Page:Three Years in Tibet.djvu/95

Rh buckwheat. Adam Naring owned a fine tract of land for these crops. Five or six hundred yards beyond his residence was the Kaliganga river, gliding serenely along with a fresh green wall of small pine-trees to set off its waters. Towering behind and above the emerald grove stood a range of snow-capped peaks, the tout ensemble making a view delightful for its primitive joys and natural beauty.

My old friend expressed his desire that I should make my stay indefinitely long, so that he might have the benefit of my reading for him the whole of the Sacred Texts; but I could only encourage him with an ambiguous reply, as I had come to Malba only to wait for the time when the snow-covered mountains should become passable. In the meantime I spent my days in reading, and making extracts from the Sacred Texts, and in so doing I could not help often recalling, with a deep sense of gratitude, the six hours a day which for nearly one year I had devoted to my study of Tibetan, under the rigid instruction of Serab Gyaltsan at Tsarang.

About a fortnight after my arrival in Malba I received a letter from Rai Sarat Chandra Das, through a trader of Tukje, with whom I had become acquainted while in Tsarang, and to whom I had entrusted a letter to my friend at Darjeeling, as well as others to my folks at home, on the occasion of his going down to Calcutta on business. Along with his letter Sarat Chandra Das sent me a number of the Mahabodhi Society's journal, which contained an account of an unsuccessful attempt by a Buddhist of my nationality to enter Tibet, and a well-meant note of his in pencil to the effect that I must not lose my life by exposing myself to too much danger. So far so good; but next something which was not so good happened. The Tukje man, my whilom messenger, had