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The days seemed endless as, lying on a peak above our camp, I remained hour after hour scanning with my telescope the long plateau above the Gakkon River in search of our expected messengers. As time went on and the messengers did not put in an appearance, we began to entertain doubts as to their safety. Would they betray us and never return? My Indian servant declined to eat any more nettles.
A large escort took us along a rocky road following the course of the Gakkon River along barren cliffs. We passed hundreds of choktens, large and small, mostly painted red, and mani walls. Then, having descended by a precipitous track on whitish clay-soil, we reached a thickly inhabited district, where stone houses were scattered all over the landscape.
This plateau sloped gently, and was broken by many deep crevasses, conveying the waterflow down into the Gakkon River. On the lower portion of this plateau, and then along the course of the river, a track ran from Gyanema to Taklakot via Kardam and Dogmar, and another seldom-frequented track to Mangshan, south-south-west of this place.
To add bodily discomfort to my moral sufferings, I slipped, while jumping in the semi-darkness from stone to stone across the Gakkon River, and fell flat into about four feet of ice-cold water. The wind was high at the time.
The messenger overtook us and handed Lapsang a letter. It contained an order to bring us immediately into Taklakot. We retraced our steps along the undulating plateau above the Gakkon River. Late at night we reached the village of Dogmar, a peculiar settlement in a valley between two high cliffs of clay. The natives lived in holes and chambers hollowed in the cliff.
Such was our anxiety, when we reached this point, lest something should happen and we should be taken back again by another route, that as soon as we were across the wooden bridge over the Gakkon River, Chanden Sing and I, on perceiving the large Shoka encampment at the foot of the hill, lashed our ponies and ran away from our guard.
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