Page:Travels of a consular officer in Eastern Tibet.djvu/178

III with Jyekundo as one of the most important centres of Eastern Tibet. It was formerly the capital of the lama-ruled Tibetan State of the same name, and was the residence of the lama ruler, locally known as the Tsangdruha. The small Chinese commissariat official stationed here in those days with a few Chinese soldiers kept very much to himself and was careful not to interfere with the lama rulers. Chao Erh-feng seized Chamdo in 1909, expelled the Tibetan officials, and set up a Chinese magistrate. During the troubles of 1912-13 the Chinese attacked and destroyed the monastery, reducing the huge buildings to heaps of rubble. The Tibetans have never forgotten or forgiven this act of sacrilege. Five main roads meet at and near Chamdo, namely those leading west to Lhasa, north to Jyekundo, east to De-ge Gönchen and Kanze, south-east to Batang, and south to Yunnan. The Ngom Chu and Dza Chu are each spanned by fine cantilever bridges, probably the largest of their kind in existence, called the Yunnan and Szechuan Bridges, because they lead to Yunnan and Szechuan respectively, and were built at the expense of Yunnanese and Szechuanese merchants many years ago.

We were accommodated in a dilapidated old yamen, formerly the residence of the Chinese commissariat officer who used to be stationed at Chamdo under the Manchu Dynasty. More recently it had been the residence of the 8—2