Note 31 — Chapter II · RESIDENCE AT TASHILHUNPO.

The market to-day received a large supply of pottery from the village of Tanag and Lholing, on the Tsang-po, a few miles north-west of Shigatse. In these localities excellent potter’s clay is obtainable, and the people carry on a profitable trade in earthenware with the surrounding districts. The Tanag pottery has not only an extensive sale in Tibet, but in the cis-Himalayan countries as well, where most utensils are of untinned copper, and the Sikkim and Darjiling people use them exclusively in preference to the earthenware made by the Nepalese inhabiting the Lower Himalayas. The Tanag earthenware is carried to the banks of the Tsang-po on donkeys, and there transferred to hide-boats (kodru), in which it is brought down to the Patama ferry, about four miles to the north-east of Shigatse. The Patama dealers, who, by the way, raise fine crops on the alluvial soil along the river banks, and make a good deal of money by fishing and ferrying, carry the earthenware to Shigatse on donkeys that jog slowly along the road to the jingle of big bells fastened around their necks. The Lholing pottery is brought to Shigatse viâ Tanag; this locality manufactures very large vessels for keeping wine or water in, and so heavy that two men can hardly lift them. The Tanag pottery is so highly glazed that it compares favourably with the Chinese and European earthenware sold in the Calcutta shops.31