Note 11 — Chapter V · FROM TASHILHUNPO TO YAMDO SAMDING, AND THENCE TO LHASA.

After a hurried breakfast, while the servants were engaged in saddling the ponies and packing, I went and kotowed to the Buddha in the temple, placed khatag on the sacred images, and distributed alms to the monks assembled in the courtyard to offer prayers for my safe journey. Then I returned to my room, picked out the handsomest khatag I possessed, and presented it to the minister. His holiness graciously touched my head with his palms, and in solemn tones said, “Sarat Chandra, Lhasa is not a good place. The people there are not like those you meet here. The Lhasa people are suspicious and insincere. You do not know, and, in fact, you cannot read their character. I advise you not to stay long in one place there. The Lhacham Kusho is a powerful personage in Lhasa; she will protect you, but you should so behave as rarely to require her protection. Stay not long in the vicinity of the Dabung or Sera monasteries. If you intend to make a long stay at Lhasa, choose your residence in a garden or village in the suburbs. You have chosen a very bad time for your pilgrimage, as small-pox is raging all over Central Tibet; but you will return safely, though the journey will be trying and fraught with immense difficulties.”11 Then, turning to Tsering-tashi, around whose neck the minister’s page put a khatag, he said to him, “Tsing-ta, I believe you know whom you are accompanying. You should serve him as you would serve me; your relations with him must be those of a son with his parents.”