As we made the round of the monastery we came in the gallery of the court upon a poor fellow who lay ill and seemed to be suffering. I asked him how he was, and he told me that on August 18, the day when Rabsang and Adul came to meet us, he was taking eleven mules and two horses laden with tsamba and barley to Parka, the Gova of which was the owner of the caravan. Where the Pachung river enters the eastern lagoon he was attacked at eleven o’clock in the morning by twelve robbers, who rushed down from the direction of the Pachung valley. They were all mounted, and armed with guns, swords, and spears, had two spare horses for provisions, and wore masks on their faces. They dismounted in a moment, threw a mantle over his head, tied his hands behind his back, and cleared him out, taking among other things 400 rupees, and then they rode off again to the Pachung valley, which Rabsang and I had hurriedly visited the next day. He then summoned help by shouting, and in a very pitiable condition found refuge in Langbo-nan. He showed us some deep stabs in his legs, his skin coat, and the saddle, which had suffered severely when he made a desperate attempt to defend himself. This was the incident which had so alarmed our Ladakis.
The way from here to Chiu-gompa is charming. Perpendicular, sometimes overhanging rocks of green and red schist fall to the shore, which here has a shingly beach only 20 yards broad. Two gigantic boulders stand like monuments on the shore, and on the rocky walls we see black caves and hermits’ dwellings, and we often pass the usual three stones on which tea-kettles of pilgrims have boiled. Farther to the west the projections form a series of recesses in lighter tones; at one of these cliffs a new and fascinating view is displayed. A water mark lying 5½ feet above the present level of the lake is very easily recognized. On the rocky pinnacles eagles sit motionless as statues, watching for prey.
Chergip-gompa is built on a terrace in the broad mouth of a valley. It is a small, poor monastery, but it has its lhakang and its vestibule with a large bronze bell, in which the six holy characters are cast. When the bell is rung at morning and evening the unfathomable truth is borne on the waves of sound over the lake, which, with its blue surface and its background of the snowfields of Gurla Mandatta, forms a charming landscape as seen from the court of the monastery. But its sound is heard by no one but Chergip’s single monk. Poor man, what must be his feelings in winter evenings when storms sweep the drifting snow over the ice of Tso-mavang!
I remained with him fully two hours, for he had much to tell. He had travelled far, had been at Selipuk and the Nganglaring-tso, and offered to conduct me thence in twenty days to the Dangra-yum-tso; he had no suspicion that I was roaming about in the forbidden land under a political ban. But he revived my desire to visit the great unknown country to the north of the holy river. I was full of thoughts, full of plans, and full of an insatiable desiderium incogniti which never left me in peace, when at length I departed from the eighth and last monastery of Tso-mavang as the evening spread its dark veil over the lake I had conquered.
We had still a long way to go to the camp. At the last mountain spur stands a chhorten, from which our fire was visible. Soon we sat again among our companions. Late at night two horsemen rode past our camp; the watchmen called out “Who’s there?” but they made no answer. Then Rabsang awoke and thoughtlessly sent a bullet after the unknown men, being convinced that they were robbers. My men had reached such a pitch of nervousness that they saw robbers everywhere.
This was our last night on the shore of the Tso-rinpoche, the “holy lake,” and I listened sadly to the song of the surf dying away as the wind fell.
CHAPTER XLIX