number of these donkeys to convey the baggage
of the Khartchin-Lamas, rendered it necessary for us to remain two days
at Pampou. We availed ourselves of the opportunity to arrange our
toilet, as well as we could. Our hair and beards were so thick, our
faces so blackened with the smoke of the tent, so ploughed up with the
cold, so worn, so deplorable, that, when we had here the means of looking
at ourselves in a glass, we were ready to weep with compassion at our
melancholy appearance. Our costume was perfectly in unison with our
persons.

The people of Pampou are for the most part in very easy circumstances,
and they are always gay and frolicsome accordingly. Every evening they
assemble, in front of the different farms, where men, women, and children
dance to the accompaniment of their own voices. On the termination of
the _bal champetre_, the farmer regales the company with a sort of sharp
drink, made with fermented barley, and which, with the addition of hops,
would be very like our beer.

After a two days' hunt through all the farms of the neighbourhood, the
donkey-caravan was organized, and we went on our way. Between us and
Lha-Ssa there was only a mountain, but this mountain was, past
contradiction, the most rugged and toilsome that we had as yet
encountered. The Thibetians and Mongols ascend it with great unction,
for it is understood amongst them that whoever attains its summit,
attains, _ipso facto_, a remission of all his or her sins. This is
certain, at all events, that whoever attains the summit has undergone on
his way a most severe penance: whether that penance is adequate to the
remission of sins, is another question altogether. We had departed at
one o'clock in the morning, yet it was not till ten in the forenoon that
we reached this so beneficial summit. We were fain to walk nearly the
whole distance, so impracticable is it to retain one's seat on horseback
along the rugged and rocky path.

The sun was nearly setting when, issuing from the last of the infinite
sinuosities of the mountain, we found ourselves in a vast plain, and saw
on our right Lha-Ssa, the famous metropolis of the Buddhic world. The
multitude of aged trees which surround the city with a verdant wall; the
tall white houses, with their flat roofs and their towers; the numerous
temples with their gilt roofs, the Buddha-La, above which rises the
palace of the Tale-Lama--all these features communicate to Lha-Ssa a
majestic an