... It was a
delightful place to camp for the night.... At nine the next morning we
had reached the little hamlet strung along the river bank and known
as Tongua.... Here the girls made a number of purchases and we
replenished our commissary for the march before us into mystic
dominions of the LAMA...."
XII
THE FLIGHT TO TIBET
43. Then we get this entry:
"I did not count the number of Hindu castes we encountered at the
trading post of Tongua.... there were a hundred, at least, each
bearing on his forehead the mani-colored mark of his particular
caste,--while the stately Kashmirian in his snowy turban and long
white tunic seemed carved out of the frozen snows of the towering
mountain sides.... we were offered many cabriolets to assist us on
our journey, but one look at one of those backless and circular TABLES
between the wheels upon which one must sit like a Turkish mouker with
his legs crossed to keep from rolling down the precipice was enough to
convince us that the camel route was good enough for us.
"On the tramp to Horis, along the banks of the Jhelum with its wooded
mountains on the right and its rocky precipices on the left, we met a
number of pilgrims who had religious scruples against taking part
in letting blood of any kind of bird or beast or whale.... They had
evidently been to their Mecca.... Another thing we discovered that is
not generally understood among the unelect.
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