Page:Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet.djvu/115

 and muttered om mani padme hum, and the good people of Gyantse who accompanied him in his circumambulation (lingkor) little suspected the nature of the work he was doing. When he reached the foot of a mendong called Gojogs, and situated to the north of the Djong, he took the bearing of the Tse-chan monastery, one of the most ancient religious establishments of Tibet. It bore southwest, and was nearly three miles from him. To the north of Gyantse he saw Ritoi gomba, a cloistered lamasery with five or six long houses, each with a large number of cells. To the south-south-east of Gyantse djong is the road to Pagri, in the direction of the Nia-ni monastery and the Niru chu, one of the principal feeders of the Nyang chu, which drains the northern glacier of the Chumo-lha ri mountain. To the north-east of Gyantse the Nyang chu is visible for a great distance, and Ugyen conjectured from its course that it came from the snow-clad Nui-jin kang-sang mountains, which stretch out to the north and north-east. On the uplands to the north of Gyantse, and some three miles away, is the Choilung gomba.

The Chinese cemetery Ugyen found situate at the foot of the hill on which the Djong stands, a little above the high-road to Lhasa, and some three miles from the town. He counted three hundred tombs, some of which appeared very old and dilapidated, but a few quite new.

The castle or Djong of Gyantse stands on the top of a hill nearly 500 feet above the town. It is very strong, and was built by the famous Choigyal rabtan who ruled in the fourteenth century over the province of Nyang, of which Gyantse was the capital. This province was a part of the domain of the Sakhya hierarchs. He had built a long stone-covered way running from the Djong to the foot of the hill, by which he meant to secure a supply of water in time of siege from the three deep wells at the foot of the hill. Ugyen visited these wells, where water-carriers were drawing water in hide buckets attached to a rope about 150 feet long passing over a pulley.

The landlord of the Litophug sub-division of Gyantse told Ugyen that about eighteen years ago the ex-Dewan of Sikkim had come here on some State business, and had put up in the same house in which he was now stopping. One night about fifty sinister-looking Khamba traders suddenly broke into the house, beat him with clubs, tore his earring out of his ear, stripped him of his clothing, carried off