CHAPTER III - RESIDENCE AT GIANSU

Summary

The next morning we were off early, though we had but a short stage to Giansu. I had a very pleasant-going horse with a handsome countenance. I was tempted to buy him, but was checked by the prudent consideration that he might encumber me at Lhasa, and too much disencumber my lean purse. Half-way towards Giansu we were met by the sub-mandarin and the Tibetan mandarin, with their retinues, come out to meet and honour the General and give him a meat breakfast. From his table the soldiers brought us two or three very palatable viands, which we did justice to. Our room was one extremity of a stable, parted off for us by a cloth, in the Asiatic manner. The word stable might suggest for a moment the idea that we were treated with indignity, but not so. The house was filled with official people; we being but an appendix to the General, could not dine with them. Not to separate me from the rest, consisting of servants and soldiers, would really have been treating me with indignity; besides, our luggage required a separate room; but to settle the matter at once, there really was not any room in the house better than this same corner of a stable. It was the freest from dirt and the smoothest paved I had seen for some time.