A DISTANT VIEW OF LHASA.
On reaching the top of the mountain and looking back, I was able, in the clear air, to see not only Lhasa far away on the north-eastern horizon, but even the Grand Lama’s palace above it, a dim vision of heavenly beauty. Both in coming and in going I enjoyed this beautiful sight, and saluted the Lama’s Palace in the distance. Genpala rises fourteen thousand nine hundred feet above the sea, while Lhasa is twelve thousand, so that the mountain is nearly three thousand feet higher than the city. The distance, as a bird flies, between them is thirty-five miles, and though some Tibetan travellers deny the fact, I can vouch for it from experience that the Grand Lama’s Palace can be distinctly seen from a point of vantage on the summit of the mountain, though the slightest change in position causes the palace to disappear.
FAREWELL TO LHASA FROM THE TOP OF GENPALA.
While speaking of Genpala I recollect an amusing story which I will here relate. There is in the house of a rich man in Nepāl a Tibetan servant of the name of Penba-pun-tso, who accompanied his master on one occasion on a pilgrimage to Lhasa. There were several other Tibetans in the company. Now, whereas in Nepāl food is cheap and plentiful and every one gets enough, that is not the case in Lhasa. There, the Lama gets a good meal with meats of various kinds, vermicelli, and eggs; but the ordinary layman has to be contented with parched barley flour—not unmixed with sand and grit—put in a bowl with tea and eaten. And often there is not enough even of that. The pilgrims cannot always get all they require, and many lose strength, while all lose flesh.
At last the pilgrimage was over, all the noteworthy Lamas had been visited, and the party of Nepālese, on their way home, reached the summit of Mount Genpala. With one accord they all turned round to take a last farewell of the Holy City. “We are indeed fortunate,” they murmured, “to have been allowed to accomplish this pilgrimage, and we pray (here they shed tears of pious fervor) that we may deserve to be re-born in the Holy Land of Buḍḍha.”