We halted for breakfast in a small grove in front of the village of Shing donkar, belonging to Sa-wang Ragasha, one of the senior Shape of Lhasa. We could hear from where we sat the voices of lamas chanting prayers, and I learnt from an old woman who brought my men some chang, that there were some eighteen Dabung lamas reading prayers for the recovery from small-pox of the foreman (shinyer) of the farm.
About a mile from Sing donkar we came to Donkar, which is considered as the first stage for persons travelling officially from Lhasa.[1] Then we passed by Cheri, where is the city slaughter-house; and here, strange as it may seem, the Kashmiris come to buy meat, for most of those living at Lhasa are so lax in their observance of the Mohammedan laws about butchering that they will eat yaks killed by Tibetans, even though they have been put to death by wounds of arrows or knives in the stomach.
We stopped at Daru at the foot of the hill covered by Debung and its park, and Pador went to look up a friend whom he was desirous of attaching to my service. After an hour’s delay he returned without having found him, and we pushed on, passing the far-famed temple of Nachung chos kyong, where resides the oracle by whom the Government is guided in all important affairs. The temple is a fine edifice of dark red colour, built after the Chinese style, and has a gilt spire surmounting it. At this point the road nears the river, and the whole city stood displayed before us at the end of an avenue of gnarled trees, the rays of the setting sun falling on its gilded domes. It was a superb sight, the like of which I have never seen. On our left was Potala with its lofty buildings and gilt roofs; before us, surrounded by a green meadow (maidan), lay the town with its tower-like, whitewashed houses and Chinese buildings with roofs of blue glazed tiles. Long festoons of inscribed and painted rags hung from one building to another, waving in the breeze.
Beyond Daru the road lay for a while through a marsh (dam-tso) overgrown with rank grass; numerous ditches drained the water into the river, and at the north-east end of the marsh we could distinguish
- ↑ What the Chinese call chan. They are ridiculously short on the high-road between Lhasa and China, and probably elsewhere. This is so as to make the ula less oppressive, and I suspect it has something to do with the allowances of the Chinese officers who have to travel over it, and which are regulated by stages, not by miles travelled.—(W. R.)
