CHAPTER XIII.
A kind old Dame.
My call was responded to by an old woman who, coming out of the tent and finding a tattered and tired wayfarer, said more to herself than to me: "Why, it is a pilgrim, poor, poor." Seeing no reason to suppose that I appeared an object of suspicion to her, I ventured to inform her that I was from the direction of Lhasa, bound for Kang Rinpoche, Mount Kailasa, and besought her to give me a night's lodging in her tent, as it was unbearably cold to sleep in the open air. My request was cheerfully complied with and, inside the tent, the old dame expressed her curiosity to know how I happened to be there, as the locality was not one generally visited by pilgrims. She easily believed my explanation to the effect that I had lost my way while heading for the abode of Gelong Rinpoche, and then gave me a cup of tea out of a kettle that stood boiling over the fire; accepting it with thanks, I declined the baked Hour offered immediately after. I may observe here that the tea offered me was not brewed in the same way as we take it in Japan, but it was more of the nature of a soup, the ingredients of which were powdered tea-leaves, butter and salt, forbiddingly offensive in smell, until one gets accustomed to it, when it is found to constitute a very agreeable beverage. The Tibetan custom is to serve a guest with a cup of this kind of tea first, and then to regale him with some baked flour. I excused myself for declining the hospitality of my kind hostess by informing her that I adhered strictly to the Buddhist rule of fasting hours, which piece of information produced a very favorable impression on her as to my personality, as she seemed to respect me all the more for it. Then, leading in the conversation that followed, she told me that Gelong Rinpoche's abode was at a day's distance, and that this Lama was the holiest of all the priests to he found throughout the whole Jangthang (Jang-thang, as 1 explained, literally means 'northern plain,' hut in Tibet itself the appellation is applied to its western steppes), Continuing, the old hostess said that a visit to the holy man always resulted in great spiritual benefit, and urged me by all means to call on him. There was a river, she said, in my way, the waters of which were too cold to be forded, and she offered me the use of one of her yaks. Her son was away just then, but she expected him back in the evening, and he could accompany me in the morning, as she wanted him too to pay a visit to the holy man. All this was very acceptable to me, but one thing that troubled me was the sorry condition to which my boots had become reduced ; and I asked the dame if I could not mend them. Mending in this case meant, as I was told, patching the worn-out places with yak's hide, which required, however, two days' soaking in water before it became soft enough to be sewn. My hostess said that they — she and her son — were to stay only one more day in that particular spot where I had chanced upon them, and suggested that I might make a stay of two or three days at Gelong Rinpoche's, so as to give myself the time to do some mending. She offered that I should, on the morrow, put on her son's spare pair of boots and proceed to the holy Lama's in them, saying that I might give them back to her son after reaching my destination. In the night, just as I was going to sleep, the son turned np, and more conversation ensued amongst us, chiefly concerning the saintly man, of whom the mother and the son knew no end of wonderful things, altogether superhuman in character.
Early the next morning, by order of the good old dame, the son busied himself in getting a yak ready for me. The yak is a bovine somewhat larger than our bull, though a little lower in height. Its hide is covered all over very thickly with long shaggy hair, and its tail terminates in a bushy tuft. The female yak is called bri in Tibetan. Its face looks very much like that of common cattle, but it has a pair of piercing eyes, which give you a rather uncomfortable feeling when turned full on you, while its horns are dangerously pointed and threateningly shaped. A better acquaintance, however, shows the animal to be a quiet and tractable one, even much more so than our cattle. I may yet have occasion to tell what an invaluable beast of burden the yak is for the Tibetan. My hostess* son brought out three yaks, one for me to ride, another for himself, and the third to carry his presents, consisting of dried milk, butter and other things, to the holy man. As for the good old dame, she proved to be the very essence of kindness, and on my parting from her she loaded me with large quantities of baked wheat-flour, dried milk, and butter, besides a farewell cup of tea, a treatment which is considered great hospitality in Jangthang.
So equipped, we started on our trip in quest of the holy man of the plain. After a ride of about two and a half miles, involving ascent and descent of equal length towards the north-west, we were overtaken by a hail-storm, and had to make a halt of two hours until it had blown over. During the halt, we took down our luggage from the backs of the yaks, so that it might not get wet, and I utilised that interval quite profitably to myself by pumping the young man for information regarding the routes and geography of the regions I was to go through before I could reach my final destination. Resuming our ride, we soon came to a river which was sixty yards wide, and easy to ford for men riding on yaks, as we were. Crossing two more rivers of the like width, and making an ascent of a little over six miles, we came in sight of a large white cliff, which, as my companion informed me, was the dwelling place of Gelong Rinpoche. Continuing the ascent and approaching nearer, I found out that what had appeared like a huge and solid piece of rock was really a hollow cliff forming a large cave, and that there was another concave cliff in front of it, which was not white but greyish in color, and was inhabited by one of Gelong Rinpoche's disciples, as I came to discover afterwards. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon that we arrived at the entrance of the front cave, where my companion asked if he could see Gelong Rinpoche, though he knew that he was considerably behind the regular hour, setting forth the hail incident as an excuse for his delay. The answer he received was absolutely in the negative; so he took down the presents and entrusted them to the disciple, to be sent up to Gelong Rinpoche as from Pasang (his mother's name), saying that he could not wait till the next day to see the Lama, as he was going to strike his tent and move away there and then.
Left alone with the occupant of the grey cliff, I found him to be an ordinary Lama of rather good parts. In the cave, put away in proper places, were articles of daily use for devotional practices, bedding, the kitchen utensils, etc. Having obtained the Lama's permission to make a few days' stay, I commenced my mending work by soaking in water a piece of yak's hide which the kind dame Pasang had given me on parting. On my asking for information as to how I could reach Kang Rinpoche, the answer I got was very discouraging. It was to the effect that two or three days' journey, after leaving the cave, would bring me to a region inhabited by nomads; for another two or three days I should be in the same region, and then, for the next fifteen or sixteen days, I should have to go through a wilderness entirely destitute of human kind. I was very fortunate, said my host, in that I had chanced upon that 'kind old dame,' who was noted for her charity; otherwise I should have had little possibility of obtaining even lodging accommodation, still less of securing a companion to the cliff; and it was out of the question for me to secure anything like a guide for my onward journey; human beings were too scarce in those parts for such a luxury. Furthermore he assured me that I should be pounced upon by robbers as soon as I should reach the inhabited parts, as I seemed to be loaded with luggage worth taking. I had nothing to fear on that score, I told my host, because all I should do would be to hand over all I had. My host then told me that he had been to Kang Rinpoche two or three times himself, and gave me a minute description of the route I was to take for that destination. After a meditation exercise, in which my host joined, we both went to sleep at about midnight.
When I re-opened my eyes, I saw the Lama already making a fire outside the cave. It should be remembered that I passed myself off as a pilgrim from Lhasa, here as elsewhere, and I had to be 'Lhasan' in all I did. That morning, therefore, I got up and set about reading the Sacred Text without rinsing my mouth. How foal I felt in the mouth then! but then it was 'Lhasan,' you see! When the usual tea, butter, and salt soup was ready, my host gave me a bowlful of it, and then we breakfasted on the regulation diet of baked flour, salt and pepper, all with uncleansed mouths! After that, we whiled away the morning in religious talk until eleven o'clock, when the hour for being presented to Gelong Rinpoche had arrived.