as the Tibetan Government maintains there a challenge gate. My companions went there, however, leaving me behind, and I spent the days of their absence in religions meditation. Joining them again on their return, I continued my travels westwards, coming out in due time to the north of Lake Lakgal. We next took our way along the lake towards the north-west. Facing west and looking over the lake, I saw islands spread out on its surface like the legs of a gotoku, or tripod. So I gave them the name of Gotoku jimu, or Tripod islands. Several days afterwards we arrived at a barter port called Gya-nima; it was the 17th of August, 1900.
At Gya-nima barter is carried on only for two months in the year, that is to say from the loth of July to the 15th of September. The traders chiefly come from the Indian part of the Himalaya mountains and meet their Tibetan customers there. I was just in good time to see brisk transactions going on. I saw no less than one hundred and fifty white tents covering the otherwise barren wilderness, and some five or six hundred people rushing about to sell and buy in their own fashion.
The Tibetan articles offered for sale here were wool, butter, yaks' tails, and the like, while the purchases consisted of about the same category of goods as I gave when speaking of the Mabcha Khanbab mart. I stayed over night and spent the whole of the next day at the fair, making a few small purchases. On the day following we went back to Gya-karko, another barter port. Gya-nima was the most north-western point I reached in my Tibetan journey. So far as reaching my destination was concerned, I had hitherto been proceeding in an exactly opposite direction to it, steadily going north-west instead of towards Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. But from that point — Gya-nima — onwards, each step I walked brought me nearer to the main road into Tibet, as also to its capital. In Gya-karko
