annas) for each man as ferry charges. The ferry belongs to the Dorje-tag lamasery near by, one of the oldest and holiest of the Nyingma sect. The incarnate lama who rules this lamasery died about a year and a half ago, but he has reappeared recently in the flesh at Darchendo.[1] This convent is at the foot of a range of hills which stretches along the river to beyond Samye, and a large grove extends from near it to the high road.
We stopped for tiffin on the river bank, where I noticed the ground covered with fish-bones and shells. Gopon told me that all the small fry which the people of this country catch are used to manure the fields with, as they are too bony to eat.
Gopon, who, by the way, was a most loquacious fellow, told me while we drank our tea that when a new-born child dies in this country the body is packed in an earthenware jar or wooden box, and is thus kept in the storeroom, or hung from the ceiling of its parents' house.[2] In Upper Tibet the body is usually kept on the roof with a little turret built over it; though the people who cannot afford to do this keep it also hung from the ceiling, the face turned upwards.
The road now led over sand hillocks and spurs of rock, in some places close to the edge of the river, where great care was necessary in getting the ponies along.
We stopped at Tag, behind which rise the forest-covered mountains, and where we got quarters in a fine new house, and were made most comfortable by the owners.
The next day we were off before sunrise, and after a few miles through heavy sand, came to Songkar[3] with about two hundred houses, and around which grow walnut, willow, peach, poplar, and other varieties of trees. It is said that Prince Lhawang, son of
- ↑ Ta-chien-lu, on the border of Sze-chuen. The Dorje-tag (Rdo-rje brag) lamasery has given its name to a sect. See Waddell, op. cit., 73.
- ↑ This seems to be the same custom as obtains in Eastern Tibet, where all corpses are kept until the crops have been reaped, and then either fed to vultures, burnt or otherwise disposed of. See 'Land of the Lamas,' p. 286. The text is not quite clear, for it does not state whether or not the corpses are kept permanently in the houses of the parents.—(W. R.)
- ↑ Called Tsong-ka on the maps. All this route was again gone over by Ugyen-gyatso in 1883. See 'Report on Explorations from 1856 to 1886,' p. 28 et sqq. He says (p. 29) that the river at Tsong-ka is over a mile broad. King Me agtsoms was the father of Tisrong detsan, of whom our author has so often occasion to speak. He reigned over Tibet in the latter half of the seventh century, A.D.—(W. R.)
