As we came down the slope of the valley we could
see more closely the body of the great river which
barred our passage. It was a fast-running yellow
stream, swirling even then with deep-toned irritation
round the jutting rocky promontories of the shore,
and tearing away at the crumbling cliffs of sand within
which it was confined. The volume of water, even at
this date, was considerable, for though narrow the
main channel is very deep. But it was not so much
the existing state of the river that gave us some prospect
of anxiety, as its obvious liability to an enormous expansion
; the sand islets and eyots, that parcelled out
the waters of the Tsang-po, were bare of vegetation
and it was easy to see that in a few weeks’ time they
would be swept a foot deep by the swollen waters,
which even then were gathering strength, far to the
west, beside Lake Mansarowar.
Kamba-partsi is a prettily placed little village
under trees of considerable age ; the sentinel is a doublewillow
of great antiquity, writhen into the shape of an
8, keeping guard at the entrance of the hamlet. Lower
down, divided from the water’s edge by a level strip
of sand, was a rectangular plantation of willow-trees
with a low wall running round it. Here the camps
of the Mission and of the headquarters of the escort
were pitched ; outside there is a more than usually
elaborate camping-ground for their Holinesses when
travelling, and the photograph opposite will show
the still standing altar and reredos of adobe, set up
facing the ravine down which the Kamba la descent
drops, with its sanctuary in front, carpeted with
a neat cobble of white quartzite, edged with raw
splinters of basalt. Inside the enclosure the most
striking things were the cockchafers; I have never
seen so many cockchafers in my life ; they lay in thousands,
either dying on the ground beneath the trees,
or clinging, like diseased growths of pink and grey, to
the branches of the pollarded willows above. When
they flew there was a flash of pink underwing, and the
The altar at the Grand Lamas’ halting place, Kamba-partsi
sudden extinction of the colour when they alighted
on the self-tinted ground, made their disappearance
almost uncanny. They buzzed round and round the
trees during the sunset, with the note of a thrashing
machine and made a clumsy little holocaust of themselves
in the cooking fires and, alas ! in the cooking-
pots as well. Here General Macdonald, who had been