chu, twelve hundred yards north-west from Potala.
There is a road across the marsh to it so that one may
arrive there dryshod, but, like most other places on the
Plain of Milk, the luxuriance of its gardens and plantations
is greatly due to the fact that the soil is saturated
with water. This, it will be remembered, is one of
the five beautiful things, and well it deserves the name.
Always excepting the Lu-kang, there is nothing in
Lhasa, not even the vegetation near the Sacred Rock,
that equals the luxuriance of this spot.
The house itself is built round a large, open quadrangle
with galleries on three sides of it in the usual
w a y ; the northern side of this quadrangle is the
southern wall of the main house, and here Colonel
Younghusband took up his quarters. Some description
of a typical Tibetan house should be given in these
pages, and a better example than Lha-lu cannot, as
I have said, be found. Over a small stream in front
of the house one passes by a bridge obliquely into the
courtyard. The outer walls of the house are of no
importance, and the quadrangle itself, though paved,
is muddy and generally heaped with odds and ends ;
all round the base under the first balcony the horses and
mules of the owners are as a rule ranged, but on our arrival
in the place our beasts were banished to more convenient
quarters outside. Hence, immediately in front of one rose
the considerable mass of the main residence ; on the
left, a door led into an enclosed garden and towards
the summer-house and temple, beautifully set about with
foliage. On the right a similar doorway led to the
menials’ buildings and lesser stablings. Crossing the
courtyard one enters the house by a small and insignificant
door in the centre of its southern side. The