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The Dewan listened attentively; he was anxious and perplexed, and evidently losing his presence of mind: he talked to us of Lhassa and its gaieties, dromedaries, Lamas, and everything Tibetan; offered to sell us ponies cheap, and altogether behaved in a most, undignified manner; ever and anon calling attention to his pretended sick leg, which he nursed on his knee.
I was amused at the casual way in which the Jong Pen of Taklakot had disposed of the bear-skin before he had even caught the bear. The Lamas mistook me for a Hindoo doctor, owing to the color of my face, which was sunburnt, and had long remained unwashed. I wore no disguise. They thought that I was on a pilgrimage round the Mansarowar Lake.
Inman relates that a cross with a rosary attached has been found in use among the religious emblems of the Japanese Buddhists and the lamas of Thibet, and that in one of the frescoes of Pompeii, published at Paris, 1840, is to be seen, vol. v., plate 28, the representation of a phallic cross in connection with two small figures of Hermes. The Rev. Mr.
I repeated several times, slowly and distinctly, that my servant was innocent, and that therefore there was no reason to punish him. He had only obeyed my orders in following me to Tibet, and I alone, not my two servants, was to be punished if anybody was punishable. The Lamas were angry at this. One of them struck me violently on the head with the butt-end of his riding-crop.
It is new, erected by the Lamas when the Living Buddha became blind. I do not find on the face of the golden Buddha either tears, hopes, distress or thanks of the people. They have not yet had time to leave these traces on the face of the god. We shall go now to the old Shrine of Prophecies." This was a small building, blackened with age and resembling a tower with a plain round roof.
Politics sordid and gruesome are active within the gaily decorated walls of the sacred lamassery. But all that the outsider sees is a weak, debased-looking man whose vices should soon end his days even if he escapes the lamas' villainy. Formerly he amused himself with Western toys, photography, and especially motor-cars.
When the sun was high in the sky, the Pombo, with a great number of Lamas, rode down from the monastery, a short distance away. He went to his tent. Soon after, my cases of scientific instruments were brought outside and opened, the soldiers and Lamas displaying an amusing mixture of curiosity and caution over everything they touched.
Farther off, the camel-drivers of Turkistan, turbaned, with aquiline nose and long black beard, lead along, with strange airs, their camels loaded with salt; finally, the Mongolian Lamas, in red and yellow garments, and shaven crowns, gallop past on their untrained steeds, in striking contrast to the calm bearing of a Siberian merchant, who stalks along in his thick fur-lined pelisse, great boots, and large felt hat.
They professed to hate the Lamas, the rulers of the country, to whom they took special pleasure in applying names hardly repeatable in these pages. According to them, the Lamas took all the money that came into the country, and no one else was allowed to have any. They were unscrupulous, cruel, and unjust.
There is an extensive priesthood, called Lamas, who live in a state of celibacy in dwellings not at all unlike monasteries; and, in effect, so much in their practices seems to parody the ceremonies of Christianity that the Portuguese thought them invented by the devil for the very purpose.
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