wall has been built inside the outer barrier for nearly
its whole extent. Inside this again is a house and a
temple of no pretensions whatever, save that, from
the distance, a small gilded roof and half-a-dozen
golden “ gyan-tsens ” distinguish it somewhat. The
only acquaintance we ever had with the interior of
Norbu-ling was that obtained by looking down upon
the whole plain of Lhasa from the high crest of the hill
across the river. No member of the force penetrated
into the enclosed garden, and therefore the vague
stories we were told about it by the natives are all
that there is to report. They really seemed to know
as little of the interior as ourselves. It was built in
its present form only eight years ago, and as a residence
for the Dalai Lama does not claim a greater antiquity
than 1870. The trees bear out this statement, for they
are nearly all of small dimensions. The Dalai Lama
lives here for two months in the summer, observing
the same state as before, and hedged about with an
even greater seclusion than that which marks him at his
palace on the rock a mile away. There was a rumour
during our stay in Lhasa that the Dalai Lama was
actually in hiding in Norbu-ling, and it is beyond
question that a large number of European rifles were
stored in this pleasure house. The Dalai Lama, however,
when once he had turned his back upon the
people committed to his charge, never looked back, and if
the latest reports, at the time of writing, be true, the
soon-to-be-deposed pontiff must have made his way
hot-foot to Urga, in Mongolia, where he remains the unwelcome
guest of his spiritual brother, the Taranath'
Lama.
The outer walls of Norbu-ling are, as I have said,