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368 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
washed " clean " by the rain, and had to be ’’
made up
"
two or three times a day ; but I defy anybody to have made
that Tibetan beauty presentable in decent society even
though they had turned a fire-hose upon her.
Honest Sampo Singhi made no effort to detain us beyond
the one day ; on the contrary, he was anxious to get rid of
us as soon as possible. And perhaps he was right. Any-
way, when we came to his grazing grounds again on our
return, he had disappeared. Perhaps his hospitality had
got him into trouble ; and amid the tremendous commotion
occasioned by our entry into Tibet proper, he may somehow
have been made to suffer. When we left him, he wished us
a successful journey, deceiver that he was, and told us it
would take us two days to reach the next nomad camp.
It was pouring with rain when we resumed our journey
beside the river Gar-chu, which flowed down Sampo Singhi’s
valley. Beyond the last low pass we reached, the country
appeared to open out before us, at any rate, there were no
mountains or hills ; but then we could not see very far
because of the rain, which was literally coming down in
sheets. Our saddles were so wet it was like sitting in a pool
of water, while our own clothes clung to us like wet sheets.
The track now led down between deserted Tibetan encamp-
ments to the right bank of a river, so big and broad that
we at first took it for a lake. It was the Saju-sangpo, one
of the largest streams in the interior of Tibet. The loud
pattering of the raindrops on the water was, however, soon
drowned by the dull rumbling that a vast body of water
makes when pouring on at a swift rate.
The river was divided into twenty arms, four of them
so big that I was afraid it would be impossible to ford them.
Our Lama, who always led the way, rode quietly down into
the water as though he had not observed the greyish-brown
tumultuous torrent, and we of course followed close at his
heels. I confess I expected every moment to see him
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