y if there is a Lama close at hand to commemorate the event. The
meat of the animal killed is eaten by the people present, and, if the
party is a large one, dancing and singing follow the feast. As I have
already remarked, these Obos are found all over the country; they
indicate the points marking the passes or summits of hills, and no
Tibetan ever goes by one of them without depositing on it a white stone
to appease the possible wrath of their God.

CHAPTER LX

The Maium Pass--Into the Yutzang province--Its capital--The
Doktol province--Orders disregarded--The sources of the
Brahmaputra--Change in the climate--The valley of the
Brahmaputra--Running risks.

THE Maium Pass (17,500 feet), to which from where I started no Englishman
had ever penetrated, is a great landmark in Tibet, for not only does one
of the sources of the great Tsangpu, or Brahmaputra River, rise on its
S.E. slopes, but it also separates the immense provinces of Nari-Khorsum
(extending West of the Maium Pass and comprising the mountainous and
lacustrine region as far as Ladak) from the Yutzang, the central province
of Tibet, stretching East of the pass along the valley of the Brahmaputra
and having Lhassa for its capital. The word _Yu_ in Tibetan means
"middle," and it is applied to this province, as it occupies the centre
of Tibet. To the North of the Maium lies the Doktol province.

I had taken a reconnoitring trip to another pass to the N.E. of us, and
had just returned to my men on the Maium Pass, when several of the
Tibetan soldiers we had left behind rode up towards us. We waited for
them, and their leader, pointing at the valley beyond the pass, cried:
"That yonder is the Lhassa territory and we forbid you to enter it."

I took no notice of his protest, and driving before me the two yaks I
stepped into the most sacred of all the sacred provinces, "the ground of
God."

We descended quickly on the Eastern side of the pass, while the soldiers,
aghast, remained watching us from above, themselves a most picturesque
sight as they stood among the Obos against the sky-line, with the
sunlight shining on their jewelled swords and the gay red flags of their
matchlocks, while over their heads strings of flying prayers waved in
the wind. Having watched us for a little while, they disappeared.

[Illustration: SOURCE OF THE BRAHMAPUTRA]

A little rivulet, hardly six inches wide, descended among stones in the
centre of the v