and walls as unkempt as those of the Palkhor choide,
Jang-kor-yang-tse or Ta-ka-re. Some of the audience halls
are magnificent and well painted, but there is nothing,
with one exception, which calls for any particular note
from one end of the huge building to the other, so far,
at least, as any member of the expedition discovered.
Everything, as O’Connor remarked, had been “ locked
up.” For the credit of the Dalai Lama it is to be hoped
that the chief ornaments had been removed or buried.
Mr. Claude White and Mr. Wilton, who made the
examination of the palace their special care, investigated
a very large number of the rooms of the Potala,
but eventually retreated in disappointment from a
task which seemed to possess neither interest nor end.
The gilded tombs of a few previous incarnations form
the exception to which I have referred, but even these
seemed inadequate and out of proportion to the gigantic
casket in which they lie. It must be confessed, though
the words are written with considerable reluctance,
that cheap and tawdry are the only possible adjectives
which can be applied to the interior decoration of this
great palace temple: Part of it is fine in design, most
of it is commonplace, all of it is dirty. Madame de
Chatelain would have smiled to see the disappointment
of the Mission, for— though there are no lovely
women in Lhasa who play the fiddle, and one doubts
whether much enchantment would follow if there were—
the effect produced by the first sight of this imposing
palace, splendid as the figment of the wildest dream, was
as overwhelming and attractive as that which Gilbert saw,
and our disillusionment was afterwards as great as his.
The first palace on this spot was built by Srong-
tsan-gambo, but destroyed by the Chinese after a brief
THE KALING CHU WAS IN FLOOD, FILLING THE BED BETWEEN
KAR Pl’ S EMBANKMENTS OF SAND : ON THE FARTHER SHORE
TO THE RIGHT IS A GROUP OF MONKS FROM THE POTALA,
WHO WATCHED ME WITH THE DEEPEST INTEREST : THERE
IS A FORD ACROSS THE RIVER AT THIS POINT.