heaps more than usually repulsive in their composition.
Across the square rose the timber gate of the Amban’s
reserve, and we cavalcaded across to it, splashing through
the water-pools and jostling from their filthy meal the
privileged scavengers of the town.
The Residency deserves no long description : you
enter and turn to the right between the two usual Chinese
“ lions,” and after passing through a couple of courts
overhung with poplars you arrive in the durbar hall,
with its red and green hangings and green and gold-
flecked doors. It is a poor little room and the ceiling is
adorned with irregularly-shaped pieces of paper with a
red all-overish pattern. Here we had a durbar, and some
• excellent little cigars were handed round alternately
with tea— made, we were glad to find, after the Chinese
habit— and Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits. Colonel
Younghusband intimated to the Amban that it would
be as well for all concerned if immediate attention were
paid to the reasonable and proper demands of the
English. The Amban, as usual, deprecated the foolishness
of his Tibetan flock, but seemed more preoccupied
with the precariousness of his own position than any-
: thing else. His memory dwelt somewhat persistently
upon the assassinations which had overtaken two of his
predecessors in office ; and there could be no doubt
about it that he was honestly relieved when our force
encamped outside Lhasa.
The concealed band was playing when we arrived, and
this again struck up the Oriental melody as we left the
place, but the bombs which had been exploded in the
Commissioner’s honour on our arrival were not repeated,
greatly, I think, to everyone’s relief, for as the first went
off we all feared that Macdonald in the camp outside
would take it as a sign of treachery, and we knew that
he had his guns laid on the Potala as we sat in durbar
in the city.
We returned by another route, again crossing the
black swamp which, it will be remembered, constitutes
one of the “ five beauties ” of Lhasa. We passed into
the other open space, which we crossed diagonally towards
the sacred willow. We turned up the street I have
referred to and passed to the left of the tree in its walled
enclosure. This diverted the course of the small column
— 300 rifles had come in with the Commissioner, and we
had as well forty of the comic-opera guard of the Chinese
Residency— from passing the actual front of the Jo-kang.
I was, however, able to inspect the Do-ring, and get
the first glimpse of the Cathedral from inside the small
paved enclosure bounded to the east by the timbered
and painted portico and hanging draperies of the J c-
kang. A crowd of villainous-looking monks were
gathered sullenly before the great barred doors. A
description of the Do-ring will be found later on in the
chapter dealing with the Jo-kang. I rejoined the column
which was making its way up towards the Yabshi house,
and thence struck off sharply to the left along the wide
road, or rather the continual puddle, which, running
between the adobe walls of monasteries or well-wooded
gardens, brings you back to the foot of the Potala and
thence to the Par go Kaling gate. It must be confessed
that to judge from this'itinerary the town itself of Lhasa
would compare but badly with the capital of even a third-
rate petty "chief in India. The buildings lack distinction,
though on a closer examination it must be confessed
that the walls of the better houses were often soundly
built and of strong material. Granite is used in large