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362 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
a couple more showers had fallen, my top-boots echoed
back swish, swish ! When I lifted my arm it was like
wringing out a wet rag. What would we not have given
for an hour’s warm, bright sunshine ?
To the east we saw a large winding river ; but the track
we were following crossed successively o\er five easy passes
and then joined another route from the left, which had
recently been used by a yak-caravan.
A little bit farther on we perceived in the distance a
number of black dots, which eventually revealed themselves
in the all-pervading gloom as a flock of sheep. On the
bank of a brook we saw a tent ; whereupon the Lama went
to pay it a visit. Meanwhile, Shagdur and I continued
steadily on, he leading the little caravan and I driving on
the animals behind. The people at the tent turned out to
be a caravan of Tangut pilgrims, travelling from the temple
of Kum-bum (in the Chinese province of Kan-su) to Lassa.
They had with them fifty yaks, two or three horses and
three dogs ; these last had a short but disastrous tussle
with Yolbars and Malenki. The pilgrims showed them-
selves interested to a suspicious degree in our movements.
The flock of sheep consisted of seven hundred head and
was in the charge of an old woman, who showed not the
slightest trace of fear. But then we were now so horribly
dirty from the mud and the rain that the raggedest tramp
would not have blushed to be seen in our company. The
old woman jwinted out to us a nomad’s black tent,
and said that we could get there any information we
wanted. Accordingl}- we pitched our own tent not very
far from it.
Xo sooner was our new camp in order than the Lama
went over to the black tent, and found there two women
and a 3-oung man ; the master of the house was, they said,
away from home, but would soon come back. They
excused themselves from being unable to sell us sheep,
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