On a sunny morning, we walked leisurely on the bank of the river when two lamas dressed in lay clothes reached us coming from behind.
They asked about our cou ry_and many other details for a rather long tinie and one of them stared at. me with peculiar istence. They said that they were in the service of the Governor Menkong and were carrying @ message from him to the officer residing at Zogong.
We both had noticed the way one them looked at me and as all people in our circumstances would have don we began to fancy the worst things. Maybe some rumours had spread after our passage near Menkong and had only recently reached the governor who had despatched these two to inform his col-Teague and order him to ascertain who we were, Previous disquieting meetings had had a quick solution but this one left after it a ting terror. Zogon, where we ce have known our fate, was still far awa} each day' brought the same question, Were we not walking towards our doom?
We reverted to the nocturnal! ramps. We had become again the eared game dreaming of the hunter.
One morning at dawn a batch of pilgrims crossed us and stopped to xchange a few words. According fo about 40 armed men assembled and I guessed that they were paring a robbing expedition whose plan was not, of course, to be di cussed before unknown' travellers, Begging around at other neighbouring camps produced quite an amount of cheese, butter and tsamba, After a night 9 ut in the open, we started heavily loaded but certain that starvation was not imminent.
The country we were crossing had none of the, charms of the Nu valley. Tt was colder, often barren, The trails were difficult to find we had high ranges to cross. The people were a rough lot, but they treated us well.
That region is _unsurveyed. information appears about it on the, maps, The countrymen had heard, they told us, about the of pilings (foreigners) from some of them who had been to Lhasa or in China, but they had never seen any, and none had ever visited their Jenge and sworn on the "iron! bridge" that a woman would pass and T would, But when and how, if it was not to-day?
Time elapsed. I heard a Kind of pealmody. The sound grew louder. Yongden was coming back chanting Lamaist office. If he was returning alone—a sudden hope—even certainty flashed in my mind.
"The lama was before me. A mocking: smile on his lips, he open-fed his hand and showed me @ silver ('He has given me a rupee he said, "now let us be off {On the top of the pass we tur towards the house of the Lhasa ent, now invisible far below us we shouted glad "Lha sla!" I heartily added a wish for welfare of the kind-hearted
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.