Note 38 — Chapter V · FROM TASHILHUNPO TO YAMDO SAMDING, AND THENCE TO LHASA.

From Jang toi, following a narrow trail overhanging the Kyi chu, we came to Nam. Beyond this little hamlet the path leads over a confused mass of rocks and boulders along the river bank; it is called gag lam, or “narrow road,” and a false step would throw one amidst the quicksands on the river’s bank, or into its eddying waters. I was not surprised to be told that the two elephants sent to the Grand Lama by the Sikkim rajah had had great difficulty in getting by this place. After a tedious journey of about three miles through the sand and over the rocks, we got sight of the famous village of Netang,38 where the great saint and Buddhist reformer, Atisha, or Dipankara, died.