Peking to Lhasa : vol.1 / Page 257 (Color Image)

0257	Peking to Lhasa : vol.1

CHAMDO TO LHASA 187

on October 26. Pereira had given him a pony

and a Jaeger lining for his " coat-warm-British ".

In return he gave Pereira two fine bronze Tibetan

pots, one for tea and the other for wine ; also a

bottle of crème-de-menthe and two bottles of

ginger.

On October 28 Pereira began his journey to

India, taking with him only his Chinese boy-cook

and the half-caste Chino-Tibetan interpreter from

Tanga". On October 30 he crossed the Tsang Po

(Brahmaputra) by ferry. It was the last great

river on his journey. He still kept up walking

his eight miles a day, but found it tried him, and

at night he was very weary. The next day he

passed the beautiful blue serpentine Yamdrok

Lake, on which there were swarms of quite tame

geese and duck ; but he thought the scenery

spoilt by the bare, treeless hills. The weather

was fine, but chilly, and on November 1 it was

bitterly cold. On November 3 he crossed the

Karo La. The morning was one of the coldest of

the entire journey. His hands were in torture,

and the sun made no difference. And that night

he wrote : " For the last two or three nights I

have spent nearly twelve hours in bed to get

warm. Each night it requires arduous rubbing to

get my frozen right foot warm and to get the

sting out of the old frost-bitten patches. How

I long for the warmth of India, then never again

I trust to travel in ice-bound countries. I long

to be able to look back upon Tibet as a reminis-

cence. How nice it will be in the winter to sit

by a blazing fire in a comfortable chair and think

of the sufferings I endured there, and of the

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