DARJEELING TO TONGLO. 165 
a bamboo jug, filled quite up with warm water, when the fluid, sucked 
through a reed, affords a refreshing drink. He gratefully accepted 
a few rupees and trifles which we had to spare. I wanted a blessing 
in due form, but was rather too much of a sceptic in the matter of 
the Boodhist trinity, in transmigration, in the efficacy of the ** Om mani 
Padmi hom,” and praying-cylinder. 
I cannot tell how far this was a normal or typical specimen of the 
Lama worship : the religion is well known now to be essentially trans- 
Himalayan, especially in the grand features of a hierarchy, and conven- 
tual system, both for men and women (monastery, called ** goompa," 
and nunnery). All the offshoots of it, planted on this side of the 
snow, are liable to be modified by a mingling of the Hindoo worship ; 
and, indeed, the Lama owned to having proeured many of his idols 
from the Hurdwan fair, selecting them with little regard to óreed 
or stock. 
Thibet is still, perhaps, the stronghold of Boodhism, if we regard 
the number of priests occupied in its worship, proportionably to the 
mass of the people, the universality of the creed, the nobles being all 
churchmen, and the splendour of the temples, as compared to the 
poverty of the inhabitants. In a journal, carefully collected by Dr. 
Campbell from a Hindoo who travelled from Malva in Western India, 
through Bhotan into Thibet, and to Lhassa, it appears that in the 
monasteries of Teshoo Loomboo alone 3,800 Lamas reside, and at 
Lhassa itself 10,000. Throughout Thibet, the lower class laity alone 
hold no priestly office, the nobility all to a man do. The Chinese 
worshippers of Fo (another name for Boodhists) are, of course, 
incomparably superior numerically to the Thibetans; but the Emperor 
himself looks to Lhassa, as the spiritual fountain-head of his people's 
religion. He enjoins no kind of worship on his subjects, has no 
ecclesiastical bench, supported by Government ; and himself, as well as 
his nobles, are supposed careless to all ordinances of religion, confining 
their creed to a belief in one supreme being. For the people, a 
tangible, or at least defineable, object for worship is necessary, and Fo 
is the choice. , 
The authority which China exercises over Thibet is, therefore, purely 
military: she interferes with no other branch of its internal econo- 
my; and she exerts a similar influence over the two steppes north 
of Thibet, that of Little Bucharia, between the Kuen-lun and Thain- 
