National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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him pay the two arenas bakhshish which had been more than earned by the brave chapli rider.1

On the way between Shipke and Poo, high above the Satluj, a monastery called bKra-shis-sgang may be seen. This is not the famous monastery of that name, erected by Seng-ge-rnam-rgyai of Ladakh. The latter is situated in Western Guge, and is generally called Byang-bKra-shis-sgang (Northern bKra-skis-sgang), to distinguish it from the monastery near Namgya.

CHAPTER II.

From the Satluj to the Indus.

We left Poo on the 21st July to travel through Spiti and Rubshu to Leh. This is a journey of about four weeks through the most uninhabitable country. Our outfit, as regards provisions and warm clothing, might certainly have been better. But the summers being short in these regions, we could not put in three more weeks of waiting at Poo, to let the required goods and means come up. The missionary at Poo kindly advanced me some money as well as tinned provisions, and we left with the determination to move on and be satisfied with the simplest fare.

On the first day we had to cross the steep Hang Pass, 16,000 feet high. It is a place which arouses painful memories in the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Schnabel ; for when they had to cross it the last time with a child of only two years of age, the rarified air on the top of the pass proved to be too much for their baby which showed signs of suffocation. Only by taking up the child and hurrying down with it at a pace not at all in harmony with the awful condition of the road, was it possible to save its life. The eastern side of the pass is very bare and uninteresting, but on the western side alpine flowers of great beauty and scent greet the traveller, among them the wild purple aster and Aconitum moschatum. Before the village of Tsuling is reached on the western side, the road passes by the ruins of the old Gadgari monastery. Heaps of loose stones and some terraced ground is all that remains.

I could not discover anything of special interest in the little village of Tsuling. A small hut under a huge pencil-cedar tree is called Lhâ-khang, " house of the gods," or " temple." It was quite empty with the exception of some drums which are kept in it. Some stones with the inscription OM mani padmé hűm were placed below the sacred. pencil cedar.

On the 22nd July we arrived at the village of Li which looks very beautiful with its many green fields and apricot trees in the midst of a chaos of bare rocky mountains. Li is very probably a place with a grander past than present. The Tibetan dictionaries and chronicles speak of two ancient places called Li, one in the north, the other in the south. The northern one has been correctly identified with Turkestan or a part of Turkestan. Of the Li of the South it is said that it is situated " near Nepal." I believe that the " Li of the South " is the Tibetan part of the present Bashahr State, the principal town of which was very possibly the present village of Li. On a steep rock on the bank of the river

I The earliest picture of this bridge is found in Reise des Prinzen Waldemar von Preussen, Plate XVII I. (Namtu Bridge.}