Page:Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet.djvu/254

 British employé, and Phurchung was accused of having brought me into Tibet in violation of the express orders of the Nepal Durbar.

In view of these disturbing rumours, I left Gyantse on October 4, and returned to Tashilhunpo, where I was rejoined on the 13th by Phurchung, who had been sent with letters to India in August.

I now decided to send Ugyen back to India with the botanical and other collections he had made, while I would visit Samye, and the Lhokha country south of it. He bought ten yaks for a hundred rupees, and pack saddles, and engaged Lachung men to accompany him to Khamba djong. He started on the 17th, while Phurchung and I returned to Gyantse, arriving there on the 18th.

The people were now busy threshing their barley—cows, their muzzles covered with wicker baskets, treaded it out, and were kept to their work by two boys.

The Chyag-dso-pa lent me a man to guide me to Samye and the south country (Lhokha); his name was Gopon. He told me he was ready to start at any time, for his brother (namdo pun, "joint brother"), as he called him, had now returned from Shigatse, and he could leave his wife. These two men had, though not related, one wife between them, and the three of them got on very well together.

On October 21 I finally started for Samye, and followed, as far as the ruined village of Ring-la, the high road to Lhasa I had travelled over earlier in the year. There is but one family now living in this once prosperous place. These poor people earn a precarious livelihood by making pottery. A concave wooden pan is used for the purpose, in which the pots are shaped with a piece of wood or the fingers, by turning the pan or mould around with the hand. This is the usual method employed in Tibet.

Leaving Ring-la, we travelled through the fine pasture-lands adjoining the Yamdo tso, and over desolate highlands with an occasional stump of a juniper or cedar tree, till we reached the village of Ta-lung, famous, as its name implies, for the number and breed of its ponies. Around the village the land is cultivated, and showed evidence of great industry on the part of the people.

We at first failed to secure a night's lodgings in any of the houses of the village, for the people took us for Lhopa or Bhutia, of whom they stand in great dread, as they frequently make raids on this district; but we were so fortunate in the end as to secure the good