His Excellency gives his best regards to you and wishing you a happy and safe return.—I am yours very truly,
Ho Tsao Hsing.
That was all I got by the stratagem which had cost us so much loss of time. A positive prohibition to proceed north-westwards to the land of my dreams. Now the Devashung would issue fresh orders, and we should be watched more closely than ever. Now the iron gates would be closed again from the south, and the way to the forbidden land barred. Tang Darin was as immovable as the State Secretary for India, Lord Morley. But he stimulated my ambition, and for that I have to thank him. To begin with, we seized the copy of our passport, which was to be transferred from Gova to Gova all along the road.
But not yet had this fateful day come to a close. At sunset came Tundup Sonam and Tashi, dusty and ragged, with their bundles on their backs. “Welcome and well done, 20 rupees each and new suits of clothes is your reward. What news?” No letters, but only a note from Ma that he had forwarded my letters to Lhasa, and sent a letter from Gulam Kadir to Muhamed Isa. They had reached Shigatse in eleven days, and had rested there three days. Then they had set out from Tashi-lunpo directly westwards. They made a fast and long march on the first day, and climbed up to the pass Ta-la at sunset, where nine highwaymen, two with guns and the others with swords, fell upon them and threw them to the ground. The two guns were set on their rests and the barrels pointed to the men’s heads, the seven swords were drawn, and one of the robbers said:
“If you value your lives, hand out everything of value you have.”
Frightened out of their wits, the two Ladakis begged them to take all they wanted if they would only spare their lives. The nine robbers then opened their bundles and thoroughly plundered them, taking even their little gaos and images, as well as their cooking utensils and 18 rupees in silver. They were allowed to keep the clothes they had on their backs. By pure chance the robbers had overlooked a small packet of 30 tengas, which Tundup Sonam had put at the back of his girdle. The robbers cleared them out in a minute, and then disappeared into the mountains. Our two defeated heroes remained weeping on the battle-field till dark, and then they went off very slowly at first, turning round frequently and fancying they saw a robber in every shadow, but afterwards they quickened their pace almost to a run. Deadly tired, they crept under two boulders by the wayside, and next morning came to three black tents, where they got food, and were told that a lama had been robbed and stripped naked on the Ta-la two days before. But now they were safe, and it was touching to see how delighted they were to be with us again. They had seen Muhamed Isa’s grave, and the conversation about it reminded Tsering of his sorrow.
On June 18 we travel across open country to Tradum, our route following the northern side of the valley while the tasam runs along the southern. The ground was sandy. Small irritating horseflies buzz in the nostrils of the horses and drive them frantic. They walk with their noses on the ground like the wild asses to escape the flies. To the right is the Tuto-pukpa, a mountain to which corpses are carried on yaks from Tradum to be cut up. We ride between pools where wild-geese are plentiful with their pretty yellow goslings. At a projecting rock, cairns and streamer poles are set up; the wall of rock is black, but all the side facing the road is painted red—“Ah, this is blood on Balder’s sacrificial stone.” Here the village of Tradum can be seen, its temple and its chhorten on a hill. To the south-west the dark snow-crowned rampart of the Himalayas appears, wild, grand, and precipitous. To the south-east lies the tasam, a light winding riband, and our path runs into it; it is 40 feet broad between grass-grown terraces of sand; it is the great trunk-road of Tibet.
We had scarcely set up our camp when the discharged Hajji and his two companions came up and salaamed. But I was angry, and drove them away. I afterwards heard that they wept, and I was heartily sorry that I had been so unkind. But it was too late, for they were seen tramping out wearily into the steppe when the shades of evening fell.
The monastery Tradum-gompa is subject to Tashi-lunpo, and its five monks live on the produce of their sheep and yaks, and carry on trade with Nepal. Round the temple are eight chhortens, and in the lhakang, the hall of the gods, the immortal son of Sakya is enthroned between the eleven-headed, six-armed Avalokitesvara and other deities. On a small hill of schist above the convent is a hermit’s dwelling, where there is a splendid view over the Brahmaputra valley and the Tsa-chu-tsangpo as it emerges from the mountains.