Leh Has Few Of What Europeans
Regard As Travelling Necessaries.
The brick tea which I purchased
from a Lhassa trader was disgusting.
I afterwards understood that
blood is used in making up the blocks. The flour was gritty, and a
leg of mutton turned out to be a limb of a goat of much experience.
There were no straps, or leather to make them of, in the bazaar, and
no buckles; and when the latter were provided by Mr. Redslob, the old
man who came to sew them upon a warm rug which I had made for Gyalpo
out of pieces of carpet and hair-cloth put them on wrongly three
times, saying after each failure, 'I'm very foolish. Foreign ways
are so wonderful!' At times the Tibetans say, 'We're as stupid as
oxen,' and I was inclined to think so, as I stood for two hours
instructing the blacksmith about making shoes for Gyalpo, which kept
turning out either too small for a mule or too big for a dray-horse.
I obtained two Lahul muleteers with four horses, quiet, obliging men,
and two superb yaks, which were loaded with twelve days' hay and
barley for my horse. Provisions for the whole party for the same
time had to be carried, for the route is over an uninhabited and arid
desert. Not the least important part of my outfit was a letter from
Mr. Redslob to the headman or chief of the Chang-pas or Champas, the
nomadic tribes of Rupchu, to whose encampment I purposed to make a
detour.
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