Page:Three Years in Tibet.djvu/92

62 if not very cautious, one might die a victim to the snow-leopard, while crossing over this or that mountain. All these bits of information, and hosts of others, were carefully noted down, and a synthetic study of these scraps finally convinced me that the route I should choose was the one via Thorpo; and so I decided. This meant that I had to retrace my steps almost as far back as Tukje, or more accurately to Malba, a village in the immediate neighborhood of Tukje. Nor was this retreat without some advantages in itself, for it would have only been to court suspicion and to run unnecessary risks for me to strike off into pathless wilds in full view of the Tsarang villagers, who were sure to come out in hordes to see me off on my departure, not only out of respect for my person, but also from curiosity to know whither I was bound after my lengthened stay amongst them. The route decided upon, I could not however yet start on my journey, because the season was then against me, the peaks and defiles on my way being passable only during the months of June, July and August. The mountains were not, of course, entirely free from snow even during those three months, but for those thirteen weeks or so the traverser would, as I was told, be secure as a rule from being frozen to death. And therefore I bided my time.

To go back a little in my story, there came to Tsarang one Adam Naring, the Chief of the village of Malba, whither I had to retrace my footsteps. That was in October, 1899. Naring owned a yak ranch on the north-west plains of Tibet, and he was openly privileged to have free access thereto over the "King's highway". It was on his way back from one of his periodic visits thither that he stopped at Tsarang, and, as he put up at my host's, I was introduced to him. He had in his chapel, as he told me then, a set of Buddhist Texts which he had brought home from Tibet, and he was very anxious that I should