thought possible even in the first shock of the moment.
Even now the silver and the flowers and the white
linen and the crimson-shaded lights of a dinner table
are sometimes dimmed by a picture of the same hand
that one shook so warmly as one left the monastery,
now weakly fumbling with swathed fingers for food along
the slab of the prison in which the abbot now is sealed
up for life : for he was going into the darkness very soon.
At Little Gobshi (one had to distinguish it from
the better known Gobshi, seventeen miles away along
the Lhasa road) there was, and now probably is again,
the finest rug factory in Tibet. A large two-storied
house with a courtyard was filled entirely with the
weaving looms of both men and women workers. The
patterns used are native Tibetan, and the colours
are excellently blended and rich in themselves. It is
difficult for them to make a piece of stuff wider than
about thirty inches, because their looms are of a
primitive description, scarcely more advanced than
those of the Chumbi Valley, nor do they attempt to
make a pattern larger than can be contained upon a
single width. The plain orange and maroon rugs are
made in narrow strips and sewn together to any desired
width, but this is not done with the figured cloths. The
difference in quality between one rug and another is
often a matter of expert knowledge only. At first
one is surprised and inclined to resent the great differences
in the price of these rugs ; two will be shown you,
one slightly softer in the pile, perhaps also slightly
looser in design. You will get that for three rupees.
The other one, crisper to the touch and, if you will look
closely, far richer in colour, they will not sell you for
less than twenty-five. But when the eye is once taught
to recognise the difference, the cheaper rugs are easily
seen to be inferior from every point of view. They
are, however, more than good enough for the London
market, and this is one of the industries at Gyantse
which might most profitably be developed. Even now
if a big London firm were willing to place an order
for five hundred rugs in Gobshi, that is to say, if it
were to buy up practically the entire annual out-put
of this first factory in Tibet, it could, while it held
the monopoly, charge almost any price it liked to
London buyers and obtain it. It is an experiment
which is, perhaps, worth the attention of Farringdon
Street Without. In those halcyon days at Gyantse I
wrote to Lord Curzon in London and offered to act as
commercial traveller for any firm which cared to make
a trial of these really beautiful things, but long before
an answer could be sent, times had changed and we
were prisoners in Chang-lo.
The village of Gobshi which, like so many other
villages in Tibet, is divided into two entirely distinct
parts, separated by a waste of common-like land dotted
with willow thorn, is not uninteresting. It lies comfortably
among its trees, with a truant channel of the
main river plashing lazily over hard pebbles within
a few hundred yards. Overhanging it to the north is a
very sharp conical rock, surmounted by an orange-
coloured building, which attracts the eye from afar.
This is the residence of the local magician. He only
resides there during such part of the year as the young
crops are in danger from damage by the weather. He
then takes up his residence, and is ready at any moment
with due incantations to deliver a charm against
lightning or hail to a timid countryman. The charms