Early the following morning I went to the monastery, and was promptly led to the minister’s apartments, where I found him covered with small-pox pustules, and hardly able to speak. The Lhacham’s son was also ill with the same disease, but convalescing.
When the minister fell asleep, I went to the Tung-chen’s room. He asked me if I had not met Phurchung on the road, as he had left for Lhasa only a week ago carrying my letters and a shot-gun. As to Ugyen-gyatso, he had returned from Lachan with the luggage that had been left there, and was now waiting for me at Gyatsoshar, near Shigatse. I remained at Dongtse until July 3, when, in company with Phurchung and Pador, I set out for Gyatsoshar, which place we reached the following day, and Ugyen gave me, to my infinite delight, a package of letters from India.
Ugyen told me that since his return from the Lachan barrier he had been busy collecting plants. He had also carefully kept a diary from which I culled the following details, which may prove of interest.
One evening a lama friend had called on him, and asked him if he would like to meet a Golog from Amdo. These Golog, his friend went on to say, are a nation of brigands living in Amdo in Eastern Tibet.[3] Their country is nowhere cultivated, but they breed [[197]]many ponies, which they use for making raids on the adjacent peoples. Their chiefs exact black-mail (chag tal) from all people, and rob all they fall in with, unless they have passports from the Golog chiefs.
The Gologs have a few lamaseries, the heads of which come from Tashilhunpo, and are appointed for a term of five years, after which they return to Ulterior Tibet. Not long ago one of these lamas returned to Tashilhunpo, after having enjoyed during his sojourn in Gologland the confidence of the people and chiefs. He had amassed considerable wealth, and he spent on his return several thousand rupees in entertaining all the Tashilhunpo monks, and in giving them presents of money. Two years ago the wife of the Golog chief, near whom he had lived, came to Tashilhunpo on a pilgrimage, and after visiting the temple, she expressed a desire to see their former lama, but he was nowhere to be found, though it was known that he was at Tashilhunpo. Among the Golog people it is customary to greet one another with a kiss, and whoever omits the kiss when meeting or parting with an acquaintance is considered rude and unmannerly.
The lama had kissed this lady hundreds of times in her own country, but how could he kiss her now before all the monks? and particularly as the Panchen rinpoche was present at Tashilhunpo; how could he hope to escape unpunished if he committed an act of such gross immodesty?
The lady, however, before leaving Tashilhunpo, invited him to a dinner, and as soon as she appeared in the room he shut the door and greeted her with a kiss on the mouth, and explained to her the reason of his failing to see her at first, and the embarrassment he had felt in approaching her in public.[4]
Ugyen’s friend also told him that in the Bardon district of Khams,[5] when two acquaintances meet they touch each other’s foreheads together by way of salutation.
The same friend, who had imparted to Ugyen the preceding information, told him one day this fable: In times of yore, when [[198]]beasts could talk, a leopard met an ass, and, though he had a strong inclination to kill him, he was impressed by his strength, of which he judged by his loud bray, so he offered him his friendship on condition that he would watch his den when he went out in search of prey.
One day the leopard sallied forth with a mighty roar by way of prelude to his day’s work, and forthwith a wild yak rolled down the cliff overhanging his den, killed from fright at the sound. When the leopard returned and saw the dead dong, the ass said he had killed it, and stuck out his tongue, smeared with blood, in proof of his prowess.