"... As we had been informed, the lamas here were ready to receive us, with meal and beds prepared and our own apartments all in order.... The Lama who greeted us was about five feet tall, low flat forehead, flat nose, full thick lips, rather round small head and with a sweep of black whiskers falling from his chin.... In fact, NONE of these lamas are GRAY,--the only thing that suggests AGE is their stooped and slender bodies and bent and bony fingers.... AND THEY ALLOW THE PRACTICE OF POLYANDRY in their diocese!... One woman has a dozen husbands ... and every THIRD man we meet with is a lama.
"... Still the women we see here are more attractive than those we encountered in Cashmere.
"... Before leaving the convent we were again cautioned against holding conversation with STRANGERS we might encounter in the numerous caravans along the road to LEH.... We punctiliously obeyed these instructions during the rest of our journey until we reached the PETAK convent, which stands upon an isolated rock beside an abandoned garrison or fort, with its two towers looking like ant hills beside the majestic mountain that rises ten thousand feet above our resting place.... This mountain is the sentinel that protects our entrance into Thibet.... Six miles away is LEH, elevated eleven thousand feet above the lowlands and around whose shadowy convents rise those immense granite pinnacles to an elevation of eighteen thousand feet, where their frosty crests are enshrouded in the fezzes of eternal snows!...
"... Leh, with its circlet of stubby aspen trees, its succession of terraces, its old fort and the palace of its forgotten Moguls, has its arms outstretched for us.... The mystic word has been passed along our route and BEHOLD we are encamped in a well-furnished three-story white bungalow with odors oozing from the kitchen that promise a night of security and content!..."
48. The next entry gives a glimpse of the country through which our party passed:
"Traveling toward the east we have passed through a number of villages of neat two-story houses in these narrow walled-in valleys.... The inhabitants are, clearly, of a Mongolian race,--the homeliest I have ever seen!... They cultivate but little patches of the land, sit around all day and gain their hollow cheeks and shrunken chests and wrinkled foreheads by squinting at the sun.... Even the women are tiny things with a perpetual smile that pushes up their high cheek bones into a horn-like prominence and apparently belies their apparent gaiety.... The belts of these men are perfect arsenals of curious-looking things.... With their cloth caps with ear flaps hanging down, their knee breeches and their linen shirts hung with a dozen prayer wheels, they characterize this country well....