At Cheri the column halted upon the road a mile
across the debris-littered plain from De-bung. Here
Mahommedan butchers carry on their work, and the
first signs of habitations made of the horns of slaughtered
beasts are to be seen. Soon, however, we stretched on
again across the causeway between the marshes from
which teal and wild-duck flew up now and then. Slowly
the two western hills of Lhasa raised and extended
themselves along the horizon, and when at last, after
some deliberation and reconnoitring, a dry patch of
ground was found about a mile from the still invisible
gate of Lhasa and a camp was pitched there, the sharp
outline of the great palace towered over us against the
gauzy whiteness of the noonday sky.*
Looking eastwards from the camp Lhasa was still
completely hidden by the twin hills and the neck between
them. On the left Potala raised its great bulk, though
the full size of this gigantic building is nowhere less to
be seen than from the spot on which our camp was
pitched. One had a view of it on end which failed to
give any suggestion of its real length and importance,
but what we did see even so was huge enough. A white
round-tower crowned the serrated wall of bald white
masonry which divides off the palace from the almost
perpendicular scarp of the rock on which it stands.
Behind that rose another great white bulk of square grim
masonry pierced with a row of stiff small windows ;
* For sheer inaccuracy the following description by Chandra Das of the approach
to Lhasa can hardly be paralleled in serious literature. “ A t this point the road nears
the river, and the whole city stood displayed before us at the end of an avenue of gnarled
trees, the rays of the setting sun falling on its gilded domes. It was a superb sight,
the like of which I have never seen. On our left was Potala, with its lofty buildings
and gilt roofs ; before us, surrounded by a green meadow, lay the Town with its tower-like
white-washed houses and Chinese buildings with roofs of blue glazed -tiles.” One
would almost think that the middle sentence was literally true.
above that rose yet a higher rim of white roof ; over
that again the square red outline of the central palace
of the Dalai Lama himself ; and, above all, the great
golden roofs glittering in the sun. Immediately below
it the slanting way up the rock passed between the dark
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De-bung Monastery. To the right among the trees is the golden roof of the Chief
Magician’s Temple.
green foliage of trees and the sienna and ochre of the
Red* Hill, relieved by spaces of wild grass. Towards
us to the south and south-west the hillside sheers down
steeply before it again rises t with almost the same
* The original name of this hill was simply Marpo-ri, and the palace built
on the site in 1032 was evidently constructed of blocks quarried on the hill
itself, for it was known as the Phodang marpo.
VOL. II. 12