I did not doubt a moment that he would give his consent to such a modest request, and I saw in my mind’s eye the dramatic scene when I should make my first call on Major O’Connor in Tibetan dress, and have a little fun with him before I made myself known. But I may as well say at once that this long epistle to Lien Darin was never sent. My opponent’s tactics lured me to a contest in which he was checkmated in two moves. My merit was as little now as formerly; I was always a marionette, and the hands which held the strings hung over the paths where the clouds and stars move.
In the evening I had a visit from Pemba Tsering and Kamba Tsenam. The former was much more gentle and friendly than the year before; the latter was a great humorist, who did not seem at all annoyed that he had omitted to close the bag when he had us in it, and had let a valuable booty fall into the hands of another. They had heard of my adventurous voyages on Tso-mavang, and were astonished that I had escaped with my life.
| 341. Inner Court of Selipuk. |
| 342. Dorche Tsuen and Ngavang on Horseback. |
Two short days’ marches took us over the pass Kule-la and down to the valley where Semoku stands on the great high-road. Here stood some scattered tents, and the Governor and his colleagues had established themselves in the small stone house of the station. All the more important posts in Tibet are entrusted to two gentlemen: thus, for example, there are always two garpuns or viceroys in Gartok, a system adopted with the intention that one shall control the other or shall inform of the other if he is guilty of any roguery. In Saka-dzong, however, the one governor seemed to be of higher rank than the other; at any rate, he conducted all the negotiations as though he possessed greater authority.
As soon as we were ready Rindor and two other men came into my tent and brought a message from the Governor that he awaited me in the station-house. I answered, that if he wanted anything of me he might come to my tent. It was not long before a party of men crossed the hundred yards between our dwellings. I went out to meet them, invited them to come in and sit down as far as the space allowed, took up my position on my bed, and had before me three gentlemen, namely, Dorche Tsuen, pun or Governor of Saka-dzong (Illust. 327), Ngavang, his colleague, and Oang Gye, his eighteen-year-old son (Illust. 331). A crowd of servants, nomads, and soldiers massed together at the tent door.
Pun Dorche Tsuen is an unusually tall Tibetan, forty-three years old, of sympathetic and refined appearance, dressed in a Chinese costume of silk, with a small silk cap on his head, a pigtail behind, and velvet boots. He is a man of wealth, owning large flocks in the province over which he rules and a stone house in Lhasa, his home, for he is an upa or domiciled inhabitant of the province U, the capital of which is Lhasa. There dwell three of his four sons, and one of them is a young lama. His wife has been dead some years.
Ngavang, his coadjutor, is a little, fat, kindly man in Tibetan costume, but with a Chinese cap and pigtail. Oang Gye wears his hair in Tibetan fashion, wears no head-covering, and, like his father, is exceedingly sympathetic and good-natured.
“I hope that you have had a successful journey and have not suffered much from cold,” said Dorche Tsuen.
“Oh, it was cold, and we have lost our caravan, our clothes are in rags, and our provisions are at an end, but, as you see, that is of no consequence to us.”