Identifier: inforbiddenlanda03land (find matches)
Title: In the forbidden land, an account of a journey into Tibet
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Landor, Arnold Henry Savage. (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: New York and London, Harper & brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ing, and an upper decoration insteps, topped by a cylindrical column. They were in arow at the east end of the village, and, as is well known,they are supposed to contain a piece of bone, cloth, ormetal, and books, or parts of them, that had once belongedto a great man or a saint. Roughly drawn images areoccasionally found in them. In rare cases, when crema-tion has been applied, the ashes are collected into a smallearthen-ware urn and deposited in one of the Chokdens.The ashes are usually made into a paste with clay, onwhich, when flattened like a medallion, a representationof Buddha is either stamped from a mould or engravedby means of a pointed tool. The interiors of the houses at Tucker were no morepleasing than the exteriors. Each habitation had a walledcourt-yard, and the top of the wall, as well as the edge ofthe flat roof, was lined with masses of tamarisk for fuel.In the court-yard sheep and goats were penned at night;and the human beings who occupied the rooms were dirty 304
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BUYING PROVISIONS beyond all description. There were hundreds of flyingprayers over the monastery as well as over each house,and, as the people stood on their roofs watching us, laugh-ing and chatting, the place had quite a gay aspect. While I was strolling about some fifty or sixty men ap-peared on the scene, armed with matchlocks and swords,and I looked upon them with suspicion, but Kachi reas-sured me, and said they were not soldiers, but a powerfulband of robbers encamped about half a mile off, and onvery friendly terms with the Lamas. As a precaution, Iloaded my rifle, which was quite sufficient to occasion astampede of the armed crowd, followed, in the panic, byall the other villagers that had collected round us. Likeall Tibetans, they were a miserable lot, though powerfullybuilt and with plenty of bounce about them. Early in the morning I had made inquiries about pro-visions, and had arranged for the purchase of two fatsheep and some 450 lbs. of food (flour, rice, tsamba, ghur,

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