Note 60 — Chapter I · JOURNEY FROM DARJILING TO TASHILHUNPO.

December 3.—At about a mile from our camp of last night we came to a rivulet some fifteen feet broad, flowing in a north-easterly direction. We selected a shallow part of it, across which Phurchung waded, carrying me on his back. Irrigation ditches led the water of this stream on to the neighbouring barley-fields. We stopped towards 7 o’clock at the camp (dok60) of Pole, situated in the middle of a plain extending from east to west some ten miles, and bounded to the north by the Arun river. There were several sheep-folds with walls of sun-dried bricks six or seven feet high and two feet thick; in the corners of these folds were turret-like houses, in which the shepherds sought shelter from the severity of the weather. Here we hired two yaks for a tanka61 a-piece to carry us to the village of Tebong, about six or seven miles away. This whole plateau was covered with a species of briar, amidst which grew long fine grass, on which cows and jo (half-bred yaks) were feeding, and whence innumerable hares and foxes ran, startled by our approach. Midway between Pole and Tebong, but on the mountain side, lies the village of Mug, with some forty families (mitsang). Before reaching Tebong, which is the first village this way on Tashilhunpo soil, we crossed the dry bed of the Chorten Nyima river, forming the boundary, and which I had already passed over on my first journey to Shigatse in 1879.62 Near here we were overtaken by a violent dust-storm, which hid the whole country from our view and forced us for a while to remain motionless.