Page:Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet.djvu/65

 in view of the fact that a "very important European official, deputy of the Lieut.-Governor of Bengal, was on his way to the Tibetan frontier. This information was communicated by the frontier guards, in consequence of which necessary precautions were urgently needed." I told them that the official referred to was probably Captain Harman of the Survey Department, with whom he was acquainted, having met him the year before at Tangu, near Lachan.

December 5.—Our arrangements, being completed and the ponies at the door, we hastened to finish our breakfast. From the sheep-pen close by the house we saw some fifty sheep led to the slaughtering-place behind the village. The butchers mutter some mantras over each one before killing it, and they receive as their perquisite the heads.

Following the same route I had taken in 1879, we left the village of Mende on our left, and, crossing several frozen streams, we came to the village of Targye, where we stopped in the house of an old man, who invited us to be his guests in the hope of getting some medicine for dyspepsia from which he was suffering. He put us up in his storehouse, amidst his barley, yak-hair bags, farming implements, etc. He had manufactured some rugs, and I bought one from him for a couple of rupees. The villagers, hearing of my purchase, brought me a number of their choicest carpets, but the price asked was larger than I cared to give.

December 6.—I learnt with pleasure from my host that the Minister of Temporal Affairs (Kyab ving ) of Ulterior Tibet (Tsang) was Phendi Khangsar, to whom I was well known. My host and his wife came and begged some medicine, and I prepared for him an effervescent draught, which the old man swallowed with much difficulty. "Oh, sir," he exclaimed, "it boiled and foamed even as it ran down my throat; it must be a medicine of wonderful potency! I never took such a drink in my life, nor heard of its like before!" And the spectators all said, in amazement, "This amchi is a miracle-worker (tulpa); his medicine boils in cold water." And so my fame was noised abroad.