Page:Lhasa and its mysteries.djvu/482

332 portion of the building by long curtains of dark purple yak-hair cloth which draped the verandahs, to protect the frescoes from the rain and sun, but which seemed to muffle the rooms in secrecy.

On our extreme right, and connected with the Potala hill by the knife-edged ridge, towered the still higher Iron Hill, topped by its medical college, and fore-shortened from here into a tall pinnacle. Between these two hills stretches out in front the well-wooded, fertile plain of the winding Kyi river, like a fine European landscape, 4 or 5 miles broad, and 7 or 8 up the valley to where a side spur from the mountains blocks the view. In the foreground are numerous orchards, gardens, and parks up to the river bank and between its many channels, and about a mile off, the town shows up as a thin white line amongst the trees, in the centre of which shines out the glittering roof of the great "cathedral," with the smaller burnished roof of Ramoché temple; to the left and further off, at the foot of the hills, Sera, the greatest monastery in Tibet after Däpung, and, as a background, beyond the green plain, studded over with the white villas of the nobles and little farmsteads, rise on all four sides, lofty mountains 3000 to 6000 feet above the plain, penetrated by the white tracks threading straight ahead to China, and to the Tengri Lake and Mongolia, passing by Sera on our left.

The town was entered for the first time on the 4th August, the day after our arrival, when the British Mission, escorted by a considerable force of our troops, marched in state through the streets of Lhasa, on the way to the Chinese Residency, to return the ceremonial visit paid by the Amban the previous evening. On this historical occasion, when foreign civilized troops first paraded the streets of the Forbidden City, the Mission and its escort formed a picturesque procession headed by a contingent of the Amban's bodyguard and