“That can be easily done,” replied she; “though my husband is strict, and never delivers a passport even in case of his own men going out except from eleven to half past eleven o’clock, I will be responsible for it.”
“That is my request,” said I, returning the present in spite of her strong objection to receive it; “and I shall see you again when I return.”
Thanking me again and again for my medical treatment, she returned home with great joy. On the morrow if things in Pimbithang should come out as smoothly and favorably as I wished, everything in Nyatong would be done easily, for the arrangements for it were now made. But I was very anxious about matters at Pimbithang, and when I asked the soldier’s wife where I stopped whether all things would come out as I hoped, I was told that in spite of her husband’s refusal they certainly would, for she had almost unlimited power over her husband.
The next day, June 14th, at three o’clock in the morning, in spite of rain, I left and walked about two miles and arrived at Tomo-Rinchen-gang. Even then day had not dawned and no one was astir, and so I rested a while, the door of every house being fast closed. Happily, the rain presently stopped, and while I stood still near a closed shop doors began to be opened here and there. I asked the people where the guard-house was, and was told that it stood at the end of the village.
The guard-house is a very poor one, having no gate, only a small room in which to keep watch. I went there just at the time when the keeper was getting out of bed.
Telling the keeper my present circumstances, I asked for a note with which I could obtain a passport from the other guard-house. The keeper grumbled out that there had been no previous example of such a request. My servant let slip that his master was a physician in Sera. As soon as the keeper heard this, he asked the servant whether his master was the famous physician of the Dalai Lama or not. When I answered him vaguely and mysteriously as most of the Tibetan gentlemen do, he believed me immediately and gave me a note more readily than I expected.
[CHAPTER LXXXVII.]
The Fourth and Fifth Challenge Gates.
Leaving the village and walking about a mile, I climbed up step by step alongside a broad river among the south-western mountains. There were no tall trees, only here and there some small dwarf specimens and wheat growing in poor soil. Going on about a mile farther there is a castle which is the largest and last one of the three. The number of soldiers stationed in this castle is two hundred; whereas in Pimbithang and Choeten Karpo the number is respectively one hundred and two hundred, altogether making five hundred in number. It is said that about fifty soldiers are sometimes sent to Pimbithang. In this soldier’s town, as in the case of Choeten Karpo and Pimbithang, many of the men are engaged in various trades. Passing through the town, there is a very large gate by the side of which two soldiers were watching. I showed the note to them, and after fixing a seal on it, they readily allowed me to pass through. Walking a little further from the gate I saw the fifth guard-house where lay the greatest danger to my undertaking.