HOT SPRINGS 185 
received when on the mountain some days before, and 
I never was able to find out whether he was telling a 
falsehood or whether my men had invented the message 
said to have come from him. I strongly suspect, how- 
ever, that his royal memory was rather short. He was 
much interested in the gun I was carrying (an ordinary 
12-bore double), and wanted to know how far it would 
kill. He seemed to be an intelligent man, well in- 
formed considering the country in which he lived, and 
he had been to Pekin. He is a practically independent 
chieftain, but sends tribute once in two years to Pekin, 
and has frequent disputes as to questions of jurisdiction 
with the Chinese officials at Ta-tsien-lu. He is wealthy, 
as things go there, his riches being principally in land, 
cattle, and ponies, owning several hundreds of the latter. 
About ten li further on I reached a Tibetan hamlet, 
being, in fact, one of his dairy-farms, where I slept in 
a house owned by his Majesty, and I was lucky enough 
to get delicious milk and butter, though the place 
was rather dirty. The house was built in the Tibetan 
fashion, of loose stones, clay being used to fill the inter- 
stices, the roof being shingled with long split-pine shingles 
upon which were placed large stones to prevent the high 
winds, so prevalent here, blowing them off. Here there 
are three hot springs, each issuing from the top of a 
yellowish-brown conicalrock. These coneshave evidently 
