es, but it also separates the immense provinces of
Nari-Khorsum (extending west of the Maium Pass and comprising the
mountainous and lake 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." It is applied to this province because 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 north-east 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 toward us. We waited for
them. 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," as they call it.

We descended quickly on the eastern side of the pass, while the
soldiers, aghast, remained watching us. They were a picturesque sight as
they stood among the _obos_ against the sky-line, the sunlight shining
on their jewelled swords and the gay red flags of their matchlocks.
Above their heads strings of flying-prayers waved in the wind. Having
watched us for a little while, they disappeared.

A little rivulet, hardly six inches wide, descended among stones in the
centre of the valley we were following, and was soon swollen by other
rivulets from melting snows of the mountains on either side. This was
one source[8] of the great Brahmaputra, one of the largest rivers in the
world. I must confess that I felt somewhat proud to be the first white
man who had ever reached these sources, and there was a certain childish
delight in standing over this sacred stream, which, of such immense
width lower down, could here be spanned by a man standing with legs
slightly apart. We drank of its waters at the spot where it had its
birth, and then, following a marked track to the south-east, we
continued our descent on a gentle incline along a grassy valley.

The change in the climate between the west and south-east sides of the
Maium Pass was extraordinary. On the western side we had nothing but
violent storms of hail, rain, and snow, the dampness in the air
rendering the atmosphere cold even during the day. The soil was
unusually marshy, and little fuel o