I did
not suffer from the climate, but in the case of most Europeans the
air passages become irritated, the skin cracks, and after a time the
action of the heart is affected. The hair when released stands out
from the head, leather shrivels and splits, horn combs break to
pieces, food dries up, rapid evaporation renders water-colour
sketching nearly impossible, and tea made with water from fifteen to
twenty below the boiling-point of 212 degrees, is flavourless and
flat.
After a delightful journey of twenty-five days I camped at Spitak,
among the chod-tens and manis which cluster round the base of a lofty
and isolated rock, crowned with one of the most striking monasteries
in Ladak, and very early the next morning, under a sun of terrific
fierceness, rode up a five-mile slope of blazing gravel to the goal
of my long march. Even at a short distance off, the Tibetan capital
can scarcely be distinguished from the bare, ribbed, scored, jagged,
vermilion and rose-red mountains which nearly surround it, were it
not for the palace of the former kings or Gyalpos of Ladak, a huge
building attaining ten storeys in height, with massive walls sloping
inwards, while long balconies and galleries, carved projections of
brown wood, and prominent windows, give it a singular
picturesqueness.
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