The next wonder was the celebrated bridge, three hundred feet long, and with hardly any drop in the nine iron chains of which it is composed. Planks were laid loosely upon the chains, starting up at each of the ponies' steps, and the whole bridge swayed like a ship at sea. Two guardians of the bridge at once rushed forward, and placed their arms under mine to support me across, taking for granted that I should be frightened. But looked upon as a yacht pitching and tossing, the bridge really did not make bad weather of it, so I preferred to walk alone and to notice how sea-sick our coolies looked. Just at that point the Tung vividly recalled the Rhine at Basle, but with probably a greater volume of water. That afternoon the scenery began to be as wild and gloomy as we had anticipated, granite mountains increasing in size and narrowing in upon us, the road taking sudden drops down precipitous gorges of four or five hundred feet, and then at once up again. There were prickly pears all about, and pomegranate-trees in hedges, the air full of thyme and peppermint and aromatic scents. Tibetan villages, just like the pictures, were visible on the far left bank of the Tung,--two-storied houses, with tiny holes for windows, and door uncomfortably high up, so that no one could get in, if once the entrance ladder were drawn up; roofs set so as apparently to let in a free current of air. Not a tree visible, not a man moving: there never is in the pictures! Impossible, however, to get across the Tung to look at them; and when isolated houses were visible on our side, it was always in inaccessible eyries.
The little pony I rode, not one of those excellent ponies we hired the first day for a few hours only, had come down twice on both knees with me on its back. It was evident its little legs might have been stronger. And as I rode along these granite precipices, my hands were hot with terror, until at last I could bear no more. For some time beforehand I had been looking at the road in front, curving round two headlands--granite precipice above, granite precipice below--the road overarched by the rock, and had wondered how all our party would get by. "We met one hundred and fifty people coming from that direction before our luncheon," I said to myself. "I know it because I counted them. And if anything, I left out some, when the road was too alarming. They must all have got by alive! And all these brick-tea men now coming along with us, of course they are all intending to get by alive. It can't be so bad!" But it was of no use! I could not ride along that road, with the pony slipping and stumbling among the stones, and sliding down the little descents at the corners with both its hind feet together. Yet the road was good for those parts, being all of granite and painfully chiselled out; so the pony-boy, a most lively youth of fifteen, was greatly shocked at my dismounting.