136 Across the China-Tibet Frontier 
spangled as before with patches of yellow Pedicularis, blue 
Boraginaceae, crimson AAznanthus and other flowers. 
Rounding a high rocky bluff, the summit of which was 
crowned by a temple, we came suddenly upon Garthok, 
until this moment quite invisible owing to its being built 
in a depression, so that the flat house-roofs came to be 
almost flush with the general level of the valley floor. 
Indeed had it not been for bunches of poles sticking up 
here and there carrying prayer flags, I should scarcely 
have seen it at all till I rode into the narrow street, and 
even then it turned out to be a much bigger place than 
I had supposed at first glance. According to Captain 
Rawling’s account, villages with important names in western 
Tibet turn out to be miserable places with half-a-dozen 
huts, and such for instance is the case with Garthok near 
the source of the Sutlej, though it is nevertheless an 
important trading centre in the summer. In eastern Tibet, 
however, villages which are important are generally also 
large and the Garthok of Kham province (known to the 
Chinese as Chianca, by which name I shall in future refer 
to it, thus avoiding any confusion with the Garthok of 
western Tibet) is almost as big as Batang, boasting I 
suppose quite 200 families, a lamasery with over a hundred 
priests, an official yamen with a small garrison, and no less 
than four schools ! 
The moral of all this is that trade between China and 
Tibet is in a far more flourishing condition than trade 
between India and Tibet, and that it is the Chinese who 
have made eastern Tibet what it is. Nor is it to be 
thought that all this has taken place only since 1905, for 
the Chinese have been in eastern Tibet for more than 
a century, gradually building up the present prosperity, 
though it is well known that the events of 1905 gave an 
impetus to their activity. 
At the time of my visit to Chianca the official and 
garrison were away, for throughout the summer Chinese 
and Tibetans had been fighting in the Pomed country a 
fortnight’s journey west of Chianca, and though local 
rumour said that the Chinese were losing heavily, such 
statements must be taken for what they are worth. Many 
of the houses in the village are built several feet below 
