SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
bad path to Tongsa. At Chandenbi we had to halt to witness a dance on which the villagers pride themselves. In step it was very similar to the lama dances, though the dresses were not quite so gorgeous, but it was not very interesting.
Some distance further on we came to a romantic patch of sward in a gorge of the ravine where the stream was joined by another mountain torrent, and on the tongue of land thus formed, covered with beautiful cedar pines, was a fine choten, built in imitation of the Swayambunath in Nepal. For miles we continued to traverse undulating ground about the same altitude, through oak, magnolia, and rhododendrons, until we emerged on more open country. Passing Tashiling, where there is a large rest-house, we continued for three more weary miles to Tshang-kha (7500 feet), where we found our camp pitched on a fine open grassy spot, with several hundreds of fine cattle grazing close by. The village was a long way above us, and out of sight.
This was our last halting-place before arriving at Tongsa, and unluckily it rained all night, but by morning it was only misty. Our road took us up the left bank of the Madu-chhu, at a considerable height above its raging torrent, and shortly we found ourselves in very rocky country, as the gorge through which the stream flows narrows considerably, with tremendous precipices overhanging each side. We made slow progress down a road, or rather a series of steep zigzags mostly composed of stone steps, and this path continued to within a short distance of the bridge across the Madu-chhu, some 900 feet below the castle and fortress of Tongsa. The bridge was of the usual cantilever kind, flanked by defensive towers, the whole having been rebuilt within the last few years.
A second steep zigzag, with many flights of stone steps, led us under the walls of the castle, and we entered through a door in an outlying bastion overhanging the cliff up which we had been toiling, and which effectually barred further
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