[Illustration: CARAVANSERAI AT TACHIENLU. _By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
But when we reached the caravanserai, or inn, where Baber stayed and Mr. Rockhill and all the foreigners, where Prince Henry of Orleans and Mr. Pratt were shut up as it were, the place looked so forbidding we hesitated to enter, till reassured by hearing the strident tones of our Chinese butler inside. The rooms actually upstairs--after we had gone up the staircase, embedded in filth and hair--were a most agreeable surprise, almost as good as an attic in a London East-End lodging-house at first sight. Buttered tea was served at once, and before many minutes were over the lady of the inn, a very handsome Tibetan, had invited me to a little repast in her private room: tea buttered, of course--and really very good--Tibetan cheese like very fresh cream-cheese, and _tsamba_, a kind of barley-meal, and excellent when kneaded into a ball with buttered tea. Lamas strode in and out of the courtyard, and stared, swinging praying-wheels. All manner of men and women looked in. It was quite enough to sit at the window and look down at the kaleidoscope below, for every one came in and gave us a glance. And that was just what we wanted to do to them. But they would not sell their praying-wheels, and the Lamas would not let me look at the amulets which they carry on their breasts in square cases, sometimes crusted with turquoises. Surely never was there a people more bejewelled. The dirtiest man we saw would have a jewel or two stuck in his hair, and as likely as not a huge ring on his finger.
There were five flagstaffs hung with prayers on our inn, besides a long cord, hung with them, stretched across the roof. People were muttering "Om Mani Padmi Hum" as they passed along the street; and as the last sound at night was the Lamas' trumpets calling to prayers, so we were roused before dawn by the men in the room below us reciting continuously "Om Mani Padmi Hum" over and over again for two hours at least. One began to say it oneself: "The jewel is in the lotus,"--a pretty saying enough, which might mean anything. But, alas! we could see no more of the Tibetans at their devotions. At the first _lamaserai_ we visited the temple doors were closed, and the Lamas signified by gestures that no key could be found to open them. They were not uncivil there, although rather peremptorily forbidding me to use my eyeglass till they had themselves examined it, to see what effect it might have on the brilliantly coloured pictures in the temple porch. They also forbade me to photograph, yet allowed me to do so in the end, and acquiesced in my going upstairs to get a better place for the camera. There I saw that the door of each Lama's room, giving on the colonnade running round the courtyard, was locked and padlocked with a padlock of such portentous size as to suggest many thoughts. Only one door downstairs had been open, where a very small Lama was repeating his lessons out of what looked like a most beautifully written and illuminated book; for, the paper in the window being torn out, we could see all over the room, which looked like a particularly dirty, dilapidated little stable. But when I asked the small boy's leave to go in, wishing to examine his book, he sprang to the doorway, and the attitude into which he threw himself, forbidding me to enter, was superb. It said "Avaunt, Satanas!" and indicated that all the lightnings of heaven would fall, if I took but one step forward. And, though amused, I could not but admire the little boy for so pluckily standing his ground. But when another little Lama, on our coolies somewhat roughly ordering him to keep clear of the camera, threw himself into an attitude of boxing, it seemed so ridiculous that, just to test him, I laughed, then clenched my fist, and made as if I would fight too; on which he laughed heartily, showing he could quite understand a joke.