and was divided into many sections, the intervening
spaces being filled with stagnant pools of water and
piles of the newly-grown bhoosa, or chopped straw.
The houses are built of stone, the windows generally
facing inwards and looking on to courtyards, often
bedecked with flowers. Every building was whitewashed
from top to bottom, the walls gleaming in the
sunlight. The Chinese enclosure, in which the garrison
are supposed to live, when seen from above, proved to
be a closely packed mass of mud huts, surrounded by
a high battlemented mud and stone wall, pierced by
four doorways, above each of which drooped the
Chinese flag. From the brilliant sunlight on the roof
we descended into dingy passages, musty cellars, and
dreary dungeons, filled with rows of decaying carcases
of sheep. These had been here for countless years, and
were originally collected as a store for the defenders of
the fort in time of war. It was no one’s business to
remove the dusty flesh and decaying bones, and so they
remained year after year, filling the rooms and poisoning
the air. . ,
In this fort a thousand soldiers are supposed to be
stationed, but not a warrior was to be seen, the excuse
given by the dzongpons for their absence being that
they were all away on leave, a delightful condition of
affairs for the military man, and well calculated to keep
up the strength of the standing army. With a popular
Assembly at Lhasa, what interesting questions might be
put to the representative of the War Office by youthful
aspirants after political fame !
In one of the rooms close to the main gateway, lay
the dried, though perfectly preserved remains of a man,
with the head and limbs removed from the trunk. The
following account was given as to how the man had
died, probably one case out of many. He had originC
S h ig a t s e F o r t .
h in e s e B a r r a c k s a n d t h e M a r k e t a t S h ig a t s e .