The mountain is reflected in the waters of the Manasarover, which, along with the surrounding land, is of awesome beauty, probably unequalled in the world. I found additional joy in the knowledge that few explorers had ever laid eyes on it, much less studied it scientifically as I had the opportunity to do. I bathed in the lake like the other pilgrims, though my motives sprang more from considerations of hygiene than piety. It was freezing cold either way.

Our next stop after the lake was the settlement of Thokchen, or 'Great Thunder', which, belying its impressive name, consisted of a single house. The house was, furthermore, virulently lousy. We passed the night in our tents.

From then on we followed the Bramhaputra river or Tsangpo, as the Thibetans call it. Fed by numerous small streams, the river grew bigger and bigger as the days passed.

Except for a little rain and a couple of sharp hailstorms, we were fortunate to have generally fine weather. I usually rode with my blue and white umbrella open to shield myself from the sunlight, which, due to the altitude and the thinness of the air, was very strong. Unexpected gusts of wind would sometimes blow the umbrella inside-out, or away, to the vast amusement of Kintup and the other servants, who would ride wildly after it and hunt it down as if it were a rabbit or something. But the worst of the winter gales were over, and the summer dust storms yet to commence, so one could quite comfortably read a book sitting on one's pony, under the cool shade of an open umbrella – or as it so often happened to me, fall into a brown study.

'You are probably right, Huree,' Mr Holmes's voice broke into my reverie on one such occasion. 'Science alone cannot answer all the questions of life. Man's higher destiny can be discovered only through religion.'

'Precisely so, Sir.' I agreed, 'Though it troubles me… Good Heavens, Mr Holmes!' I cried. 'How the deuce an' all could you know my innermost thoughts?'

Sherlock Holmes chuckled, and leaning back on his saddle pulled the reins to make his pony accommodate its speed to mine.

'How do you think? Through magic? Clairvoyance maybe? Or just through a simple sequence of plain, logical reasoning?'

'For the life of me, Sir, I cannot see how reasoning could have enabled you to follow the course of my mental processes. My thoughts were all tightly locked up in my bally head like meat in a coconut. No, Sir! The only explanation is jadoo. Probably you enlisted the aid of some mind-reading djinn like Buktanoos or Dulhan, or Musboot – maybe even Zulbazan, son of Eblis.'

Sherlock Holmes laughed out loud. 'I really hate to disillusion you about my familiarity with the denizens of darkness, but the whole thing is absurdly simple. Let me explain. I have been watching you for the last ten minutes or so. You had Herbert Spencer's Principles of Biology open in your hand and were reading it with great interest. You then put the book down on the front of your saddle – open, somewhere in the middle -and you became thoughtful. Your eyes narrowed. Obviously you were thinking over what you had just read. If I am not mistaken, Spencer discusses certain theories of Mr Darwin and others somewhere in the middle of the book – about the continuing development of species from simple to complex forms. I could not be absolutely certain of this, but you helped to confirm my hypothesis by altering the manner of your reverie and observing the wild animals and birds around us in a deliberate and inquiring manner. Your views seemed to agree with that of Spencer's for you nodded your head on a couple of occasions.'

Mr Holmes lit his tartar pipe and, blowing out a stream of white smoke, continued. 'But then your thoughts were rudely interrupted. Do you remember the pitiful remnants of a gazelle killed by wolves that we passed just a littie while ago? It seemed to upset you. It is all very well to talk or write about "the survival of thefittest" [29] in a warm comfortable drawing room in London; but actually encountering this aspect of nature even in the insignificant death of a poor gazelle,, is a humbling experience. The frown darkened on your face. What theories could explain the misery, the violence, and the brutality of life, you seemed to ask? You thought of your own brushes with violence and death. I noticed that you looked down at your right foot where you once lost a toe, and nearly your life, and shiver a littie. Your expression deepened into one of sadness, the melancholy that comes with the awareness of the permanence of our human tragedy.

'Then you noticed the gleaming towers of the monastery in the distance, and your thoughts seemed to lift a littlefrom their previous despondency. You gazed up at the open sky. Your expression was quizzical but not entirely melancholy. Probably you were asking yourself if religion had the answer to human suffering, where science did not. It was then that I ventured to agree with you.'

'Wah! Shabash! Mr Holmes. This is more astounding than any magic,' I exclaimed, amazed at this revelation of yet another facet of his genius. 'You followed my thought process with extraordinary precision. A most remarkable feat of reasoning, Sir.'

'Pooh. Elementary, my dear Hurree.'

'But how was it done, Mr Holmes?'

'The trick is to construct one's chain of reasoning from the initial premise of umm… let us say, "dependent origination", to use this profound Buddhist concept. Then from a drop of water you could logically infer the possibility of a Pacific or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it.' [30]

The monastery was perched on a hill, below which was the settlement of Tradun. It was a regular bustling metropolis for those parts, consisting of over twenty houses, besides a number of nomad tents scattered over the bleak plains. We were somewhat close to the kingdom of Nepaul from here, and I noted three distant ice peaks rising from that direction. [31]

It took us another three weeks to get to Shigatse. We were fortunate to be able to visit the great monastery of Tashi Lhunpo and see its treasures; but we avoided going anywhere near the Chinese consulate, which was to the west of the town. Kintup and I had too many unhappy memories of the place from our last visit. We heard all kinds of rumours in the bazaar about the intrigues of the Manchu Amban in Lhassa and his assistant here in Shigatse, and the imminence of an invading Chinese army. But we could place no credence on any of these stories.

From Shigatse it was about a ten-day journey to Lhassa.

We reached Lhassa in the late afternoon of the 17th of May, 1892. When we came around the last bend on the pilgrim road from Gyangtse, we had our first view of the great Potala palace floating high above the green barley fields of the Kyichu (Happy River) valley.

The Potala was initially constructed in the Water-Bird year (1645) by the fifth Grand Lama, or Dalai Lama, to give his actual title. There is evidence to suggest that the central structure, the ' Red Palace ', had been in existence since the seventh century, the time of the ancient Thibetan kings. The building is named after Mount Potalaka in South India, one of the holy mountains of the Hindu god Shiva. Buddhists, however, believe that the mountain is sacred to Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion, whom they maintain is the Grand Lama, in his divine form. The Potala palace would be a formidable structure anywhere in the great metropolises of the world, but in the bleak wilderness of the Thibetan landscape such a monumental creation of human genius and energy assumed awe-inspiring dimensions.

Only one white man, Thomas Manning, had ever set eyes on it before; [32] and in our Department only K.21 had seen it before me. I humbly thanked my Maker for granting me this privileged sight. I could see that the scene had a similar effect on my companions. Tsering, Kintup and the other Buddhists dismounted and prostrated themselves on the ground in reverence. Even Gaffuru, the staunch Mohameddan, was moved to offer a respectful salaam towards it. Mr Holmes's eyes seemed to fill with a calm bliss as they gazed at the distant Potala. His stern brows, ever knotted in intense cerebration, gradually relaxed, permitting a gentle smile to break out on his face.