The Lapchak 259 



Gartok, the joint- viceroys of Western Tibet. The 

 monastery of the red lamas at Hemis, and a few 

 other of the more important Ladak monasteries, 

 also enjoy similar privileges in conjunction with 

 the affiliated monastic institutions in Tibet. 



The Lapchak, which is the Kashmir State 

 mission, is financed to some extent from the 

 State coffers. The rupees advanced used formerly 

 to be repaid to the State, after the return of the 

 mission, in Chinese tea -bricks; but the auction 

 of this quantity of tea gave rise to so many abuses 

 that the present custom of repaying both principal 

 and interest in cash was substituted. 



But to return to the caravans, which we left 

 moving slowly eastward. In a few days they 

 will have crossed the frontier of Ladak, the " Lhari 

 stream at Demjok," and entered the forbidden 

 land. Their road lies along the banks of the 

 Indus, but lately sprung from his cradle among the 

 peaks of Kailas. The famous river is here but a 

 child in the Buddhist land of its birth a small and 

 shallow stream, sometimes rippling along between 

 grassy banks, sometimes meandering sluggishly 

 among boggy flats, fordable nearly everywhere. 

 Who would recognise the same river in his 

 tempestuous youth, when, with leaping waves, 

 he thunders and surges down the gorges of 

 Haramosh and Chilas ? Or who, again, in his 



