Note 28 — Chapter II · RESIDENCE AT TASHILHUNPO.
Reading edition
December 18.—The Tung-chen sent one of his storekeepers, Tsering-tashi by name, to Tondub Khangsar to get a passport (lam-yig) to enable me to send Phurchung to Khamba djong and Lachan, to bring here our heavy luggage. The tailor came at 7 o’clock this morning to begin work on my winter clothes. We kept ready for him a kettle of tea on an earthen stove. A cup, a few pieces of boiled mutton, and a wooden bowl filled with tsamba remained all the time before him, and he drank some tea every hour or so, making also three meals a day. His breakfast consisted of mutton, tsamba, and tea; at noon we gave him a dish of rice and mutton curry, tsamba, and tea; and at 6 o’clock he ate a few balls of tsamba, put on his yellow turban (bakto), and, making a low bow, walked off towards his home at Tashi-gyantsa. I was much pleased with his steady work, which had earned for him the proud title of Uje chenpo, or “head craftsman,”28 and secured for him a tanka a day wages, exclusive of food.