postpone my journey to Shigatse and endeavour to cure his disease, which he thought curable by an operation, but he knew of no surgeon in Tibet able to perform it.
I was pained at my utter inability to help him, and told him that I would willingly prolong my stay at Lhasa if I had any means of curing him, but I had none whatever, and must take my leave. So saying, I rose from my seat, and left after the usual leave-takings.[1]
Following the same road by which we had come to Lhasa, we stopped that night at Netang. On the 15th we reached Palti djong, and on the 18th arrived at Dongtse at 10 o'clock at night, and put up in Pador’s house.
Early the following morning I went to the monastery, and was promptly led to the minister’s apartments, where I found him covered with small-pox pustules, and hardly able to speak. The Lhacham’s son was also ill with the same disease, but convalescing.
When the minister fell asleep, I went to the Tung-chen’s room. He asked me if I had not met Phurchung on the road, as he had left for Lhasa only a week ago carrying my letters and a shot-gun. As to Ugyen-gyatso, he had returned from Lachan with the luggage that had been left there, and was now waiting for me at Gyatsoshar, near Shigatse. I remained at Dongtse until July 3, when, in company with Phurchung and Pador, I set out for Gyatsoshar, which place we reached the following day, and Ugyen gave me, to my infinite delight, a package of letters from India.
Ugyen told me that since his return from the Lachan barrier he had been busy collecting plants. He had also carefully kept a diary from which I culled the following details, which may prove of interest.
One evening a lama friend had called on him, and asked him if he would like to meet a Golog from Amdo. These Golog, his friend went on to say, are a nation of brigands living in Amdo in Eastern Tibet.[2] Their country is nowhere cultivated, but they breed
- ↑ It is strange that our author tells us nothing of this famous lamasery of Chagpori. We know, however, that it is one of the oldest in Tibet, that the medical school is attended by some 300 students, and that it supplies with medicines, most of which are simples collected by the lamas themselves, not only Lhasa, but remote parts of Tibet and Mongolia. I have seen remedies bought at Chagpori used in the Tsaidam, the Koko Nor, and all over Eastern Tibet.—(W. R.)
- ↑ Amdo being used here in its broadest sense as including all North-east Tibet. These Golok (or Golog) trade with Kumbum, Sungpan (in North-west Sze-chuen), and with the Lhasa country. "At Pherchode (near Namdjong in Takpo) many traders called
