These Kittle Black fellows," he wid me, "do not seem to be natural birds, They must be, the same mischievous mi ma yin (literally men, a kind of being, according to Tibetans) who play tricks at night with fire and music to delay the road, now they have taken that shape!
T smiled at his imagination, but e was quite in earnest." His grandfather had beth a magician-lama and, I believe, the blood of that ancestor was now alive in him. He recited a "20mg" (magic formula) with the ritualistic ture required and, strangely enough, the birds flew away, shrieking loudly. hed the young of" good heres" me But as to the necessity to braeeed quickly T could of contradict. "We meant to cross that evening the border of the for-
The Dekar Pass stands now bee tore ne, most impressive against n'grey,' evening. sky. Ht lea dee pression ina gigantic barren range, the cyclopeans rigid, sharp. wall seeging. as do. the cabler cute Stretehed across, the rivers instead bridges. To know that it marke the threshold of the guarded region tds to the sternness of its pect The ground around the Pass is most sacred to the Gods, and. the Tibetan pilgrims who circulate long. the' tack. have built there Countless tiny altars, 'There are three standing stones and a fourth tne as root Under which offerings fre made to_ spirits, the Pass itself and following the neighbouring ridges, the mystic flags that cane neon' on all the heights of 'Tibet, are planted in larger" numbers "than elsewhere. They, ook alive, "belligerent, threatening in the' falling light, Tike so many soldiers scaling the summits, ready to fight the prefumptocus traveller who would venture on the road of the holy Clinging to the Mountainside in a as we reach the cain at the top a gust of wind welcomes us The violent. and iey "kiss of the ttustere country, whose severe charm fas kept me bevitehed for s0 tong, which Ihave come again. Tarr: Me" our faces successively inthe four directions, the zenith and the adio we utter the Buddhist wish:
ay all beings be happy!" and we tein to climb down, blizzard descends on the sumimits." Black clouds roll to, and turn to a half melted snowfall. mike haste, endeavouring to reich, before night, the base of the barren, inhospitable, steep slope. nine dug between Lan Bat, darkness, comes, arly. We Tips SAP aba sunsets "abbing ciples ly with crambling stones feet, Becomes Stegerous ta pric Sri eat wag, vith a epeed. that we cannot con
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.