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The custom of driving out demons in the above manner is constantly practised by the Lamas in Tibet: MM. Huc and Gabet give a graphic account of such an operation during their stay at Kounboum. On the 29th of August I left Lachoong and proceeded up the valley.
The journey from Pekin to Lassa has lately been made by Messrs. Huc and Gabet, two French missionaries, and has been graphically described by them.
MM. Huc and Gabet graphically allude to this circumstance, when wishing to purchase cups at Lhassa, where their price is higher, as they are all imported from the Himalaya. The knots from which they are formed, are produced on the roots of oaks, maples, and other mountain forest trees, by a parasitical plant, known to botanists, as Balanophora.
Hypnosis is spoken of by Huc and Hellwald of the Buddhist convents in Thibet; and Sperling, who has had a particularly wide experience in the field of hypnotism, and whose opinion is of particular value, says that he has seen dervishes in Constantinople who, from the expression of their eyes and their whole appearance, as well as from peculiar postures they maintain for a long time, impressed him as being in a hypnotic state.
Adde huc, si placet, unguentarios, saltatores, totumque ludum talarium. Quibus autem artibus aut prudentia maior inest, aut non mediocris utilitas quaeritur, ut medicina, ut architectura, ut doctrina rerum honestarum, eae sunt iis, quorum ordini conveniunt, honestae.
Erat autem tertia feria Iulij mensis, quando hae Christianorum copiae, Deo protegente, huc nauigio angustiatis et obsessis ad opem collatae sunt.
These are the lamas who, sent like the others to the lamasseries at an early age, after having received the prescribed training, taking their "degrees," as Huc calls it, return to their homes to live the life of the ordinary Mongol, in no wise to be distinguished from the "black man" save by their shorn heads and the red and yellow dress, which they do not always wear.
The Tibetans are at bottom a good-tempered, decent people, but they will not allow any European to enter their country. They have heard that India and Central Asia have been conquered by white men, and fear that the same fate may befall Tibet. Two hundred years ago, indeed, Catholic missionaries lived in Lhasa, and the town was visited in 1845 by the famous priests Huc and Gabet from France.
King Oscar once said to an acquaintance of mine, who was commiserating him for being obliged to keep his hat off, the whole length of the Drottning-gatan, in a violent snow-storm: "You are quite right; it was exceedingly disagreeable, and I could not help wishing that instead of being king of Sweden, I were king of Thibet, where, according to Huc, the polite salutation is simply to stick out your tongue."
Huc cum se consuetudine reclinaverint, infirmas arbores pondere affligunt, atque una ipsæ concidunt." CÆSAR, De Bello Gall. lib. vi. ch. xxvii.
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