substantially as below:
“I am a travelling priest making a pilgrimage through different countries in quest of Buḍḍhist truths. I have heard of your fame, and have come to be taught one thing.”
“What can that be, friend?”
“You are saving the souls of the multitude, and I wish to learn the grand secret which serves so well for your purpose.”
“Friend, you know that well enough yourself. All Buḍḍhism is in you, and you have nothing to learn from me.”
“True, all Buḍḍhism is in the Self, but in ancient days Jenzai Dōji travelled far and wide in search of fifty-three wise men, and we, the Buḍḍhists, are all taught to derive lessons from the great hardships then undergone by him. I am far from being a Jenzai Dōji, and yet I am privileged to imitate him: it is thus that I have called on you.”
“Good! I have but one means to guide me in saving souls, and the ‘Grand Gospel of Salvation’ is that guide of mine.”
“May I have the pleasure of seeing that Gospel?”
“Most certainly.” The Lama here went into his cave, and, fetching out a volume, kindly lent it to me. On asking what was the gist of the Gospel of Salvation, I was told that it resolved itself into teaching that the three yānas (vehicles) were but one yāna. I then withdrew and went back to the grey cave, taking with me the borrowed volume, and I spent the rest of the day in reading through the Gospel, which I found to be a compilation, resembling in its tenets the Hoke-kyo—the Sūṭra Saḍḍharma Puṇdarīka—and in some places it even read like extracts from the last mentioned Gospel. The next day I turned cobbler, and mended my boots. On the morning following, I revisited Gelong Rinpoche and returned the Gospel. In so doing, the Lama and I had quite an argument, which, in short, was an exchange of views, based on the Tibetan school of Buḍḍhism on the part of the Lama, and on Japanese and Chinese schools on mine.
On the 7th of July I made a parting call on the holy dweller of the white cliff, when the good man presented me with considerable quantities of baked flour, butter, and raisins, saying that without a full and good supply of them I might die on the journey. This was all very nice, but it increased my load by twenty pounds, an addition which always counts a great deal to a solitary peddler, going a long distance over difficult roads, as I was to do. Back in the grey cave, I once more set myself to repairing my boots, but the work was new to me, and I was more successful in sticking the needle into my finger than in progressing with the job. The upshot was that the occupant of the cave, taking pity on me, kindly did the greater part of the work for me. Early on the 8th I bade good-bye to the kind-hearted disciple of Gelong Rinpoche, and relaunched myself on my journey, with eighty-five solid pounds on my back, which in no time began to ache under the weight.
CHAPTER XV.
In helpless Plight.
Some hours after leaving the grey cliff I reached a river about 180 yards wide. Before plunging into it to wade across, I took my noon-meal of baked flour: it was then about eleven o’clock. The river was the one of which I had been informed, and I knew it could be forded. After the repast I took off my boots and trousers, and having also tucked up the other portions of my dress, went down into the river. Oh! that plunge! it nearly killed me; the water was bitingly cold, and I saw at once that I could never survive the crossing of it. I at once turned round and crawled up the bank, but the contact with the water had already chilled me, and produced in me a sort of convulsion. What was to be done? I happened to think of ointment as a remedy, as well as a preventive, under the circumstances. I took out a bottle of clove oil I had with me, and smeared it in abundance all over my body. What with the sun shining and my giving myself a good rubbing all over, I felt better. Then, equipped as before, I made a second plunge. The water was cold, indeed cold enough to make my feet quite insensible before I had gone half-way across, and the rest of the fording I managed simply by the help of my two staves. The river was about hip-deep and the stream quite rapid, and when I reached the opposite bank I found myself almost a frigid body, stiff and numb in every part.
The next thing to be done was, of course, to recover the circulation of blood in the almost frozen limbs; but I discovered this to be no easy task, for my hands were too stiff to do anything, and it took full two hours to put myself in shape to resume the journey. As it was, when I started out at about two o’clock, my legs were so flabby that I felt as if they were going to drop off. And my increased luggage weighed so heavily on my back, that I was now compelled to take it down and devise some new way of carrying it. This I did by dividing the baggage into two equal parts and, tying one to each end of my two staves (which I had tied together), I slung them across my shoulder. But two rough round sticks grinding against the untrained flesh of the shoulder, with eighty pounds of pressure, were not much of relief for a novice at this method of carrying burdens, and at every hundred or two hundred yards of my progress, which was tardy enough, I had to alter my mode of conveyance. In the two hours which followed, I made an ascent of half a mile and then a descent of about a mile, and when I had arrived at the bank of a river at about four o’clock, exhaustion made further progress impossible for me for the day.
A NIGHT IN THE OPEN AND A SNOW-LEOPARD.
Settled down for a bivouac, I set about making a fire to get tea ready. In Tibetan wilds the only kind of fuel accessible to travellers (except of course dead leaves of trees for kindling purposes) is the dry dung of the yak (these animals being set loose to graze for themselves) and the kyang, a species of native wild horse. I gathered some of these lumps, and built them up into a sort of partially hollow cone, with a broad base and low elevation, and then three pieces of nearly equal size placed tripod-like around this cone completed my arrangement for putting my tea-pot over the fire. But the fire was still to be made, and I may say that making a fire of this description is not a very easy performance until one acquires the knack of the thing; even a pair of hand-bellows is of little help, especially when the fuel is not sufficiently dry. Matches being unknown in those regions, I had to resort to the old-fashioned method of obtaining sparks of fire by striking a stone against a piece of iron, and it is again a matter of art to make those sparks kindle the tinder. The tea-pot I carried with me then was one large enough to hold a quart and a half of water. In those high regions water boils very quickly, owing to the diminished atmospheric pressure, and as soon as it began to boil I would throw into it a handful of Chinese brick tea; but I had to let the mixture stand boiling for at least two hours before I could obtain a liquor of the right color and flavor. I should add that it is the usual practice with Tibetans, which I followed, to put some natural soda (which is found in Tibet) into the water when the tea is thrown in. When enough boiling had been done, I would put in some butter and salt, and after a little stirring all was ready to be served. It was this tedious process that I went through on that river bank. After that, I went about gathering all the dung I could find, and then, returning, piled it up all over the fire to make it last the whole night—a precaution which was necessary to keep off snow-leopards, which often prove to be dangerous nocturnal enemies of man in these parts.
To keep a fire burning brightly through the night was, however, to court a still greater danger, for it might attract marauding robbers, on the look out from far-off hill and mountain tops. Of the two dangers, that of robbers was the worst, for whereas a snow-leopard will sometimes leave a sleeping man alone, even with no fire, robbers will never leave him alone. Under these circumstances I left my fire smouldering, with a well-pressed layer of sandy soil over it, so that it would last till the morning, giving me at the same time enough warmth to keep me alive. When the moon rose that night I saw it was nearly
