There was no use in telling a villager to
point out to the officer who would come after me what stores I had
unearthed; for the villagers, though well paid, would always evade
supplying stores if possible. The only expedient left was to make use of
those charms which were possessed by the 'chit.' In the first village I
found fifty maunds of tsampa; so, solemnly taking out my pocket book, I
wrote on a leaf of it 'fifty maunds of tsampa in a top-room of the house
with the big red door,' and, tearing this out of the book, presented it
with grave dignity to the owner of the house. At the next villages I
acted similarly. Some hours after I reached camp the officer in charge
of the transport that had been detailed for foraging reached camp in due
possession of my fifty maunds of tsampa and all the other articles that
I had enumerated in the subsequent chits. It had turned out exactly as I
had hoped. That officer had entered the various villages in turn, and
the proud possessors of the chits, innocent of their real purport, had
come up to him and presented them with childlike simplicity for him to
read, and of course they had given him just the information which they
did not want to give him, but which he required, and which I had had no
other means of conveying to him.

It was playing it rather low down perhaps, but, after all, we wanted the
supplies.

CHAPTER XIX

MONASTERIES: FORAGING IN MONASTERIES: A DREAM

There were at least two fair-sized monasteries which during the next few
days we visited to obtain supplies. Monasteries seem to vary in
character as they vary in size. Buddhism seems, in fact, to have left
its mark upon Tibet in the manner of some great flood. Here on a lone
hilltop stands a tiny monastery stagnant, like some small pool left by
the flood, the monks few in number, their persons sordid, their minds
vacant, and what remains of their religion stale or even polluted; while
elsewhere in larger monasteries religion is clearer and more vital, and
life less stagnant. This is a pure generalisation, and doubtless men,
holy after their lights, often live in remote hovels, and in the chiefer
centres religion may often be dreamy or callous, and sordid vices be not
unknown. But perhaps, merely as a generalisation, the above may hold
good.

A foraging visit to a monastery was often marked by several phases, in
which the relations between visitor and visited underwent considerable
change. The officer in