Government pays very little, if any, attention to road-making, though, in such a dry climate, it would be easy to construct good ones, and it would be little trouble to keep them in repair. Thus far on my travels in Tibet I had seen no wheeled conveyances, and I now learnt that such things are unknown throughout the country.
Shortly after starting it began snowing heavily. As we rode on along the bank of the Nyang chu, Tsering-tashi pointed out to me the road to Phagri, the monastery of Na-ning, the ruins of Gyang-to, both formerly places of importance. Then we entered the rong, or defiles,[1] where used to live three tribes of herdsmen, the Gyangro, Ning-ro, and Gang-ro, who carried on a thriving trade in yak-tails (chowries), felt hats, felt, and blankets.
Crossing the river at Kudung zampa, we reached by dusk the village of Gobshi,[2] where the Lhacham had only preceded us a little. I found her very gloomy, for she had just learnt that there were in the house where she was now stopping five small-pox patients. I was asked to vaccinate her and her whole party; but, unfortunately, the lymph which I had asked for in India had not reached me before leaving Tashilhunpo; it was still at the Lachan barrier with Ugyen-gyatso.
May 13. — Gobshi, or "four gates," is a large village of about fifty houses, half of it belonging to the Lhacham's father-in-law. There are a few poplar and pollard willow trees growing in front of the village, and terraced fields planted with barley extend along the river banks. A little to the east of the village, in the hills beyond the confluence of the Nyang and Niro chu, there is a very ancient Bonbo lamasery, called Khyung-nag, or "Black Eagle" monastery, which in the fifteenth century was a place of pilgrimage famous throughout Tibet.
After leaving Gobshi, we passed by Kavo gomba, a Ningma religious establishment, and Tsering-tashi called my attention to the blue and red bands painted on the walls of the temple and dwellings of the lamas, telling me that these coloured stripes are characteristic of this sect.
Pushing on through a number of small villages, the road in some places extremely difficult and even dangerous, we forded the Nyang chu
