he visited the Jong, and that
it was very much the same building then as it is to-day. But had it not
been for the flapping of the bird which occasioned the quarrel with his
Chinese servant, Manning would have left Phari without a reference to
the wonderful old fortress which is the most romantic feature on the
road from India to Gyantse. Appended to the journal is this footnote to
the word _building_, which I have italicized in the extract: 'The
building is immensely large, six or more stories high, a sort of
fortress. At a distance it appears to be all Phari Jong. Indeed, most of
it consists of miserable galleries and holes.'

Members of the mission force who have visited Phari will no doubt
attribute Manning's evident ill-humour and depression during his stay
there to the environments of the place, which have not changed much in
the last ninety years. But his spirits improved as he continued his
journey to Gyantse and Lhasa, and he reveals himself the kindly,
eccentric, and affectionate soul who was the friend and intimate of
Charles Lamb.

Bogle arrived at Phari on October 23, 1774. He and Turner and Manning
all entered Tibet through Bhutan. 'As we advanced,' he wrote in his
journal, 'we came in sight of the castle of Phari Jong, which cuts a
good figure from without. It rises into several towers with the
balconies, and, having few windows, has the look of strength; it is
surrounded by the town.' The only other reference he makes to the Jong
shows us that the fortress was in bad repair so long ago as 1774. 'The
two Lhasa officers who have the government of Phari Jong sent me some
butter, tea, etc., the day after my arrival; and letting me know that
they expected a visit from me, I went. The inside of the castle did not
answer the notion I had formed of it. The stairs are ladders worn to the
bone, and the rooms are little better than garrets.'

The origin of the fort is unknown. Some of the inhabitants of Phari say
that it was built more than a hundred years ago, when the Nepalese were
overrunning Sikkim. But this is obviously incorrect, as the
Tibetan-Nepalese War, in which the Chinese drove the Gurkhas out of
Tibet, and defeated their army within a day's march of Khatmandu, took
place in 1788-1792, whereas Bogle's description of the Jong was written
fourteen years earlier. A more general impression is that centuries ago
orders came from Lhasa to collect stones on the hillsides, and the
building was constructed b