Among the Tibetans

&quote;There never was anybody,&quote; wrote the Spectator, &quote;who had adventures as well as Miss Bird.&quote; In Among the Tibetans you can see why, as Isabella Lucy Bird writes of her journey through the Himalayas on horseback and of her four months of living with &quote;the pleasantest of people.&quote; She offers evocative and colourful descriptions of Tibetan rituals and culture, along with vivid descriptions of its villages, monasteries, temples and palaces. &quote;Up to Kargil the scenery, though growing more Tibetan with every march, had exhibited at intervals some traces of natural verdure; but beyond, after leaving the Suru, there is not a green thing, and on the next march the road crosses a lofty, sandy plateau, on which the heat was terrible - blazing gravel and a blazing heaven, then fiery cliffs and scorched hillsides, then a deep ravine and the large village of Paskim (dominated by a fort-crowned rock), and some planted and irrigated acres; then a narrow ravine and magnificent scenery flaming with colour, which opens out after some miles on a burning chaos of rocks and sand, mountain-girdled, and on some remarkable dwellings on a steep slope, with religious buildings singularly painted. This is Shergol, the first village of Buddhists, and there I was 'among the Tibetans.'&quote;