The others wait for us among the first moraines, and then we proceed in close column up and down among old moraines which have been thrust down by vanished glaciers. A party of pilgrims from Kham in the distant east are resting on the bank of the Dunglung river. They have pitched their tents, and their horses are grazing on the fresh grass. From the top of the moraine is seen the northern part of our stormy Langak-tso.
We ride up the valley and soon have on both sides solid rock of hard green and violet conglomerate, with huge cones of detritus at the foot of the slopes. Enormous boulders of conglomerate have fallen down here. On the left bank of the river, where the road comes up from Tarchen, stand a small cubical house and several _manis_ and _chhortens_ in long rows: it is a sacred road, the road of pilgrims round Kang-rinpoche.
The cliffs assume ever wilder forms, falling perpendicularly to terraces and pebble screes, forming steps and ledges, fortifications, battlements and towers, as though built by human hands. They consist of sandstone and conglomerate, and the strata dip 10° to the south, and to the eye appear horizontal. A small bridge spans the river. A party of pilgrims behind us is just crossing it. But we are on the right bank, and above us Nyandi-gompa is perched on its terrace. Above it rises the vertical wall of a huge mountain mass, a dangerous background for the monastery. Up on a ledge dwells a hermit, and quite at the top stands a streamer pole named Nyandi-kong. Five years ago a huge block fell down upon the monastery and laid half of it in ruins. The block still lies in the inner court. It was early in the morning after long-continuous rain; no one was hurt, but the monastery had to be rebuilt.
Two monks, two old women, and a boy received us kindly, and said it was the first time they had seen a European in Nyandi. The monastery, as well as the three others on Kailas, is under Tarchen-labrang, which is situated on the southern foot of the mountain, where the pilgrims begin and end their circuit. Curiously enough, these monasteries belong to Tongsa Penlop, the Raja of Bhotan. The preceding year, 1906, was a year of the fire horse, and the year 1918 will be a year of the earth horse; every twelfth year is a horse year, in which wood, fire, earth, iron or water is prefixed to the name horse; the Tibetan cycle (the period of time which is the base of the reckoning) extends over sixty years with the names of twelve different animals. Every horse year, and accordingly every twelfth year, crowds of pilgrims come to Kailas. The monks said that they cannot be counted, but they knew that in the year 1907 more than 5000 pilgrims had been at Nyandi, of whom the greater part came from Ladak.