Note 29 — Chapter II · RESIDENCE AT TASHILHUNPO.

December 20.—I passed most of my day reading a collection of hymns, the composition of the second Dalai lama,29 which I had bought from a Lhasan bookseller. To-day there arrived five men from Gyantse, whose advent was at once detected by the Rogyabas, for these pests are always on the look-out for new-comers, whom they at once surround with clamorous solicitations for alms. Few can escape from their hands without paying them something. As soon as the Rogyabas saw these Gyantse men, they informed all the fraternity of the new prey, on which vulture-like they pounced. Well do they deserve their name, which means “corpse-vultures,” though, to speak the truth, they prey on the living.30 These Gyantse men brought news about the orders issued by the Lhasa Government stopping the egress and ingress of all traders at the frontier passes. The two Djongpon of Phagri were busy executing these orders; no one, it was said, had eluded their vigilance and reached Darjiling. Even some Bhutanese traders on their way to Lhasa were stopped at Phagri; but another party of these people had started out, in defiance of the Djongpon, for Lhasa. The Bhutan Government resented such unusual interference on the part of the Tibetans in a trade which had been carried on from ancient times.