Page:Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet.djvu/38

 "He who drinks is the prince of speech; when he speaks, all hear."

Here Jordan's analogy broke down, for he should have said, "When he speaks, all speak;" but as his were quotations, he could take no liberties with the text.

November 16.—After having started Jordan and Tonzang to Darjiling with letters and my Indian clothing, we resumed our journey, and after a mile along the course of the Ringbi we climbed the Lungmo la, which is thickly covered with dwarf bamboos and mossy oaks of immense size.

At 2 p.m. we came to Chonjom, the junction of the two headstreams of the Ringbi, where there is a well-made bridge across the river with strong boulder-made buttresses; its bed is here covered with thick green moss. A little later on we halted at a place called Keta, in the midst of dark woods, the abode of bears, pigs, and Sikkim leopards. As I had sent my tent back, we had to make a shelter against the inclemency of the weather by a contrivance made with our bed-clothes, and on the branches of a neighbouring tree we hung our meat and fish, which attracted owls and mice during the night.

November 17.—Our hearts quaked as we continued our way through the dense wood and thick undergrowth, for a man-eater was reported to have killed two Nepalese wood-cutters in the Singli la. The year before last a tiger came up to Jongri, where it killed a dozen yaks, and we feared lest now it might have come back to make havoc on the Yampung yaks. While crossing one of the numerous fences dividing different pieces of property, we found a pheasant caught by the neck in a hair-trap. The way was steep and stony, and the cold piercing.

At noon we reached the zone of rhododendrons, and, passing through the pines, where we startled pheasants and some other birds of beautiful plumage, we came to a snow-covered ridge. Then we began the ascent of a steep spur, where we were told the Lepcha