of black beads,
and in cups made with the roots of the vine and box-tree. As we departed
from Lithang, the Chinese garrison was under arms, to render military
honours to Ly-Kouo-Ngan. They acted just as if he had been alive. When
the coffin passed, all the soldiers bent their knees and exclaimed: "To
the Tou-Sse, Ly-Kouo-Ngan, the poor garrison of Lithang wishes health and
prosperity." The petty Mandarin, with the white button, who had become
our guide, saluted the garrison in the name of the deceased. This new
commander of the caravan was a Chinese of Moslem extraction; but one
could find nothing about him which seemed to belong in the least to the
fine type of his ancestors: his puny, stunted person, his pointed smiling
face, his shrill treble voice, his trifling manners, all contributed to
give him the air of a shop-boy, and not in the least that of a military
Mandarin. He was a prodigious talker. The first day he rather amused
us, but he soon became a bore. He thought himself bound, in his quality
of Mussulman, to talk to us, on all occasions, about Arabia, and of its
horses that are sold for their weight in gold; about Mahomet, and his
famous sabre that cut through metals; about Mecca and its bronze
ramparts.

From Lithang to Ta-Tsien-Lou, a frontier town of China, is only 600 lis,
which are divided into eight stages. We found the end of that frightful
route to Thibet exactly like its middle and its beginning. We in vain
climbed mountains; we found still more and more before us, all of a
threatening aspect, all covered with snow and rugged with precipices; nor
did the temperature undergo any perceptible change. It appeared to us,
that, since our departure from Lha-Ssa, we had been doing nothing but
move round and round in the same circle. Yet, as we advanced, the
villages became more frequent, without, however, losing their Thibetian
style. The most important of these villages is Makian-Dsoung, where some
Chinese merchants keep stores for supplying the caravans. One day's
journey from Makian-Dsoung, you pass in a boat the Ya-Loung-Kiang, a
large and rapid river. Its source is at the foot of the Bayen-Kharat
mountains, close to that of the Yellow River. It joins the
Kin-Cha-Kiang, in the province of Sse-Tchouen. According to the
traditions of the country, the banks of the Ya-Loung-Kiang were the first
cradle of the Thibetian nation. As we were passing the Ya-Loung-Kiang in
a boat, a shepherd cross