EXPLORATIONS IX MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 



Cub 



vxer possible, well cultivated, barley and wlieat are the principal crops, 

 and near each of the houses is a little ji-arden-patch, where we saw with 

 <lelight cabbages, onions, i)eas and turnips, but we noticed no domestic 

 fowls J these are found only in the Chinesitied portions of the country. 

 From :\rer djong, we went to Eiwoche (a dependency of Lh'asa) <m 

 the Tse ch'u. passing through some beautiful alpine country (along the 

 Ke ch'u), the mountain sides covered with tine forest growth and the 

 valley bottom a mass of flowers of every hue. Frequently we saw large 

 bunches of silver pheasants (Crassoptiloii tibctanum, in Tibetan Saga), 

 moving rapidly about in the thickets of rhododendrons and laurel-like 

 plants, calling their young with a cry peculiarly like that of the guinea 

 fowl. Very few varieties of birds were uoticed however here, or, in 

 fact, anywhere along the route, singing birds being especially rare. 



Wi. 10.— Half-breed yaks with loads. 



Eiwoch(i is a place of some importance commercially, but from a pic- 

 tures(pie point of view it is especially noteworthy for its peculiar temi)le, 

 Avith walls of wliite and red,;indgokl spires rising from its green-tiled 

 roofs. Around the temple are the dwellings of some tliree hundred 

 lamas, near which are the houses of iierliaps a hundred fainibes of lay 

 men. The village is at the base of steep, forest-clad UKmntains, and 

 ])efore it flows the swift river. This place is one of the few in Tibet 

 Avhich can boast of a wall around it; it was built by the Chinese, in all 

 probability, about 1717. 



Two stages down the Ze ch'u valley brought us to Xyulda, a Chinese 

 post station on the highroad to Lli'asa, where the soldiers supplied us 

 with the first eggs and vegetables we had had for many a long month. 



