s one read only indifference and apathy. One might think
the entry of a foreign army into Lhasa and the presence of English
Political Officers in gold-laced uniform and beaver hats were everyday
events.

The only building in Lhasa that is at all imposing is the Potala.

It would be misleading to say that the palace dominated the city, as a
comparison would be implied--a picture conveyed of one building standing
out signally among others. This is not the case.

The Potala is superbly detached. It is not a palace on a hill, but a
hill that is also a palace. Its massive walls, its terraces and bastions
stretch upwards from the plain to the crest, as if the great bluff rock
were merely a foundation-stone planted there at the divinity's nod. The
divinity dwells in the palace, and underneath, at the distance of a
furlong or two, humanity is huddled abjectly in squalid smut-begrimed
houses. The proportion is that which exists between God and man.

If one approached within a league of Lhasa, saw the glittering domes of
the Potala, and turned back without entering the precincts, one might
still imagine it an enchanted city, shining with turquoise and gold. But
having entered, the illusion is lost. One might think devout Buddhists
had excluded strangers in order to preserve the myth of the city's
beauty and mystery and wealth, or that the place was consciously
neglected and defaced so as to offer no allurements to heretics, just
as the repulsive women one meets in the streets smear themselves over
with grease and cutch to make themselves even more hideous than Nature
ordained.

The place has not changed since Manning visited it ninety years ago, and
wrote:--'There is nothing striking, nothing pleasing, in its appearance.
The habitations are begrimed with smut and dirt. The avenues are full of
dogs, some growling and gnawing bits of hide that lie about in
profusion, and emit a charnel-house smell; others limping and looking
livid; others ulcerated; others starved and dying, and pecked at by
ravens; some dead and preyed upon. In short, everything seems mean and
gloomy, and excites the idea of something unreal.' That is the Lhasa of
to-day. Probably it was the same centuries ago.

Above all this squalor the Potala towers superbly. Its golden roofs,
shining in the sun like tongues of fire, are a landmark for miles, and
must inspire awe and veneration in the hearts of pilgrims coming from
the desert parts of Tibet, Kashmir, and