just by the patch of cocks, passing the grimy and squalid
yak-hair tents of the beggars, where dogs crawl in and
out, and in the intervals give themselves up to the same
necessary and Oriental occupation as do their masters
and mistresses. A field of barley and peas is on the
right hand, and on the left the sand revetments of the
Kaling chu. Four hundred yaids on the Ling-kor takes
a sharp turn to the right after passing a green swamp in
which the pollard willows stand ankle-deep in clear brown
pools ; on the left the sand-bank which we here leave
still hides from the pilgrim all sight of the valley to the
west. Hard by there is a group of tall poplars standing
sentinel at the corner of a plantation of lower trees, and
the glaucous willow-thorn at their foot is weighed down
with yellow clematis, partly in flower, partly in silver-
threaded fluff. Over all towers up the wide back of the
Potala. The turn of the Ling-kor here encloses the Lu-
kang, which lies at the foot of the Marpo-ri. This is
beyond question the most beautiful thing in Lhasa, and
the Chinese, as we have seen, have recognised it by
putting it first among the five beauties of the place. It
is a still lake of clear brown water, fringed with reeds
and overhung with willows and other trees of great age,
and it lies low in green-wooded glades, where overhead the
branches meet. Under foot the turf is fine and springy,
and in every direction the wealth of undergrowth hides
from one the fact that it is after all a comparatively small
garden. In the centre of the lake is an island entirely
covered with trees and margined all round with huge
rushes. An old flight of stone steps betrays in the foliage
a scarcely visible pavilion with a blue-tiled and gilded
roof ; here a teal rises from the reeds as one approaches,
and over them the “ thin blue needle of the dragon-fly ”
t h i s p i c t u r e r e a l l y c o l o u r s i t s e l f . Ten shades
green, golden light on distant mountain and in sky.