were rocks in profusion, and the difficulty was to get over them. The descent was by a very steep zigzag over the stones or hopping from rock to rock. Pereira was badly jarred and feared for the old spine injury or a possible acute attack of lumbago as he had once experienced at Aldershot. However, though he felt jarred in the small of the back he got through all right, and on arriving at more level ground passed a beautiful serpentine blue lake, the Tso-düng-wu-ngi, 1 mile long, 300 yards wide and very deep. Then there was an easy descent, though the rocks were still awful, to the Yeh Chu, soon called the Sa Chu valley, at 12/- miles. At last at 16 miles there was good fairly level going over grass to Sa-chu-ka, 181 miles, where there were five low stone hovels, beside which Pereira pitched his tent. He made the altitude about 14,800 feet. Hue, the Chinese and the Tibetans all consider the Shiar-güng La to be the worst pass on the road. And it certainly is steeper and has more snow. But Pereira considered the Nur-güng La to be much the worse of the two on account of the rocks and boulders.
A very easy stage followed this effort. The way led down a valley a quarter of a mile wide between barren sloping hills. The Dé Chu was crossed by a fragile log bridge, and Pereira halted at Lhari-go, a poor village of fifty families with a monastery of sixty monks on the spur behind it. He was accommodated in a nice clean room, and halted a day here to rest after his ten strenuous days of travel.
The place is of some importance as several routes radiate from it. And it is the headquarters
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