looking an alluvial flat where stunted barley grows,
is the most interesting town on the route ; and the
village itself, though quite as dirty as every other in
Tibet, has, at any rate in the distance, a certain dignity
of its own, to which, in a rather specious way, the
buildings set up on the rapidly ascending slope behind
the main path of the town contribute. There is a
large house here which was unoccupied and shut up
on our arrival, and interested us chiefly because it was
said to have recently contained a community of Lamaic
acolytes. From Long-ma to Ra-lung the road is comparatively
uninteresting. Here and there, in the
distance, filling the end of the valley, one saw the great
white mass of Nichi-kang-sang ; here and there steep
jutting pinnacles of red rock ; here and there across
the river the remains of a house crumbling on the
alluvial ledge. The river itself runs entirely round the
stone buttresses of the fields, and over the waste of
uncultivated ground a few patches of vetch— at that
time without even a promise of flower— a few stunted
thistles, and the inevitable gray brushes of wormwood
star the dun naked slopes. Nothing is more striking
up here than the way in which the dark blue of the
sky overhead shades quickly down towards the horizon
on every side into the palest shade of turquoise. The
clearness of the air is such that not the faintest screen
of blue is interposed between oneself and the hills four
miles aw a y ; while the clefts in the glaciers of Nichi-
kang-sang himself seem as clearly defined at a range of
fifteen miles as those which criss-cross upon the gravel
of the further bank.
Ra-lung was reached on the afternoon of the second
day. This march of thirty-three miles in forty-eight
RA-LUNG 2 57
hours at this altitude was, perhaps, the most creditable
feat of endurance of the whole campaign. Such
distances as these may not seem of any particular
military interest, or of credit to the troops concerned,
but it must be remembered that the lowest estimate that
one can fairly place upon the additional labour of march-
Nearing Ra-lung in the valley of the Ra-lung chu.
ing at these high altitudes is a hundred per cent. It is
true that the actual fatigue to the muscles is hardly
increased, and that though men may arrive in camp
almost dead-beat, an hour or two’s rest (if they are lucky
enough to get it) will always set them up again. But
the strain on the heart and lungs is terrible, and nothing
but use can accustom a man living nearly all his life in
v o l . i . . : 17