After a two days’ hunt through all the farms of the neighbourhood, the donkey-caravan was organized, and we went on our way. Between us and Lha-Ssa there was only a mountain, but this mountain was, past contradiction, the most rugged and toilsome that we had as yet encountered. The Thibetians and Mongols ascend it with great unction, for it is understood amongst them that whoever attains its summit, attains, _ipso facto_, a remission of all his or her sins. This is certain, at all events, that whoever attains the summit has undergone on his way a most severe penance: whether that penance is adequate to the remission of sins, is another question altogether. We had departed at one o’clock in the morning, yet it was not till ten in the forenoon that we reached this so beneficial summit. We were fain to walk nearly the whole distance, so impracticable is it to retain one’s seat on horseback along the rugged and rocky path. The sun was nearly setting when, issuing from the last of the infinite sinuosities of the mountain, we found ourselves in a vast plain, and saw on our right Lha-Ssa, the famous metropolis of the Buddhic world. The multitude of aged trees which surround the city with a verdant wall; the tall white houses, with their flat roofs and their towers; the numerous temples with their gilt roofs, the Buddha-La, above which rises the palace of the Talé-Lama—all these features communicate to Lha-Ssa a majestic and imposing aspect. At the entrance of the town, some Mongols with whom we had formed an acquaintance on the road, and who had preceded us by several days, met us, and invited us to accompany them to lodgings which they had been friendly enough to prepare for us. It was now the 29th January, 1846; and it was eighteen months since we had parted from the Valley of Black Waters. [Picture: Chinese and Tartar male head-dresses] [Picture: View of Lha-Ssa] CHAPTER V. Lodgings in a Thibetian House—Appearance of Lha-Ssa—Palace of the Talé-Lama—Picture of the Thibetians—Monstrous Toilet of the Women—Industrial and Agricultural productions of Thibet—Gold and Silver Mines—Foreigners resident at Lha-Ssa—The Pebouns—The Katchis—The Chinese—Position of the relations between China and Thibet—Various speculations of the public respecting us—We present ourselves to the Authorities—Form of the Thibetian Govermnent—Grand Lama of Djachi-Loumbo—Society of the Kalons—Thibetian Prophecy—Tragical Death of three Talé-Lamas—Account of Ki-Chan—Condemnation of the Nomekhan—Revolt of the Lamasery of Sera.