A DRIVE IN TIBET.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10765, 13 May 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

A DRIVE IN TIBET.

Before the departure or. our guests I offer to take one of them for a short drive. The vehicle is a low-seated trap just imported from India, but unfortunately no harness has yet arrived. However, I have improvised some with rawhide'and we start off down the stony road and across the bridge. ■ My guest and. all-'me onlookers aro 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 people have 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 ihad- subsided, though ~they were always glad to surround and stare at it. For sheer entertainment, ; however, let them .gaze on the white man's new invention - going down the road. After a spin of half a mile we return, but as we are crossing the narrow bridge, 'iinocent of it occurs to me that the pony "is further off than he should be. I am'puzzling, over this phenomenonwheh suddenly the shafts'slur clear of the "harness, the trap ..tilts ;back, and we are lying on it with our heads over the rushing water and our .feet I'pointing to -the skies'. : Meanwhile the pony who "never- in :this wise- had treated -been before,?'- the .reins out of my hands and-gallops home. The Tibetan groom, with great presence of mind, closes the hood of rthe trap so that we cannot seethe awful doom that awaits ns if .we stir, though the danger is no further off on that account. .", , With some difficulty we are rescued, i mv Tibetan friend in a terrified condition, and I have never been able to i persuade him to come for a drive again, ■ even behind the best Cawnpore har- , ness.