Note 38 — Chapter IX · FUNERAL OF THE PANCHEN RINPOCHE.—VISIT TO THE GREAT LAMASERY OF SAMYE AND TO YARLUNG.

November 5.—A little before dawn we left Jong and made for the Nango38 ferry. There is an iron suspension bridge at this place, but it is so much out of repair that it cannot be crossed over, and we were ferried across in a large boat, together with a number of traders and their donkeys. The river is very narrow here, scarcely a hundred yards in breadth. Passing through the village of Khyungar we entered Tse-tang,39 the capital of Yarlung, and formerly a place of great importance. Our guide procured lodgings for us in the house of a woman whose husband, a Kashmiri, had died a year or so before and who was now living alone with her husband’s son. The Kache (Kashmiri) received us very kindly, but after a short conversation with me he became alarmingly suspicious of my true character, and kept continually turning the conversation to the Saheb-logs (“Englishmen”) he had known at Katmandu, and the greatness of the Engrez Maharani (“Queen of England”). As often as he spoke of these subjects, so often did I rejoin with some inquiry about Buddhism or a lamasery I wished to visit.