1 148 WHERE THREE EMPIRES MEET
2 other offerings for the gods. The traveller, too, who
3 penetrates this defile is protected by sacred writings on
4 the face of the cliff, which frighten away the evil spirits
5 of the air. An enchanted land indeed, where signs of
6 magic rites meet one at every step ; a strange world,
7 such as one has seen before in dreams alone, and which
8 on this day looked more unearthly even than usual.
9 The sky above was of the blue of the Tibetan turquoise.
10 There was an absence of perspective, and one could
11 form no idea of distance. As one marched on, far
12 mountains appeared to advance to meet one, and all
13 the stony waste was trembUng with mirage.
14 In the course of this march we ascended a side-
15 nullah to the summit of a ridge forming the watershed
16 between the Wakka and another small tributary of the
17 Indus. On this pass — the Namika La — we were
18 13,000 feet above the sea, that is, 1,500 feet above the
19 Zoji La. But there was no snow, and here we found
20 the easiest bit of road we had experienced since leaving
21 Srinagur. The ridge is a plateau of earth, white with
22 a deposit of nitre or other salt. We then descended
23 into a broad valley hemmed in between bare mountains.
24 We passed two or three villages, and in every case
25 the Buddhists, as usual, avoiding the easy plain, had
26 gone out of their way to build their monastery and
27 dwelling-houses on isolated and precipitous rocks. One
28 of these villages presents a very strange appearance.
29 At the entrance of an extremely desolate side-valley
30 stands a steep hill, topped by a dome of soft rock. This
31 dome is capped by a monastery, and its sides all round
32 are honeycombed with the dwellings and tombs of the
33 village, the whole looking like a gigantic wedding-cake
34 that had been nibbled by mice. A very holy lama
35 dwells here.