Page:Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet.djvu/63

 out of the massive rock. There are twenty inmates to this lamasery, and the church furniture and images are said to be of great antiquity.

Fording the little Tibgyu chu, said to rise in the Chabug la, we proceeded in an easterly direction, and passed the little village of Wena, a mile from which stands the village of Chani, where lives the Chyugpo mepang family, or the "rich men who never reply nay." When travellers passing by this way have asked the rich men (chyugpo ) if there was such and such a thing to be had at their place, they have never replied in the negative. One day, in the month of August, a traveller who had heard the story concerning this family came to test its truth, and asked the housewife to give him a piece of ice, when she at once produced a piece from the butter-cask. On another occasion a traveller asked for a chile pepper in February, and the mistress of the house gave it to him at once.

December 3.—At about a mile from our camp of last night we came to a rivulet some fifteen feet broad, flowing in a north-easterly direction. We selected a shallow part of it, across which Phurchung waded, carrying me on his back. Irrigation ditches led the water of this stream on to the neighbouring barley-fields. We stopped towards 7 o'clock at the camp (dok ) of Pole, situated in the middle of a plain extending from east to west some ten miles, and bounded to the north by the Arun river. There were several sheep-folds with walls of sun-dried bricks six or seven feet high and two feet thick; in the corners of these folds were turret-like houses, in which the shepherds sought shelter from the severity of the weather. Here we hired two yaks for a tanka a-piece to carry us to the village of Tebong, about six or seven miles away. This whole plateau was covered with a species of briar, amidst which grew long fine grass, on which cows and jo (half-bred yaks) were feeding, and whence innumerable hares and foxes ran, startled by our approach. Midway between Pole and Tebong, but on the mountain side, lies the village of Mug, with some forty families (mitsang). Before reaching Tebong,