The march to Pulme, our next point up the valley of the Dzakar-chu, was 22 miles, a very dull and uninteresting ride. The going was bad--we often had to follow the bed of the river, which was now in flood and extended to the cliffs on both sides--at other times we kept high up on the steep sides of a gorge, sometimes of gneiss, sometimes of limestone rock. In places where the valley widened out, the river bed was full of bushes of tamarisk and sea buckthorn, but otherwise the vegetation was scanty. After going 15 miles we were to change coolies; but the Lumeh coolies, who were extremely poor and very different from those that we had taken from Kharta, took eleven hours to cover the 15 miles, and did not arrive till six in the evening. Much to Heron's disgust, I proposed to push on to Pulme, late as it was; but the road was good, and we trotted the 7 miles in an hour and a half, though the coolies and the donkeys did not arrive till well after dark. Fortunately we found tents as usual pitched for our reception. We had originally intended to ford the Dzakar-chu that evening and camp on the far side, but it was too dangerous to do it in the dark, though the villagers told us that by morning the stream would be a couple of feet higher. The river is a great obstacle at this time of the year, as there is no bridge over it here, the next bridge being at Chöbu, 20 miles higher up the valley.
The following day I started on my return journey to Tingri, leaving at 5.30 in the morning with Chheten Wangdi. I succeeded in fording the Dzakar-chu, which was deep and very swift. My pony was swept off his legs once and I got very wet, the icy cold water coming right over the saddle.
Heron and the coolies were to follow on slowly and were to take two days in reaching Tingri, but I was anxious to get back, having been away already longer than I intended. Four miles away, at Tashi Dzom, I changed ponies and procured a guide who was to take me on to Tingri, leaving Chheten Wangdi behind with Heron. This guide proved quite an amusing fellow, and suddenly surprised me by counting in English one, two, three, four, and then saying "Right turn" and "Left turn," and other military words of command. On inquiring where he had learned this English, I found that at one time he had served as a soldier at Lhasa, where the military words of command are in English, and these were the only English words that he knew. After leaving Tashi Dzom we turned up into a broad side valley with villages every half-mile and surrounded by barley, mustard and pea fields. What was, however, especially noticeable about all these valleys that we had been passing through for the last two days, was the extraordinary number of ruined villages that there were everywhere. This was not due to lack of water, for there was plenty of water in all the streams; these valleys, however, must have at one time been very thickly inhabited, and it is probable that the dearth of population to-day is due to the wars with the Gurkhas in the eighteenth century. We had a very wet ride--one storm after another overtook us, and a cold rain fell heavily all the way to Tingri. We gradually ascended out of the cultivation and crossing a low pass, about 16,000 feet, looked down again on the great Tingri Plain. There was still, however, a long way to go, and it was not till after five o'clock in the evening that I reached Tingri, drenched to the skin. It had been a ride of between 36 and 40 miles.