158 Mountain and Monastery ; 
horns of this animal in a Lutzu hut. There are also musk 
deer, and I dare say other things besides. 
Numbers of pilgrims passed through A-tun-tsi every 
day on their way to Doker-la—long processions in single 
file, men and women, with packs on their backs, and 
bamboo wands, each decorated with a sprig of ever- 
green in their hands. I now saw for the first time one of 
those extraordinary people of whom I had often read, who 
- proceed by measuring their length on the ground over the 
entire distance, thus acquiring a vast amount of merit. 
He was a ragged-looking man, dirty and ill-kempt, as well 
he might be, with a leather apron over his long cloak, and 
his hands thrust through the straps of flat wooden clogs, 
like Japanese sandals. Standing up with his arms by his 
side, he clapped the clogs together in front of him 
once, twice, then slowly raised them above his head, and 
clapping them together a third time, stretched himself at full 
length on the ground with his arms straight out in front of 
him. Mumbling a prayer he again clapped, made a mark 
on the ground at the full stretch of his arms, and rose to his 
feet. Then he solemnly walked forward three steps to the 
mark he had made, and repeated the performance ; and so 
the weary journey went on. 
Who but a Tibetan, taking no heed of time, consumed 
with zeal for a religion which preaches self-effacement, could 
devise such a method for acquiring merit! Perhaps he was 
travelling thus to Doker-la, a journey which would take him 
weeks to accomplish. 
On September 13 the ex-official Hsia-fu, who had as a 
matter of fact been dismissed for embezzling government 
money, left the village, his influence having obtained for 
him another post elsewhere. Thus was he rehabilitated 
in the eyes of the population, and Chinese politeness de- 
manded that his previous pecadillos should be ignored as 
though they had never taken place. MHsia-fu once more 
held official rank, and convention had to be observed. 
Though degraded, he had been compelled to stay on pri- 
vately in A-tun-tsi till some of his debts were paid off, and 
he had to sell a good deal of his property to accomplish 
this. Moreover the poor man was in a quandary owing 
to his possessing two wives, a pretty Tibetan girl with no 
