portant
temples and monasteries in Lhasa. We generally went in parties of four
and five, and a company of Sikhs or Pathans was left in the courtyard in
case of accidents. We were well armed, as the monks were sullen, though
I do not think they were capable of any desperate fanaticism. If they
had had the abandon of dervishes, they might have rushed our camp long
before. They missed their chance at Gyantse, when a night attack pushed
home by overwhelming numbers could have wiped out our little garrison.
In Lhasa there was the one case of the Lama who ran amuck outside the
camp with the coat of mail and huge paladin's sword concealed beneath
his cloak, a medieval figure who thrashed the air with his brand like a
flail in sheer lust of blood. He was hanged medievally the next day
within sight of Lhasa. Since then the exploit has not been repeated, but
no one leaves the perimeter unarmed.

I have written of the squalor of the Lhasa streets. The environs of the
city are beautiful enough--willow groves intersected by clear-running
streams, walled-in parks with palaces and fish-ponds, marshes where the
wild-duck flaunt their security, and ripe barley-fields stretching away
to the hills. In September the trees were wearing their autumn tints,
the willows were mostly a sulphury yellow, and in the pools beneath the
red-stalked _polygonum_ and burnished dock-leaf glowed in brilliant
contrast. Just before dusk there was generally a storm in the valley,
which only occasionally reached the city; but the breeze stirred the
poplars, and the silver under the leaves glistened brightly against the
background of clouds. Often a rainbow hung over the Potala like a
nimbus.

On the Lingkhor, or circular road, which winds round Lhasa, we saw
pilgrims and devotees moving slowly along in prayer, always keeping the
Potala on their right hand. The road is only used for devotion. One
meets decrepit old women and men, halting and limping and slowly
revolving their prayer-wheels and mumbling charms. I never saw a healthy
yokel or robust Lama performing this rite. Nor did I see the pilgrims
whom one reads of as circumambulating the city on their knees by a
series of prostrations, bowing their heads in the dust and mud. All the
devotees are poor and ragged, and many blind. It seems that the people
of Lhasa do not begin to think of the next incarnation until they have
nothing left in this.

When one leaves the broad avenues between the walls of the g