The monastery of Deskyid, to which we made a three days’ expedition, is from its size and picturesque situation the most imposing in Nubra.  Built on a majestic spur of rock rising on one side 2,000 feet perpendicularly from a torrent, the spur itself having an altitude of 11,000 feet, with red peaks, snow-capped, rising to a height of over 20,000 feet behind the vast irregular pile of red, white, and yellow temples, towers, storehouses, cloisters, galleries, and balconies, rising for 300 feet one above another, hanging over chasms, built out on wooden buttresses, and surmounted with flags, tridents, and yaks’ tails, a central tower or keep dominating the whole, it is perhaps the most picturesque object I have ever seen, well worth the crossing of the Shayok fords, my painful accident, and much besides.  It looks inaccessible, but in fact can be attained by rude zigzags of a thousand steps of rock, some natural, others roughly hewn, getting worse and worse as they rise higher, till the later zigzags suggest the difficulties of the ascent of the Great Pyramid.  The day was fearfully hot, 99 degrees in the shade, and the naked, shining surfaces of purple rock with a metallic lustre radiated heat.  My ‘gallant grey’ took me up half-way—­a great feat—­ and the Tibetans cheered and shouted ‘Sharbaz!’ (’Well done!’) as he pluckily leapt up the great slippery rock ledges.  After I dismounted, any number of willing hands hauled and helped me up the remaining horrible ascent, the rugged rudeness of which is quite indescribable.  The inner entrance is a gateway decorated with a yak’s head and many Buddhist emblems.  High above, on a rude gallery, fifty monks were gathered with their musical instruments.  As soon as the Kan-po or abbot, Punt-sog-sogman (the most perfect Merit), received us at the gate, the monkish orchestra broke forth in a tornado of sound of a most tremendous and thrilling quality, which was all but overwhelming, as the mountain echoes took up and prolonged the sound of fearful blasts on six-foot silver horns, the bellowing thunder of six-foot drums, the clash of cymbals, and the dissonance of a number of monster gongs.  It was not music, but it was sublime.  The blasts on the horns are to welcome a great personage, and such to the monks who despised his teaching was the devout and learned German missionary.  Mr. Redslob explained that I had seen much of Buddhism in Ceylon and Japan, and wished to see their temples.  So with our train of gopas, zemindar, peasants, and muleteers, we mounted to a corridor full of lamas in ragged red dresses, yellow girdles and yellow caps, where we were presented with plates of apricots, and the door of the lowest of the seven temples heavily grated backwards.