t a parcels post to bring it to us, became very scarce.
The Sahib missed his pipe or cheroot, and the native his
'hubble-bubble,' and both alike took to the 'Pedro' cigarette, the
produce of an enterprising firm whose custom extended to Lhassa. Vendors
of Pedros had followed us on the march, and, apart from this, the Lhassa
bazaar abounded in the article, getting it, I suppose, through China or
by the trade route that lies through Nepal. By a rough estimate it would
appear that for two months at least four thousand souls smoked an
average of ten Pedros daily. The rate grew very much enhanced with the
constant demand, and I know of one needy officer who, in view of the
fortune thus doubtless made by the firm, has announced his intention of
going head-down for home and offering his hand and heart to Miss Pedro,
if he finds such a person existing.

Shopping in the camp bazaar was the ladylike way in which we often spent
our mornings. We had only been in camp at Lhassa for twenty-four hours,
when a bazaar was formed just outside camp by Tibetan, Chinese, and
Nepali traders. It needed a little supervision to prevent disputes and
disorder, but the provost-marshal quickly had it in hand. An attempt to
fix rates for various more necessary articles was not wholly successful,
human nature on the buyer's part crying out for the article at all cost,
and human nature on the seller's seizing an easy chance of profit. There
were vegetables in that bazaar and sticks of wild rhubarb. There was
'ata,' in small quantities, which the sepoy would buy greedily as a
change from his tsampa. There were packets of white loaf sugar fetching
exorbitant prices, and thick Chinese candles with bits of stick for
wicks. Later on, when we had moved from our first camp to that which we
occupied for the greater part of the time, the bazaar developed. The
vendors by that time had discovered our childish mania for curios, and
brought with them each morning such trinkets as would attract our fancy.
Skins of all kinds would be brought for sale; the skins of very young
lambs, almost as curly as real Astrakan, which, made up together in
winter linings for lamas' robes, seemed equally adaptable to the opera
cloaks of our sisters and cousins and aunts at home; skins too of the
lynx, the marmot, the wolf, and the snow fox. And women would come
wearing heavy earrings set with turquoises and 'charm boxes' similarly
set, which they wore as lockets at the neck. They wo