Except bamboo and copper milk-vessels, wooden
ladles, tea-chum, and pots, these tents contained no
furniture but goat-skins and blankets, to spread on the
ground as a bed. The fire was made of sheep and
goats’-droppings, lighted with juniper-wood; above it
hung tufts of yaks’-hair, one for every animal lost
during the season, by which means a reckoning is kept.
Although this girl had never before seen a European,
she seemed in no way discomposed at my visit, and
gave me a large slice of fresh curd.
Five miles further on we arrived at the tents of the
Phipun, whose wife was prepared to entertain us with
Tartar hospitality: magnificent tawny Tibet mastiffs
were baying at the tent-door, and some yaks and ponies
were grazing close by. "We mustered twelve, and
sat cross-legged in a circle inside the tent, the Soubah
and myself being placed on a Chinese rug. Salted and
buttered tea was prepared in a tea-pot for us on the
mat, and in a great cauldron for the rest of the p a rty ;
parched rice and wheat-flour, curd, and roasted maize *
were offered us, and we each produced our wooden cup,
which was kept constantly full of scalding tea-soup,
which, being made with fresh butter, was very good.
The flour was the favourite food, of which each person
dexterously formed little dough-balls in his cup, an
operation I could not manage, and only succeeded
in making a nauseous paste, that stuck to my jaws and
in my throat.
* Prepared by roasting the maize in an iron vessel, when it splits and
tnms partly inside ont, exposing a snow-white spongy mass of farina. It
looks very handsome, and would make a beautiful dish for dessert.
We were suddenly startled from our repast by a
noise like loud thunder, crash following crash, and
echoing through the valley. The Phipun got up, and
coolly said, “ The rocks are falling, it is tune we were
off, it will rain soon.” The moist vapours had by this
time so accumulated, as to be condensed in rain on the
cliffs of Chomiomo and Kinchinjhow; which, being
loosened, precipitated avalanches of rocks and snow.
We proceeded amidst dense fog, soon succeeded
by rain; the roar of falling rocks on either hand
increasing as these invisible giants spoke to one
another in voices of thunder through the clouds. The
effect was indescribably grand; and as the weather
cleared, and I obtained transient peeps of precipices of
blue ice and black rock towering 5000 feet above me
on either hand, the feeling of awe produced was almost
overpowering. Heavy banks of vapour still veiled the
mountains, but the rising mist exposed a broad stony
track, along which the Lachen wandered, split into
innumerable channels, and enclosing little oases of
green vegetation, lighted up by occasional gleams of
sunshine. Though all around was enveloped in gloom,
there was in front a high blue arc of cloudless sky!
between the beetling cliffs that formed the stem portals
of the Kongra Lama pass.