orders of the Government, to compel his acquiescence in
a non-military solution of the difficulties. Here the
roles were reversed with a vengeance.
At Nagartse jong, we stayed one day, and on the
21st we moved on by the side of the lake, past the little
fishing villages of Gya, Tu and Badi,* to the Bridge of
Good Luck, or Kal-sang Sampa. This bridge has been
referred to by Chandras Das, but his description of
it as an embankment more than 100 yards long is
wholly inaccurate. There is here a small pond of a
level somewhat higher than the lake, and divided from
it by a neck of land, with one sluice gate cut through
it, over which a roughly piled stone causeway, twenty
yards long, is carried. The photograph will make
this clear. It is often believed that the Rong chu
runs through from the lake into the Tsang-po. This
is not true, for there is a rising fold of ground, about
three miles above this pond, which makes a watershed
between the two. Yarsig lies a mile west-north-
west of the Kal-sang Sampa, but it was not visited
except by a few mounted infantry. It is a squalid
collection of huts and houses. A t the Bridge of Good
Luck we encamped after a march of twelve miles from
Nagartse. On the next day, the 22nd, a short march
of five miles brought us to Pe-di jong, which stands
prominently on the very edge of the lake, just where
the mountainous “ island ” f approaches most nearly to
the northern shore. Pe-di jong is not one of the official
fortresses belonging to the Tibetan Government, but
* The names of these villages as they appear on maps are entirely inaccurate. On
ihy return journey at Nargartse I took pains to find out the real names from Lieut.
Moody (in whose district they all lie), as he had made, it his business to obtain them
from their headmen.
t The native name for this peninsula is “ Do-nang,” or “ stony house.”
K A L -SAN G SAM P A AN D PE-DI JONG 105
we did not discover the name of its private owner.
Like so many other Tibetan buildings, this one is fast
falling to pieces, and one or two small demolitions,
necessitated by our subsequent use of the place as a
fortified post, will probably hurry on the inevitable
ruin of the whole. One threads one’s way past
Kal-sang Sampa— the Bridge of Good Luck near Yarsig.
slippery stones, through which the nettles rise rankly,
skirting a pool of liquid filth by getting close under the
wall, then up some slimy, broken steps into the darkness
of a passage, wherein you stumble along till a greyish
square of light at the farther end shows you where the
stairs are placed. Tibetan staircases are no ordinary
things. The angle at which the stairs are placed is
somewhat steeper than that at which an English ladder