling,
with a deep sense of gratitude, the six hours a day which for nearly
one year I had devoted to my study of Tibetan, under the rigid
instruction of Serab Gyaltsan at Tsarang.
About a fortnight after my arrival in Malba I received a letter from
Rai Saraṭ Chanḍra Ḍās, through a trader of Tukje, with whom I had
become acquainted while in Tsarang, and to whom I had entrusted a
letter to my friend at Darjeeling, as well as others to my folks at
home, on the occasion of his going down to Calcutta on business.
Along with his letter Saraṭ Chanḍra Ḍās sent me a number of the
Mahāboḍhi Society’s journal, which contained an account of an
unsuccessful attempt by a Buḍḍhist of my nationality to enter Tibet,
and a well-meant note of his in pencil to the effect that I must not
lose my life by exposing myself to too much danger. So far so good;
but next something which was not so good happened. The Tukje
man, my whilom messenger, had apparently formed an opinion of
his own about my personality, and set the quiet village of Malba astir
with rumors about myself. Chanḍra Ḍās was an official of the English
Government, with a salary of 600 rupees a month, and, as such, a
very rare personage among Bengālīs; and it was with this person
that I corresponded; ergo, the Chinese Lama (myself) must be a
British agent in disguise, with some secret mission to execute. So
went the rumor, and the public opinion of Malba had almost come to
the conclusion that it was undesirable to permit such a suspicious
stranger in the village, when Adam Naring, who by that time had
come home, sought to speak to me in secret, with indescribable fear
written on his face. Poor honest soul! What he said to me, when by
ourselves, was of course to the effect that if there were any truth in
the rumor, he and his folks would be visited with what punishment
heaven only knew. I had expected this for some time past, and had
made up my mind how to act as soon as Naring approached me on
the subject. I turned round and, looking him squarely in the face,
said: “If you promise me, under oath, that you will not divulge for
three full years to come what I may tell you, I will let you into my
secret; but if you do not care to do so, we can only let the rumor
take care of itself, and wait for the Nepāl Government to take any
steps it may deem fit to take.” I knew Adam Naring was a man of
conscience, who could be trusted with a secret: he signified his
willingness to take an oath, and I placed before him a copy of the
sacred Scripture and obtained from him the needed promise.
Producing next my passport, given me by the Foreign Office in
Japan, which had on it an English as well as other translations of the
Japanese text, I showed it to my host, who understood just enough
English to follow out the spelling of some words in that language,
and explained to him the real object of my journey into Tibet. I did
more. I said to him that now that he possessed my secret, he was
welcome to make of it what use he liked; but that I believed him to
be a true and devoted Buḍḍhist, and that it behoved him well to
assist me in my enterprise by keeping silence, for by so acting he
would be promoting the cause of his own religion. In all this, I told
my host nothing but truth, and truth triumphed; for he believed
every word I said and approved of my adventure. Then we talked
over the route I was to take, and it was arranged at the same time
that I should restart on my journey in June or July.
This taking of my host into my confidence seemed to have greatly
appeased his mind; withal, I did not think it right for me to tax his
hospitality by prolonging my stay at his residence, and immediately
after the above incident I moved into the temple of the village,
where, nevertheless, I remained the object of his unswerving
friendship, in that he provided for me, while there, all travelling
requisites, from wearing apparel to provisions, which altogether
made luggage weighing about seventy-five pounds. At my request
he also secured for me a guide and carrier, who was to convey my
packages as far as Khambuthang, or the ‘land of Genii,’ in the valley
of Dhavalagiri, while my part of the load was to consist only of my
collection of religious works. Thus equipped, I left Malba on June
12th, 1900. By taking the direct route, the North-west Steppe of
Tibet may be reached from Malba in ten days, but as I was to take
in my way places sacred to Buḍḍhist pilgrims, besides making other
observations, I set aside twenty-three days for the journey, which I
began by traversing trackless wilds for three days. At my departure I
made an uta:
 My roof will be the sky; my bed, the earth;
The grass my downy pillow soft at night;
Thus like the hovering clouds and wandering streams,
These lonely wilds alone I must traverse.

Once on the road, I found, however, that the sentiment of this

effusion applied more to what I had come through than to what
followed, for there was for days nothing but snow for my bed and
rock for my pillow.
 CHAPTER XI.
Tibet at Last.
After leaving Malba my route lay north-west, up a gradual ascent
along the banks of the river Kālīgaṅgā. We walked, however, only
two and a half miles on the day of our departure, the rain preventing
our further progress. Starting at about seven o’clock on the following
morning, we made a climb of about five miles up a narrow path, the
bed of which consisted of pointed stones and rocks of various
degrees of sharpness, and then refreshed ourselves with a light
repast. On resuming our ascent the incline became very steep and,
the atmosphere growing rarer and rarer, we could proceed no more
than six miles or so before fatigue overcame us, and at three in the
afternoon we put up in a village called Dankar, where I was obliged
to stay and recuperate myself during the whole of the next day. On
the 15th we faced due north, and five miles of a sharp ascent
brought us to a glacier valley which we crossed, and continued a
climb of still steeper incline for about four miles, after which we
emerged on a somewhat wide foot-path. At 11 a. m. we stopped for
a rest. Not a drop of water was obtainable thereabouts, but espying
some herbs growing from under a light layer of snow in a crevice of
a rock, I pulled them up by the root, and, on chewing them, found
that the root tasted quite sour. With the help of this herb-root we
made a little lunch of buckwheat biscuits.
It was all ascent in the afternoon, and a very tortuous task it was;
now picking our foot-hold from rock to rock up a craggy precipice—
Mukhala Climb, where it made my head swim to look down into the
cañon a thousand feet below—now trusting my dear life to my staff,
when caught in a sand avalanche, if I may be allowed that
expression for the places where the thaw had caused the snow and
rock to slide down, leaving bare a loose sandy surface, which gave
way under one’s foot. As for my guide-carrier, he hopped, and
skipped, and balanced, and leaped, with the agility and sureness of
a monkey, his staff playing for him the part of a boat-hook in a most
skilful hand, and, in spite of his seventy-five pounds’ burden, he was
so much at home on the difficult ascent, that he was ever and anon
at my side to help me out of dangerous plights into which I would
frequently fall, with my staff stuck fast between two rocks, or while I
involuntarily acted the rôle of a ball-dancer on a loosened boulder.
To add to the misery, with each step upward the air grew rarer and
my breath shorter, making me feel a scorching sensation in the
brain, while burning thirst was fast overcoming me—a morsel of
snow, now and then taken, being utterly insufficient to quench it.
Many a time I had almost fallen into a faint, and then my chronic
tormentor, rheumatism, began to assert itself. I could go no further;
I wanted to lie down on the snow and sleep for a long rest. But as
often as I wished to do so, I had a warning from my guide that a
rest then would be sure death for me, because, as he said, the air
thereabouts was charged with a poisonous gas, and I would soon
succumb to its effect; he was innocent of the knowledge of
atmospheric rarity. I knew full well the weight of this warning, and I
struggled on with what was to me at that time a superhuman effort.
By the time we had finished wading across the sharp slope of the
treacherous sand, and landed upon a rock-paved flat, even that
effort failed me; I came to a halt in spite of myself, and also of the
guide, who said that water was obtainable a little distance below.
Finding me really helpless, the man went down and fetched me
some water, which I took with a restorative drug. In a little while I
felt better, and during the rest thus obtained I liberally applied
camphor-tincture over the smarting parts of my hands, which had
more or less suffered from the rigorous exercise they had had in the
use of the mountaineering staff. In the meantime night fell and,
picking our way by the uncertain star-light and the reflexion from the
snow, we made a sharp descent of some four miles, at the bottom
of which we came upon Sanda, a hamlet of about ten cottages, in
one of which we lodged for the night.
Sanda is a literally snow-bound little village, open to communication
from the rest of the world only during the three summer months,
and that through the precarious mountain path I had come over. I
was profoundly astonished to find any people making a permanent
abode of such a lonely secluded place, where the vegetation is so
poor that the inhabitants have no staple food but tahu, which is a
cereal somewhat akin to buckwheat, but much inferior in its dietetic
qualities. Nevertheless I must not omit to pay a tribute to the
grandeur of the natural scenery, the ever present snow-clad peaks,
the gigantic heaps upon heaps of rugged rocks, the serene quietude,
all inspiring the mind with awe and soul-lifting thoughts.
My exhaustion had been so great, that I was not able to resume the
journey until the 18th, on which day we had again to wade over a
treacherous slope, which yearly claimed, as I was told, a pilgrim or
two as victims to its ‘sand avalanche’. We headed north-west, and
after passing by a grand ancient forest of fir-trees, and then
descending along the bank of a shooting mountain stream, we
reached Tashithang (dale of brilliant illumination) at about 11 a. m. In
the afternoon we proceeded in the same direction along a path
which overlooked now a dangerously abrupt precipice of great
depth, then a beautiful valley overgrown with flowering plants and
stately trees, the home of ferocious wild animals, the least
pugnacious of which are the musk-deer. We passed that night under
an overhanging piece of rock. Throughout the 19th we kept on
facing north-west, proceeding through many similar scenes of
nature, which grew, however, more fascinating in their picturesque
grandeur as we came nearer to the great peak of Dhavalagiri. We
had just reached the head of a slope of the great snow-clad
mountain called Tashila, when—not only affected by the cold
atmosphere, but as the result of general exhaustion—I became so
weak that only by transferring my share of the luggage to the
shoulders of my guide-carrier, in addition to his own, was I able to
proceed slowly. I was thoroughly fatigued, but the sublime beauty of
the scenery was so inspiring that I could not help standing still, lost
in extatic admiration, and fancying that I saw in the variously shaped
elevations the forms of giant deities of the Buḍḍhist mythology,
sitting in solemn mid-air conclave. I was only aroused from my
reverie by the warning of my guide that any further delay would kill
me—because of the atmospheric conditions—and, allowing him to
help me on by taking hold of one of my hands, we thence made a
descent of about ten miles, and once more spent the night under a
sheltering rock.
On the 20th of June we began our journey with a climb up another
steep mountain, and in the valleys below I saw a species of deer,
locally called nah, ruminating in herds of two or three hundred.
Further up the mountain I came upon a number of wild yaks at short
distances, while on the far-off mountain sides I occasionally
discerned animals which, my guide told me, were snow-leopards, or
changku (mountain dogs), both ferocious beasts that feed on their
fellow-creatures, including man. Scattered here and there on our
way I frequently noticed whitened bones of animals, most likely
victims of these brutes. At some places the thawing snow revealed
the bleached remains of human beings, probably frozen to death.
The curious thing was that the skull and the leg-bones were missing
from every one of the skeletons I came across. It was explained to
me that the Tibetans manufactured certain utensils, used for
ritualistic purposes, from these portions of human bones; and that it
was their practice to appropriate them whenever they came upon
the remains of luckless wanderers! The sight and the information
could not but fill me with an extremely uncomfortable feeling, mixed
with one of profound sympathy, and many a time I prayed in silence
for the repose of the souls of the poor neglected brethren, as we
went along our way.
In due course we arrived at a village called Thorpo, situated on the
other side of the mountain we had crossed. Another name of the
village is Tsaka, and its inhabitants are believers in Bon, the ancient
religion of Tibet. Thence we travelled on until July 1st, making an
occasional stop of one or two days for recuperating purposes. On
the way we passed through much the same sort of scenery,
abounding in picturesque views as well as in various interesting
plants and animals.
We had now come to the outer edge of the skirts of Mount
Dhavalagiri. My luggage had become considerably lessened in
weight, owing to the absence of what we had consumed on our way,
and I now felt equal to taking over the burdens on to my own back.
I turned to my guide, and told him that he could now go back, as I
intended to make a lonely pilgrimage to Khambuthang—the Sacred
Peach Valley—by myself. Nothing could have given him more
astonishment than this intimation, for he had all along been under
the impression that he was to accompany me back to Malba. He
stoutly opposed my venturing on such a perilous expedition, which
nobody, he said, but a living Buḍḍha, or Boḍhisaṭṭva, would dare to
undertake. From the most ancient time, he continued, there had
been only one or two persons who had ever come out of the valley
alive, and it was absolutely certain that I should be torn to pieces
and devoured by the dreadful monsters that guarded its entrance
and exit. But I was not to be moved, and the man went back, with
hot tears of farewell, thinking no doubt that he had seen the last of
me. A solitary traveller, in one of the untrodden depths of the
Himālayas, and loaded with a dead weight of about sixty-five
pounds, my progress thenceforward was a succession of incidents
and accidents of the most dangerous nature, made doubly trying by
innumerable hardships and privations.
On that first day of July, 1900, early in the morning, after watching
the form of my faithful guide on his return journey until he had
disappeared behind a projecting rock, I then turned round and
proceeded due north. To my joy I found the pathway not so difficult
as I had expected, owing to the entire absence of rugged rocks. Still,
there was always enough to weigh me down with anxiety, as I had
to push my way over the trackless field of deep snow, with a solitary
compass and a mountain peak as my only guides. One night I slept
on the snow under the sky, and another I passed in the hollow of a
cliff; three days’ jogging, after parting with my carrier, brought me
across to the other side of the northern peak of the Dhavalagiri. It is
here that the dominion of Nepāl ends and
The Frontier of Tibet Begins.
As I stood on that high point, which commanded on the south the
snow-capped heads of the Dhavalagiri family, and on the north the
undulating stretch of the North-east Steppes of Tibet, interspersed
here and there with shining streams of water, which appeared to
flow out of and then disappear into the clouds, I felt as if my whole
being had turned into a fountain of welling emotions. Toward the
south, far, far away, beyond the sky-reaching Dhavalagiri, I imagined
that I saw Buḍḍhagayā, sacred to our beloved Lord Buḍḍha, where I
had vowed my vow, and prayed for protection and mercy. That
reminded me of the parting words I left behind me, when bidding
adieu to my folks and friends at home. I had then said that in three
years I would be able to enter Tibet. That was on the 26th of June,
1897, and here I was stepping on the soil of Tibet on the 4th of July,
1900.
ENTERING TIBET FROM NEPAL.
How could I prevent myself from being transported with mingled
feelings of joy, gratitude and hope? But I was tired and hungry. I
took my luggage from my back and gently set it on a piece of rock,
after brushing off the snow, and then, taking out my store of
provisions, made some dough out of baked flour, snow and butter.
Morsel after morsel, the mixture, with a sprinkle of powdered pepper
and salt, went down my throat with unearthly sweetness, and I
fancied that the Gods in Paradise could not feast on dishes more
exquisitely palatable. I made away with two bowlfuls of the
preparation with the greatest relish; that ended my meal for the day.
I should observe here that I have always adhered, as I adhere now,
to the rule of one full meal a day, besides taking some dried fruits or
something of that kind for breakfast. I may also state that the bowl
of which I speak here was of a fairly large size, and two of them
constituted a full good repast, especially as the wheat produced in
cold latitudes seems to be richer in nutrition than that of warmer
countries.
Well, I had dined grandly. The ocean of snow stretched around me
and below me, far away. I was still in an extatic mood and all was
interesting. But in which direction was I to proceed in resuming my
journey?
 CHAPTER XII.
The World of Snow.
According to the stock of information I had gathered, I was always
to head north until I came to Lake Mānasarovara, and the point I
had now to decide was how I might make the shortest cut to that
body of fresh water. There was nothing to guide me but my compass
and a survey I took of the vast expanse of snow to a great distance
before me. The best I could do was guess-work. Following the
impulses of instinct more than anything else, except the general
direction indicated by the compass, I decided on taking a north-
westerly course in making the descent. So I restarted, with the
luggage on my back.
So far my route had lain principally on the sunny side of the
mountains and the snow, at the most, had not been more than five
or six inches deep; but from now onward I had to proceed along the
reverse side, covered over with an abundance of the crystal layers,
the unguessable thickness of which furnished me with a constant
source of anxiety. In some places my feet sank fourteen or fifteen
inches in the snow, and in others they did not go down more than
seven or eight inches. This wading in the snow was more fatiguing
than I had imagined at first, and the staff again rendered me great
service; once or twice I found it a difficult job to extricate myself,
when my foot, after stamping through the layers of snow, wedged
itself tightly between two large pieces of hard stone. This sort of
trudging lasted for nearly three miles down a gradual descent, at the
end of which I emerged on a snowless beach of loose pebbles and
stones of different sizes. By that time my Tibetan boots had become
so far worn out, that at places my feet came into direct contact with
the hard gravel, which tore the skin and caused blood to flow,
leaving the crimson marks of my footsteps behind. During the
descent I felt little of my luggage, but now it began to tell on me, as
the foot-hold under me consisted of loose round pebbles, when it
was not sharp angular slabs of broken rock. Five miles onward, I
came upon a pair of ponds formed of melting snow, and respectively
about five miles and two and a half miles in circumference. Both the
ponds were thick with immense flocks of wild ducks of different
sizes, brownish or reddish in color, or spotted black on a white
ground. Otherwise the waters of the ponds were as clear as could
be, and the scenery around was picturesque in the extreme, so
much so that, though with lacerated feet and stark-stiff about my
waist with rheumatic pains, I almost forgot all that discomfort as I
stood gazing around. The prestige of the ponds, if they had any, was
of little matter to me then, but, as I happened to chance upon them
all by myself, I was destined to introduce them to the world; and I
christened the larger pond, which was rectangular in shape, ‘Ekai,’
after my own name, and the smaller, which described nearly a
perfect circle, ‘Jinkow,’ a name which I sometimes use for myself. A
little conceit you may call it if you like, but it was only for memory’s
sake that I did these things; and when a little way down I came
upon a gourd-shaped pond, about a mile and a quarter in
circumference, I gave it the name of ‘Hisago Ike’—calabash pond.
Still holding to my north-westerly direction, after having gone some
distance I saw, to the north-west of a snow-clad mountain that rose
far in front of me, two or three tents pitched on the ground. The
sight aroused in me a sense of intense curiosity mingled with
anxiety. Suppose I went to them; what would their occupants think
of a stranger, suddenly emerging upon them from pathless wilds?
Once their suspicion was roused, I might in vain hope to allay it;
what was I to do then? I espied a declivity below me, which
extended north-west in a gradual descent, far out of sight of the
tents, and I saw that unless I took it, I should either come on those
tents or have my progress barred by a succession of high mountains.
With nothing else to help me to arrive at a decision, I then entered
on what is termed ‘Danjikwan sanmai’ in Japanese-Buḍḍhist
terminology, a meditative process of making up one’s mind, when
neither logic nor accurate knowledge is present to draw upon for
arriving at a conclusion. The process is, in short, one of abnegating
self and then forming a judgment, a method which borders on
divination, or an assertion of instinctive powers. The result was that
I decided to take the route that lay toward the tents, and by nightfall
I came within hailing distance of them, when a pack of five or six
ferocious-looking dogs caught sight of me and began barking
furiously. They were formidable animals with long shaggy fur and
very cruel looks. I had before then been told that when attacked by
dogs of this kind I must not strike them, but that I should only ward
them off, quietly waving a stick in front of their muzzles, and on this
occasion I religiously followed that instruction, and found to my
entire satisfaction that the dogs did not try to snap at me.
Proceeding thus, and coming outside one of the tents, I called out to
its occupants.
TO A TENT OF NOMAD TIBETANS.
 CHAPTER XIII.
A kind old Dame.
My call was responded to by an old woman who, coming out of the
tent and finding a tattered and tired wayfarer, said more to herself
than to me: “Why, it is a pilgrim, poor, poor.” Seeing no reason to
suppose that I appeared an object of suspicion to her, I ventured to
inform her that I was from the direction of Lhasa, bound for Kang
Rinpoche, Mount Kailāsa, and besought her to give me a night’s
lodging in her tent, as it was unbearably cold to sleep in the open
air. My request was cheerfully complied with and, inside the tent, the
old dame expressed her curiosity to know how I happened to be
there, as the locality was not one generally visited by pilgrims. She
easily believed my explanation to the effect that I had lost my way
while heading for the abode of Gelong Rinpoche, and then gave me
a cup of tea out of a kettle that stood boiling over the fire; accepting
it with thanks, I declined the baked flour offered immediately after. I
may observe here that the tea offered me was not brewed in the
same way as we take it in Japan, but it was more of the nature of a
soup, the ingredients of which were powdered tea-leaves, butter and
salt, forbiddingly offensive in smell, until one gets accustomed to it,
when it is found to constitute a very agreeable beverage. The
Tibetan custom is to serve a guest with a cup of this kind of tea first,
and then to regale him with some baked flour. I excused myself for
declining the hospitality of my kind hostess by informing her that I
adhered strictly to the Buḍḍhist rule of fasting hours, which piece of
information produced a very favorable impression on her as to my
personality, as she seemed to respect me all the more for it. Then,
leading in the conversation that followed, she told me that Gelong
Rinpoche’s abode was at a day’s distance, and that this Lama was
the holiest of all the priests to be found throughout the whole
Jangthang (Jangthang, as I explained, literally means ‘northern
plain,’ but in Tibet itself the appellation is applied to its western
steppes). Continuing, the old hostess said that a visit to the holy
man always resulted in great spiritual benefit, and urged me by all
means to call on him. There was a river, she said, in my way, the
waters of which were too cold to be forded, and she offered me the
use of one of her yaks. Her son was away just then, but she
expected him back in the evening, and he could accompany me in
the morning, as she wanted him too to pay a visit to the holy man.
All this was very acceptable to me, but one thing that troubled me
was the sorry condition to which my boots had become reduced;
and I asked the dame if I could not mend them. Mending in this
case meant, as I was told, patching the worn-out places with yak’s
hide, which required, however, two days’ soaking in water before it
became soft enough to be sewn. My hostess said that they—she and
her son—were to stay only one more day in that particular spot
where I had chanced upon them, and suggested that I might make
a stay of two or three days at Gelong Rinpoche’s, so as to give
myself the time to do some mending. She offered that I should, on
the morrow, put on her son’s spare pair of boots and proceed to the
holy Lama’s in them, saying that I might give them back to her son
after reaching my destination. In the night, just as I was going to
sleep, the son turned up, and more conversation ensued amongst
us, chiefly concerning the saintly man, of whom the mother and the
son knew no end of wonderful things, altogether superhuman in
character.
Early the next morning, by order of the good old dame, the son
busied himself in getting a yak ready for me. The yak is a bovine
somewhat larger than our bull, though a little lower in height. Its
hide is covered all over very thickly with long shaggy hair, and its tail
terminates in a bushy tuft. The female yak is called bri in Tibetan. Its
face looks very much like that of common cattle, but it has a pair of
piercing eyes, which give you a rather uncomfortable feeling when
turned full on you, while its horns are dangerously pointed and
threateningly shaped. A better acquaintance, however, shows the
animal to be a quiet and tractable one, even much more so than our
cattle. I may yet have occasion to tell what an invaluable beast of
burden the yak is for the Tibetan. My hostess’ son brought out three
yaks, one for me to ride, another for himself, and the third to carry
his presents, consisting of dried milk, butter and other things, to the
holy man. As for the good old dame, she proved to be the very
essence of kindness, and on my parting from her she loaded me
with large quantities of baked wheat-flour, dried milk, and butter,
besides a farewell cup of tea, a treatment which is considered great
hospitality in Jangthang.
So equipped, we started on our trip in quest of the holy man of the
plain. After a ride of about two and a half miles, involving ascent and
descent of equal length towards the north-west, we were overtaken
by a hail-storm, and had to make a halt of two hours until it had
blown over. During the halt, we took down our luggage from the
backs of the yaks, so that it might not get wet, and I utilised that
interval quite profitably to myself by pumping the young man for
information regarding the routes and geography of the regions I was
to go through before I could reach my final destination. Resuming
our ride, we soon came to a river which was sixty yards wide, and
easy to ford for men riding on yaks, as we were. Crossing two more
rivers of the like width, and making an ascent of a little over six
miles, we came in sight of a large white cliff, which, as my
companion informed me, was the dwelling place of Gelong Rinpoche.
Continuing the ascent and approaching nearer, I found out that what
had appeared like a huge and solid piece of rock was really a hollow
cliff forming a large cave, and that there was another concave cliff in
front of it, which was not white but greyish in color, and was
inhabited by one of Gelong Rinpoche’s disciples, as I came to
discover afterwards. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon that
we arrived at the entrance of the front cave, where my companion
asked if he could see Gelong Rinpoche, though he knew that he was
considerably behind the regular hour, setting forth the hail incident
as an excuse for his delay. The answer he received was absolutely in
the negative; so he took down the presents and entrusted them to
the disciple, to be sent up to Gelong Rinpoche as from Pasang (his
mother’s name), saying that he could not wait till the next day to
see the Lama, as he was going to strike his tent and move away
there and then.
Left alone with the occupant of the grey cliff, I found him to be an
ordinary Lama of rather good parts. In the cave, put away in proper
places, were articles of daily use for devotional practices, bedding,
the kitchen utensils, etc. Having obtained the Lama’s permission to
make a few days’ stay, I commenced my mending work by soaking
in water a piece of yak’s hide which the kind dame Pasang had given
me on parting. On my asking for information as to how I could reach
Kang Rinpoche, the answer I got was very discouraging. It was to
the effect that two or three days’ journey, after leaving the cave,
would bring me to a region inhabited by nomads; for another two or
three days I should be in the same region, and then, for the next
fifteen or sixteen days, I should have to go through a wilderness
entirely destitute of human kind. I was very fortunate, said my host,
in that I had chanced upon that ‘kind old dame,’ who was noted for
her charity; otherwise I should have had little possibility of obtaining
even lodging accommodation, still less of securing a companion to
the cliff; and it was out of the question for me to secure anything
like a guide for my onward journey; human beings were too scarce
in those parts for such a luxury. Furthermore he assured me that I
should be pounced upon by robbers as soon as I should reach the
inhabited parts, as I seemed to be loaded with luggage worth
taking. I had nothing to fear on that score, I told my host, because
all I should do would be to hand over all I had. My host then told me
that he had been to Kang Rinpoche two or three times himself, and
gave me a minute description of the route I was to take for that
destination. After a meditation exercise, in which my host joined, we
both went to sleep at about midnight.
When I re-opened my eyes, I saw the Lama already making a fire
outside the cave. It should be remembered that I passed myself off
as a pilgrim from Lhasa, here as elsewhere, and I had to be ‘Lhasan’
in all I did. That morning, therefore, I got up and set about reading
the Sacred Text without rinsing my mouth. How foul I felt in the
mouth then! but then it was ‘Lhasan,’ you see! When the usual tea,
butter, and salt soup was ready, my host gave me a bowlful of it,
and then we breakfasted on the regulation diet of baked flour, salt
and pepper, all with uncleansed mouths! After that, we whiled away
the morning in religious talk until eleven o’clock, when the hour for
being presented to Gelong Rinpoche had arrived.