Page:Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet.djvu/255

 will of a lama of the monastery, who got a friend of his to admit us to his house.

The next day (October 24) we resumed our journey by daylight, and crossing the Shandung chu bay of Lake Yamdo, followed along the base of the steep hills which overhang its shores. We got sight, on the way, of the Chong-khor monastery, from which come all the amchi lhamo dancers and mimes, some of whom annually visit Darjiling. Passing the Rivotag river some eight miles north of the Djong of the same name, we ascended a ridge, from the top of which we saw the villages of Yurupe, Ke-utag, and Khyunpodo. The country was everywhere thinly populated; but large numbers of yaks, donkeys, sheep, and goats were grazing about.

We stopped at the village of Shari, prettily situated between the Yamdo and a little sweet-water lakelet, and put up in the mani lha khang, the centre of which was taken up by a great prayer-wheel about six feet high and three feet in diameter. An old man lived here whose sole occupation was to turn the wheel.

The next morning we crossed a low hill, the Kabu la, and, skirting the northern extremity of the Rombuja lake, reached by eleven o’clock the village of Melung, thus called from the fire (me) stones found in the valley (lung) in which it is situated.

After a short halt at Melung, we resumed our march, the country opening a little as we advanced, and villages and hamlets becoming more numerous. That night we stopped at Khamedo, where there live about a hundred families.

We were off by sunrise, and passing some distance to the north of the large village of Ling, where the Djongpon of the Yamdo district reside, we soon after found ourselves in the broad pasture-lands of Karmoling, here some ten miles broad, where hundreds of ponies, belonging to the Lhasa Government, were seen grazing.

We ate our breakfast at Shabshi, and then, passing through the hamlet of Tanta, we began the ascent of the Tib la, which marks in this direction the boundary between the Yamdo and Lhokha districts,