features of the earth's surface that are less pronounced, I suppose one's ideas will revert to their normal orthodoxy. Pete-jong, fair and romantic from the outside, is the reverse within. We left a few troops there, making it a post on our line of communication (as we had done also in the cases of Nagartse and Ralung). I was sorry for the Pete-jong garrison. The lower part of the jong was occupied by byres and barns and dark chambers, all of them empty of all but filth. Through the centre of the jong, and through the rock on which it was built, a rough stone track, half path, half staircase, ran upwards, mostly in pitch darkness. From the walls at the side, from the roof overhead, and from the ground beneath, moisture seemed to be always exuding, the walls and roof being all slimy and musty, while greasy mud oozed perpetually from the interstices of the stones on the floor. No sunlight ever reached this dark passage, so that the moisture could dry no faster than it was replenished by that hidden spring in the rock which apparently was its source. The only suitable habitable rooms were high up at the top of the jong, and these were designed as barracks, hospital, store depot, and post commandant's quarters. But every time any one went outside the jong from his quarters, he had to go down this slimy black artery and return the same way. After halting one night at Pete-jong the column marched on in soaking rain to the foot of the Kamba-Là. Here we were to leave Lake Palti and mount the pass that stood above our camp. CHAPTER XVI OVER THE KAMBA-LÀ: THE LAND OF PROMISE