e guard was changed so frequently
that we had no chance of making friends with them, and each lot seemed
worse than the last.

A very curious incident happened one day, causing a scare among them. We
had halted near a cliff, and the soldiers were some twenty yards off.
Having exhausted every means I could think of to inspire these ruffians
with respect, I resorted to the performance of some ventriloquial feats,
pretending to speak and to receive the answers from the summit of the
cliff. The Tibetans were terror-stricken. They asked me who was up there.
I said it was some one I knew.

"Is it a Plenki?"

"Yes."

Immediately they hustled us on our yaks and mounted their ponies, and we
left the place at headlong speed.

On reaching a spot which from observations taken on my outward journey I
reckoned to be in longitude 83 deg. 6' 30" E. and latitude 30 deg. 27' 30" N. I
had a great piece of luck. It is at this point that the two principal
sources of the Brahmaputra meet and form one river, the one coming from
the N.W., which I had already followed, the other proceeding from the
W.N.W. The Tibetans, to my delight, selected the southern route, thus
giving me the opportunity of visiting the second of the two principal
sources of the great river. This second stream rises in a flat plain,
having its first birth in a lakelet in approximate longitude 82 deg. 47' E.
and latitude 30 deg. 33' N. I gave the Northern source my own name, a
proceeding which I trust will not be regarded as immodest in view of the
fact that I was the first European to visit both sources and of all the
circumstances of my journey.

[Illustration: ONE OF OUR GUARD]

This period of our captivity was dreary, yet interesting and instructive,
for, as we went along, I got the soldiers to teach me some Tibetan songs,
not unlike those of the Shokas in character, and from the less
ill-natured men of our guard I picked up, by judicious questioning, a
considerable amount of information, which, together with that collected
from my own observations, I have given in this book.

Over a more southerly and lower pass than the Maium Pass, by which,
healthy, hopeful and free, we had entered the province of Yutzang, we now
left it, wounded, broken down, naked and prisoners.

[37] Also written U-tzang.

CHAPTER XCV

Easier times--Large encampments--Suffocating a goat--A Tarjum's
encampment--Tokchim--Old friends--Musicians--Charity.

WE now pr