Page:Three Years in Tibet.djvu/90

 Since I had arrived in Tsarang early in May, 1899, nearly eight months had sped by, and I found myself on the threshold of a New Year, whose advent I observed with my usual ceremony of reading the Sacred Text, and praying for the health and prosperity of my Sovereign and his family, and the glory of Japan. The first day of the year 1900 filled me with more than usual emotion. For was I not then thousands of miles away from home, and was it not the second New Year's Day which I had spent on the heights of the Himālayas? Yet I was hale and hearty, both in mind and body, and ready to resume my journey, the end of which the future alone could reveal.

In order to give vent to my feelings of gratitude, not unmixed with hope and fear, all deeply impressive, I ended the day by entertaining the villagers of Tsarang, having previously provided for them a full and liberal store of such viands and delicacies as were considered to be most rare and sumptuous. I have already described how I had been gaining fame and popularity among the villagers, my ascetic conduct in the midst of unbridled licentiousness causing them to respect me, and my generosity in the matter of medicines, of which I still had a fairly large stock with me, making me much sought after by them; and now, through my New Year's treat, I seemed to have reached a pinnacle of glory. For from that time onward I gradually perceived that traps were being set for me, so that I might be tied down to Tsarang for life. The arch-spirit in this conspiracy was my own instructor Serab, who insisted that I should marry the youngest of my host's daughters, or rather who brought all his