After further geographical work we made a rapid return to Tachienlu, and I was sorry to have to say goodbye to my companion, who was forced, hurriedly to return to the coast. The big trek, however. was to begin, and I was most fortunate fo able to enlist the company of an American friend who wanted to see something of the grasslands. It took nearly three weeks to get sufficient horses and mules to take us and our food. In fact it took-us so long that we wondered if, with such an ap~ parent plethora of animals, the authorities at Tachienlu were less agreeable to our travelling in the interior than they smilingly would admit. Fortunately a debt owed my American friend by a Tibetan horse-owner, and as our proposed journey ould help to. pay this off if we engaged his animals, we at last were able to make a start.
Once the stone bridge above Ta: chien lu is crossed one is in truly Tibetan territory, where Chinese are few, and where the nomad and the lama, the former with his great herds of yak, the latter with his hor sorys and prayer wheel, are elmest the sole, folk one meets with.
Our route first led due westwards, past Cheto and Tiju, and then in a somewhat northerly direction up 9 steep valley, wooded with conifers and finally with stunted rhododenrons, to the high summit of the grassy Kaji pass. From here, looking from northwest to southwest one hould enjoy the most magnificent of joramas. In a wide are the horizon is hemmed in by great snowy peaks, from the attractive Djara to the glorious Minya Gonkar, Actually clouds hid the view, allowing us to see only the great rolling grasslands between us and the peaks, and a little later it began to snow. As it did so a Tibetan postman came up over the pass on his way from Litang, mounted on a horse, a gun on his back and singing gaily. This is the first time I fave heard a postman ing when on duty. His air was naturally of the type characteristic of Tibet, with wide, leaping inter~ als and a dis tonic flavour, only to end suddenly with a note, wholly unrelated in key, which was pro-jonged for several: moments. The neared approach fio Tibetan melodies I have, heard, and that is an ex-emely" distant approach, are the yinns from the Rig Veda" of Hoist
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.