At Bathang, there is a magazine of provisions, the fourth from Lha-Ssa; it is, like all the others, managed by a literary Mandarin, bearing the title of Liang-Tai. The Chinese garrison, consisting of three hundred soldiers, is commanded by a Cheou-Pei, two Tsien-Tsoung, and a Pa-Tsoung. The annual maintenance of the Chinese troops, who belong to this post, amounts to nine thousand ounces of silver, without reckoning the rations of rice and tsamba. We observed, among the population of Bathang, a very great number of Chinese; they are engaged in various arts and trades; several of them, indeed, occupy themselves with agriculture, and make the most of the Thibetian farms. This plain, which you find, as by enchantment, amid the mountains of Thibet, is wonderfully fertile: it produces two harvests each year. Its principal products are, rice, maize, barley, wheat, peas, cabbages, turnips, onions, and several other varieties of vegetable. Of fruits, you find grapes, pomegranates, peaches, apricots, and water melons. Honey is also very abundant there. Lastly, you find there mines of cinnabar (sulphur of mercury), from which they extract a large quantity of mercury. The Thibetians get the mercury in all its purity, by disengaging the sulphur by combustion, or by combining it with slack-lime.
The town of Bathang is large and very populous, and its inhabitants seem to be well off. The Lamas there are very numerous, as they are in all the Thibetian towns. The principal Lamasery, which they call the Grand Monastery of Ba, has for its superior a Khampo, who holds his spiritual authority from the Talé-Lama of Lha-Ssa.
The temporal power of the Talé-Lama ends at Bathang. The frontiers of Thibet, properly so called, were fixed in 1726, on the termination of a great war between the Thibetians and the Chinese. Two days before you arrive at Bathang, you pass, on the top of the Mang-Ling mountain, a stone monument, showing what was arranged at that time between the government of Lha-Ssa and that of Peking, on the subject of boundaries. At present, the countries situate east of Bathang are independent of Lha-Ssa in temporal matters. They are governed by the Tou-Sse, a sort of feudal princes,
originally appointed by the Chinese Emperor, and still acknowledging his paramount authority.
These petty sovereigns are bound to go every third year to Peking, to offer their tribute to the Emperor.
We halted at Bathang three days, the illness of our guide Ly-Kouo-Ngan, being the cause of this delay. The daily fatigues of this long journey had so overpowered the poor Mandarin, that he was in an almost hopeless state. His best plan was to take advantage of the fine climate of Bathang, and to let the caravan proceed on its way. His friends advised him to do so, but without success. He insisted upon continuing his journey, and sought, in every way, to deceive himself as to the serious nature of his malady. As for us, we considered his case so dangerous, that we felt it our duty to profit by the repose we enjoyed at Bathang, to talk seriously to him on the subject of his soul and of eternity. Our previous conversations on the way had already sufficiently enlightened him as to the principal truths of Christianity. Nothing now remained but to make him clearly perceive his position, and to convince him of the urgency of entering frankly and fully into the path of salvation. Ly-Kouo-Ngan altogether concurred with us, admitting our observations to be replete with reason. He himself spoke with great eloquence on the frailty and brevity of human life, of worldly vanities, of the impenetrability of God’s decrees, of the importance of salvation, of the truth of the Christian religion, and of the obligation on all mankind to embrace it. He said to us, on all these subjects, some very sensible and very touching things; but when it came to the point, to the practical result, to the declaring himself Christian, there was a dead stand; he must absolutely wait till he had returned to his family, and had abdicated his mandarinate. It was in vain that we represented to him the danger he incurred by postponing this important matter; all was useless. “So long as I am a Mandarin of the Emperor,” said he, “I cannot serve the Lord of Heaven,” and he had got this absurd idea so deep in his brain, that it was impracticable to dislodge it.
On leaving the station of Bathang, we were obliged to turn for some distance, quite northwards, in order to resume an eastern direction; for since our departure from Tsiamdo, we had continually progressed towards the south during twenty consecutive days. The caravans are compelled to lengthen this route considerably, in order to reach a secure passage across the great river Kin-Cha-Kiang.
Our first day’s march from Bathang was full of charms, for we travelled, in a delightful temperature, through a country of an infinite variety of landscape. The narrow path we followed was
throughout bordered with willows and apricot trees in flower. Next day, however, we again found ourselves amid all the horrors and dangers of our old route. We had to ascend a very high mountain, upon which we were mercilessly assailed by the snow and the north wind. It was a complete reaction against the Sybaritism we had enjoyed in the warm and flowery plain of Bathang. At the foot of the mountain, the snow was succeeded by torrents of cold rain, which seemed to filter through into the very marrow of our bones. As a climax of misfortune, we were obliged to pass the night in a habitation, the roof of which, cracked in several places, gave free passage to the wind and rain. We were, however, so exhausted with fatigue that this did not prevent our sleeping. The next day we awoke in the mire; we found our bedclothes entirely soaked, and our limbs stiff with cold. We were obliged to rub ourselves violently with pieces of ice, in order to restore circulation to the blood. The abominable village, which afforded us this horrible lodging, bears the name of Ta-So. On emerging from the valley of Ta-So, you ascend, by a narrow gorge, an elevated plain, which we found covered with snow. Here, we entered a magnificent forest, the finest we had seen in the mountains of Thibet. The pines, cedars, and hollies entwined their vigorous branches, and formed a dome of verdure impenetrable to the sun, and under which there is much better protection from the rain and snow than in the houses of Ta-So. The trunks and branches of these large trees are covered with thick moss, which extends in long and extremely delicate filaments. When this stringy moss is new, it is of a beautiful green hue; but when it is old, it is black, and bears an exact resemblance to long tufts of dirty and ill-combed hair. There is nothing more grotesque or fantastic than the appearance of these old pines, with this very long hair suspended from their branches. The prickly holly that grows on the mountains of Thibet, is remarkable for the extraordinary development it attains. In Europe, it never exceeds the size of a shrub, but here, it always grows to the size of a large tree. If it does not rise as high as the pine, it equals it in the size of its trunk, and it is even superior to it in the richness and abundance of its foliage.
This day’s march was long and fatiguing. The night had set in when we reached the station of Samba, where we were to change the oulah. We were just going to bed, when we missed a Thibetian, belonging to the escort, precisely the very man who had been assigned as our servant. We sought him, but without success, in every corner of the small village in which we had arrived. We concluded he had lost his way in the forest. We at first thought