Peking to Lhasa : vol.1 / Page 213 (Color Image)

0213	Peking to Lhasa : vol.1

CHAMDO TO LHASA 163

Next day Pereira called on the Kalon Lama.

He was in a little sanctuary with Buddhas. He

appeared to be a good man without vice, and

cautioned him not to let his men squeeze. He

told Pereira that a foreigner travelling in Tibet

had got a bad name owing to the squeezing of

his interpreter. Afterwards there was a dance in

the courtyard of Pereira's house, four men whirl-

ing round and five women beating tambourines

fixed on short poles with hooked sticks. Two

diminutive girls occasionally joined in, while an

old dame directed with a tambourine. Some of

the men in single dances whirled round with great

impetus.

Pereira himself took great trouble about his

interpreters. He warned them that when he got

to Lhasa he would ask the officials in English if

there had been any misdoings, and if there were

he would give the culprit a warm time.

Owing to the Kalon Lama leaving on the 20th

there was not enough ula for Pereira and he had

to wait another day. Shobando is probably the

same as it was five hundred years ago, with its

narrow, winding filthy streets, partly paved with

big uneven cobbles. The houses were of mud

and generally two-storied. The upper part of

the little town appeared to be deserted. Beyond

it, higher up on the south-east, is the old Chinese

crumbling mud wall enclosing an empty space.

There are one big and two small temples, and at

the north-east end of the town three big chortens

in which big Lamas are buried.

On September 21 Pereira marched 244 miles

to Pa-ri-nang, the Barilung of Hue. The first

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