"River of Joy," a circular bastion gave it a remarkable resemblance to the Vatican of Rome, the city of the seven hills (see photo, p. 388).
The first glimpse of the sacred metropolis is dramatic in its suddenness. As if to screen the holy capital from view until the last moment. Nature has interposed a long curtain of rock which stretches across between the two bold guardian hills of Potala and the Iron Mountain, entirely shutting out all view of the town from the side of our approach on the south-west. This rocky curtain is pierced in its middle by the western gate of the city, called "The Middle Door - Barrier" (Pargo-Ka’ling),[1] whose top is given the form of the religious Chorten monument, and it is not until this gateway is passed, or until the ridge above it is scaled, that any view whatever of the town is obtained.
The vista which then flashes up before the eyes is a vast and entrancing panorama. On the left is the front view of the Dalai Lama's palace, which faces the east, and is now seen to be a mass of lofty buildings covering the hillside—here about 300 feet high—from top to bottom with its terraces of many-storeyed and many-windowed houses and buttressed masonry battlements and retaining walls, many of them 60 feet high, and forming a gigantic building of stately architectural proportions on the most picturesque of craggy sites. The central cluster of buildings, crowning the summit and resplendent with its five golden pavilions on its roof, was of a dull crimson, that gives it the name of the "Red Palace," whilst those on the other flank were of dazzling white; and the great stairway on each side, leading down to the chief entrance and gardens below, zig-zagging outwards to enclose a diamond-shaped design, recalled a similar one at the summer palace of Peking. A mysterious effect was given to the central
- ↑ Spelt Bar-sgo-bkag-gling. The prefaced consonants in italics are silent, as usual.
