THE CHANG LA. 301 



few yards to sometimes several hundred. Each flat stone 

 has inscribed on it the words, " Oin mani padmi horn " 

 meaning, God ! the jewel in the lotus. We passed one 

 of these erections, which was some five or six hundred 

 paces long, and every stone of it had, I was told, this 

 short prayer engraved on it. All Tibetan Buddhists con- 

 stantly repeat these words when twirling their little hand 

 prayer-cylinders, which contain a scroll inscribed with the 

 same mystical sentence, and each revolution is supposed to 

 represent a repetition of it. The Tibetans always pass these 

 manes, or roadside shrines, on the right, whichever direction 

 they may be travelling, thereby, I suppose, ensuring their 

 going round them should they return by the same route ; 

 circumambulation, as well as rotatory motion, being among 

 the ritual forms of the Tibetan Buddhist religion. 



Across the Indus, opposite to where our path quitted its 

 valley at Khurroo, is the great Buddhist monastery of Hemis, 

 hidden away in a sequestered gorge. It is said to contain 

 several hundred Lamas. We now turned northwards up a 

 narrow glen leading to the Chang la (pass), and encamped at 

 Chimray, where there is another fine monastery perched high 

 on a hill. 



The pass, although over 18,000 feet high, is easy to cross, 

 but we suffered somewhat from the rarefied air. Besides the 

 usual shortness of breath and the feeling of extra weight 

 and lassitude, more especially about the legs, in me it pro- 

 duced headache and nausea, which I did not get rid of until 

 the following day, when we descended to Tanksee. The south 

 side of the pass was quite devoid of snow ; the gently sloping 

 north side, however, was considerably patched with it, and 

 the cold at night was intense. And here I may remark, 

 that although the perpetual-snow line on the western side of 

 the main Himalayan chain is somewhere about 16,000 feet, 

 eastward on the ranges rising from the Tibetan uplands it is 

 nearly, if not quite, 20,000 feet. This difference may pos- 



