A DRIVE IN TIBET.

Northland Age, Volume VIII, Issue 26, 16 February 1912, Page 2

A DRIVE IN TIBET.

| * —' : i SURPRISE OF NATIVES AT i SIGHT OF VEHICLE DRAWN BY HORSE. Before the departure of our guests, I offer to take one of them for a short drive. The vehicle is a lowseated trap just imported from India, but unfortunately, no harness has arrived as yet ; however, have improvised some with rawhide, and we start off down the stony road and across the bridge. My guests and all the onlookers are vastly amused, the tears roll down their faces at the laughable idea of sitting in a chair and making a Pony pull it along. There are no wheeled vehicles in Tibet, and these pepole had only seen the rough ekkas,, which were used for transport during the expedition in 1904. Their surprise at the motor-car imported by my predecessor had subsided, though they were always glad to surround and stare at it.

For sheer amusement, however, let them gaze on the vwhite man’s new invention £omg down the road. After a spin of half a mile we return,' but as we cross the narrow bridge, innocent of parapets, it occurs to me that the pony is further off than he should be.

I ami puzzling over this phenomenoa when suddenly the shafts slip clear of the harness, the trap tilts back, and we are lying on it with our heads hanging over the rushing water and our feet pointing to the skies. Meanwhile the pony, who "never in this wise had treated been before," tears the reins out of my hands and gallops home. The Tibetan groom, with great presence of mind, closes the hood of the trap so that we cannot see the awful doom that awaits us if we stir, though the danger is no further off on that account.

With some difficulty we are rescued, my Tibetan friend in a terrified condition, and I have never been able to persuade him to come for a drive again, even behind the best Cawnpore harness.—F. M. Bailey, in the "Blackwood."