I spent the whole of November 2nd, 1900, at the temple seeing its treasures and images. The place was just sixty miles north of Tsarang in the province of Lo in the Himalayas, and was frequented by merchants from the latter. I did not know this fact, and after I had seen the treasures I was walking round the temple, when to my astonishment I was accosted by an old acquaintance. He was a notorious drunkard and gambler, feared even by the natives of the Himalayas. While I was in Lo he used to accuse me of being a British spy. When, however, a member of his family became sick I gave him medicines, and this act of kindness of mine softened down his bitterness against me, though it was evident that he intended to take the first opportunity to quarrel with me. On the present occasion it was clear that should I take no notice of him. He would denounce me to the Tibetan Government and obstruct the execution of my object; so I decided upon a plan of campaign. Approaching him with a smile, I said I was delighted to see an old acquaintance. I was myself a teetotaller, I added, but I had heard it stated that the place had very good liquor. I would treat him to the best to be obtained in the place if he did not object to coming to my room. He accepted my invitation at once.

Ordering my landlord to bring a large quantity of the best liquor I plied him with drink until four in the morning. I did not take anything myself, but made believe to be drunk. After many glasses I got him dead drunk, and he fell asleep. I also pretended to sleep. But as soon as the landlord awoke at about half past five, I also rose and told him that the man lying there was a dear friend of mine, and that I would have him treated with the best liquor whenever he awoke, and that he was never to let him go out of the house. If he should ask for my whereabouts, he was to be told that I had gone towards Tsarang. With these orders I paid my bills, tipped the landlord liberally, and set out on my journey at six o’clock.

I did not of course go towards Tsarang, but took the highway running to Lhasa. Yet my fears were not quite pacified, for the man I had to deal with was noted for his shrewdness even among the Himalayans. He would not only doubt the words of the landlord, but would suspect my reasons for plying him with liquor, and would inform the Tibetan revenue officials of my escape towards Lhasa. In the event of the mounted officials giving chase to me, it would be all in vain for me to walk as I was doing. What I wished with all my heart, even at the cost of all my money, was to get a horse or to hire a man to carry my luggage. But the plain being absolutely deserted, my desire was in vain. I was hastening along the highway to the south-east, when a large body of horsemen came galloping up from behind.

It was a caravan of eighty or ninety horses and sixteen men. I stopped one of them, and asked him to tie my luggage on to one of the horses, for which trouble I would pay, and to allow me to run behind them. The man was a servant, and could not give me any definite answer. I approached another man, who seemed to be the master and brought up the rear, with a similar petition. He said that he was not able to comply with my request for the present. But as the party was stopping that night in a valley between the two hills which were visible ahead, he advised me to push on, hard though the work might be, and wait there till some arrangements could be made. I took his advice and summoned up all my courage to reach those hills. At eight o’clock I reached the mountain slope and found two big white tents. The chief and second chief of the caravan seemed to be Lamas, the caravan itself having a religious appearance. They offered me tea and meat, but I said I did not eat any meat and gave my reasons for not doing so. The Lama was apparently interested by my explanation, and asked me where I had come from. I said I was a Chinese priest. The Lama thereupon spoke to me in Chinese, which he seemed to understand a little. I told him that his Chinese was the Pekin dialect, which I could not understand, and so our conversation was held in Tibetan. He then produced some Chinese characters and made me read and explain them, and until I had satisfied him in this connexion he did not believe in my being a Chinaman.

I learned then that he was the Lama of a temple called Lhuntubu-choe-ten in the province of Luto on the north-western frontier of Tibet, near to Ladak on the eastern border of Kashmir. The first Lama was named Lobsang Gendun, and the second Lobsang Yanbel. The man who advised me to go there was the Tsongbon, or chief of the caravan, and acted as the business manager for these Lamas. The rest of the party were either monks or servants. They carried dried pears, raisins, silk, woollen goods and other products of Kashmir to Lhasa, whence they brought home tea, Bu??hist pictures and images. They were a very good company, and a very convenient one for me, if I could get them to carry my luggage through this vast pastoral plain of Jangthang; but I did not wish them to accompany me as far as Lhasa.

The Lama interrogated me as to the kind of Bu??hism I had learned and the things I knew, and put before me many questions about Tibetan Bu??hism. Happily, as I have already stated, I had been fully instructed in Tibetan Bu??hism while at Tsarang by Dr. Gyaltsan, and had studied the grammar with special care; so that not only was I able to answer the questions quite easily, but I could explain many things on the subject that these Lamas did not know. He was greatly surprised, and asked me hundreds of questions in grammar, which he seemed to have been studying, though without any insight. Without the help of scientific analysis, which seems impossible for persons in these countries, one cannot fully understand the grammar. As I proceeded with the explanation of the subject, he proposed that I should accompany the party, and said that they rode until two o’clock in the afternoon every day, but that after that hour they always had plenty of leisure, during which he wished to learn grammar. Moreover, he offered to pay me suitable fees and give me food during the journey, if I would consent to his request. This was just what I was longing for; even if he paid me no fee, I should have been glad to comply with his wish.

When I awoke at four the next morning the party were making tea on a fire of dry yak dung. Presently everybody was up, and seven or eight men went out to collect the mules and horses, which had been left during the night to find pasture for themselves. These animals often wander over the mountains, and it will take at least one hour to bring them back, and at times three hours. But these horses did not try to get away from the men who went to fetch them, for they knew that they would be well fed with beans as soon as they reached the tents and before being loaded. The meal served to the caravan consisted chiefly of the flesh of sheep, yaks and goats, and occasionally pork. The grooms had thus to catch and feed the horses, strike the tents, load them on the horses, harness the horses for their own use, and drive up their own especial charges. My companions were sixteen in number, fifteen of whom rode, and one walked. The latter was going to Lhasa for the purpose of prosecuting his studies, and was in company with the caravan simply for the reason that they came from the same province. He and I, being pedestrians, took tea before the caravan packed its effects, and left the place in a south-easterly direction.

My walking companion was a pedantic scholar. He had a very high opinion of himself, but he knew nothing of the essential principles of Bu??hism, nor did he recognise the existence of any sectional differences. It seemed as if he had only a vague notion of the doctrines. I was glad to have his company, such as it was, but he vexed me greatly by his evident animosity towards me, which unfortunately grew more violent as time progressed. The cause of this animosity was, as I learned afterwards, the fact that I had explained on a previous evening the Tibetan grammar, which, scholar though he was, was all untrodden ground to him. He was of opinion that the knowledge of grammar, unaccompanied by that of true Bu??hism, was a worthless acquisition, which only fools would take the trouble to make. As his manner disclosed his jealousy, I treated him with circumspection.

On that day we passed over a large hill and spent the night at a swampy place, after having walked nearly twenty miles in all. A lecture on grammar was again given, by request. On the 5th, I again walked in company with the pedantic monk. After we had arrived at Lhasa he fell into a destitute condition, and I, being then in happier circumstances, did all I could to help him. But this occurred long afterwards. During the journey, after some interesting conversation was held in connexion with religious questions, the monk applied himself to the work of systematically investigating my personality. Apparently he suspected that I was an Englishman, or at least a European, on account of my complexion, and his suspicion speedily grew into conviction. But as his questions did not soar above what I had expected, I was able to reply in a manner which dissipated his doubts. After we had traversed the desert for five miles, we again reached the Brahmapu?ra, and a thaw having set in at that time, we found the water was flowing on smoothly. The clashing sound of the blocks of ice was inspiriting, and the sun was beautifully reflected on the surface of the river. We walked eastward along the bank for about seven miles, and then, leaving the river, walked in a north-easterly direction by an up-hill road along the Brahmapu?ra for another seven miles. Then we crossed the river on horseback. A post-town called Niuk-Tazam stood a little to the north on the river bank, but we did not visit it. We travelled two miles and a half in an easterly direction and encamped on the slope of a hill. That day I walked about twenty three miles. Until we had come to the neighborhood of a town called Lharche the caravan which I accompanied avoided stopping in towns, for the grass on which their horses fed was not to be found abundantly in such places.

That night I felt for the first time safe from the man whom I had left behind at Tadun, which was now sixty-five miles off. I felt that it had been most fortunate that he had not awaked from his drunken sleep until it was too late for him to inform the authorities of my presence, for if he had had the least suspicion of my escape, he would not have missed the opportunity for making money, enough to enable him to indulge himself in a good bout of drinking.

The usual lessons in the Tibetan grammar and Bu??hism over, the suspicious monk, who posed for a learned scholar, suddenly addressed me, saying that having been in India, I must have seen Sara? Chan?ra ?as, who explored Tibet. I replied that I did not know him, even by name. There were three hundred millions of people in India, and however famous a man might be, he must always be unknown to some. There was a great difference between India and Tibet, and I asked to hear something about the man the monk referred to. The monk then narrated how Sara? Chan?ra ?as, twenty-three years ago, had cheated the Tibetan authorities with a passport; how he had robbed Tibet of her Bu??hism, with which he had returned to India; how on the discovery of the affair, the greatest scholar and sage in Tibet, Sengchen Dorjechan, had been executed, not to mention many other priests and laymen who were put to death and many others whose property was confiscated.

After this the monk added that as Sara? Chan?ra ?as was a renowned personage in India, it was impossible for me not to be acquainted with him. Probably I pretended not to know him. These words were spoken in a most unpleasant manner, but I put him off with a smile, saying that I had never seen the face of the Queen of England, who was so renowned, and that such a big country as India made such investigations hopeless. The stories about Sara? Chan?ra ?as are quite well known in Tibet, even children being familiar with them; but there are few who know him by his real name, for he goes by the appellation of the ‘school babu’ (school-master). The story of the Tibetans who smuggled a foreigner into Tibet and were killed, and of those who concealed the fact from the Government and forfeited their property, are tales that Tibetan parents everywhere tell to their children.

Owing to the discovery of the adventures of Sara? Chan?ra ?as, all the Tibetans have become as suspicious as detectives, and exercise the greatest vigilance towards foreigners. I was fully acquainted with these facts, so that I too exercised great caution even in dropping a single word, however innocent and empty that word might be. But the Tibetans were very cunning questioners; and the monk was one of the most cunning. When I tried to laugh away his questions, he put other queries on every imaginable point. Other Tibetans who were equally suspicious joined him in harassing me. I felt for the moment just as though I were besieged by an overwhelming force of the enemy. I thought myself in danger, and with the view of changing the subject of the conversation I turned the tables on them by asking them which they revered more, the Bu??ha or Lobon Rinpoche, the founder of the old religion of Tibet. There is a saying in Tibet: “Padma Chungne is superior to Bu??ha,” Padma Chungne meaning “born from the Lotus,” the founder of Lamaism. This question is an old one, and one about which Tibetans are never tired of disputing, so when this subject was introduced a most violent debate was started, and no one questioned me any more about my personality.

But the incident was sufficient to put me on my guard. The Mongols have a saying “Semnak Poepa,” meaning “black-hearted Tibetans.” Tibetans are extremely inquisitive, and one of their characteristics is to conceal their anger behind a smile, and to bide their time for vengeance. The word, ‘Poepa’ means Tibetans, and they call their own country ‘Poe’. They do not know that their country is called Tibet. ‘Poe’ means in Tibetan ‘to summon’. The founders of that country, according to the tradition, were a man of the name of Te-u Tonmar (red-faced monkey) and a woman named Tak Shimmo (stone she-devil). The former was the incarnate God of Mercy, and the latter the incarnate Yogini, who induced Te-u Tonmar to be her husband. To them were born six sons, whom they summoned into being, respectively, from the six quarters of the universe: namely: Hell, Hunger, Animalism, Asura (fighting demon), Humanity and Heaven. Thus the Tibetans called their country ‘the summoned’ or ‘Poe’. This tradition was perhaps fabricated by some inventive Lama, for the purpose of connecting Tibetan religion with Bu??hism. But it is a tradition which is believed by the natives. The Hin?us do not call this country by the name of Tibet. They call it Bo?ha, one of the meanings of which is ‘knowing’ or ‘idea’. It is not known how they came to call Tibet Bo?ha, but according to their scholars Poe is a contraction of Bo?ha. The Hin?us have another name for Tibet, namely, the country of ‘Hungry Devils’. This is clear even from the fact that Paldan A?isha invented, as I have already mentioned, the name of Pre?apuri (town of hungry devils). Tibet has many other names which deserve study, but which are too peculiar to be expounded. At all events the ‘pa’ of Poepa means men, so that Poepa means the Tibetans.