On our way down from the summit of Mount Genpala we diverted our steps a little in the direction of the village of Ta ma lung, a change of route necessitated by the desire to dine and to change horses, before proceeding to the post-station of Palte.
Palte is, as I have mentioned before, a very picturesque town on the shores of Lake Yamdo. We arrived towards nightfall after a long journey southward through beautiful winding roads, and here I fancy that my luggage coolie Tenba, who preceded me by a few minutes, must have announced me as a physician from Sera, for soon after my arrival the headman brought me a sick man for examination. I declined to prescribe for the man at first, but the more I drew back the more did the headman urge his suit, until I was at last reluctantly compelled to give him some medicine. I was surprised to find with what great reverence the people of the place treated “a physician from Sera”.
It was almost as if he had been a God of medicine, so great was the honor they paid him.
The next day, June 6th, I left Palte on horseback at two in the morning, and about eight o’clock reached the eastern extremity of Yase through beautiful scenery, which I need not however describe again. Some two miles to the east of Yase there is a river which empties itself into the narrow arm of a lake, and is crossed by a stone bridge which leads the traveller towards the south. As far as this bridge my route had been the same as on my former journey through this country: but after crossing the bridge, I diverged in a south-easterly direction along the lake shore, and then turned to the south (still along the lake) for five miles, where I struck off and reached Nankartse in time for dinner. Here my servant, who was very tired, expected to stop, but I pushed on westward, until we came out on an immense plain where we beheld outspread before us the snow-clad mountains of the Bhūṭān frontier. As we pushed on the scenery became more and more beautiful, and the mountains closed in on both sides of us. At last, in the heart of a narrow ravine, we came to a solitary house beside a river. We should have had to go another five ri before reaching another house, so we determined to stop here.
The next morning, soon after midnight, I got up and aroused my servant. He did not want to leave his bed and grumbled about its being midnight and a long way to dawn, but we had before made up our minds for an early start so as to get ahead of possible pursuers, and so I kept to my purpose. It was a very lonely ascent through deep snow, and my servant was so scared by the darkness and the fear of pursuers that he did not dare to walk behind me, and when I made him go in front, he would often stop for me to reconnoitre some suspicious object ahead. For the road, he said, was full of malicious demons, and there was no knowing what harm they might not do to one.
CROSSING A MOUNTAIN AT MIDNIGHT.
I did my best to re-assure him by the fact of my presence and the example of my courage, and so, with slow and faltering steps we climbed up the five ri of steep mountain ascent and at daybreak reached the small village of Za-ra, when we had breakfast and succeeded in hiring horses. At these mountain-stations it is almost impossible to hire an animal, for there are none kept there, and the traveller has to depend on pack-horses and travelling horses that may happen to pass by that way. What few post-horses there are, are all taken up by the Government, and never come into the hands of ordinary travellers. And yet it was very important for us to obtain animals, for we had to pass along the snowy peak of Nechen Kangsang, and though there are several places in the ascent as well as in the descent where riding is out of the question, over the steep and ill-kept roads, there are also places in the higher plateau of the mountains where the rarefied atmosphere makes rapid travelling on foot a sheer impossibility.
Thanks, however, to our good fortune in procuring horses at Za-ra, we were able to push on towards the majestic mountain peaks as far as to Ralung, where we rested till midnight. We then arose, mounted our steeds, and following a stream for some ten and a half miles arrived at Tsanang. In Tibet there is no beautiful scenery except that of snowy mountains. When the snow-peaks disappear from sight, everything becomes monotonous and lonely.