718 REPORT or NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1893. 



around the top of the barrel aud across their breasts, thus ascend the 

 steepest hills, their arms folded before them. 



Boats. — The only purely Tibetan boat I have seen or heard of is the 

 skin coracle or ku-dru. It is composed of yak hides stretched over a 

 few bent twigs with a slightly heavier piece of wood bent around the top 

 to which the skin is lirmly sewn. So frail is it that one must be careful 

 not to put one's foot on the hide, but only ou the ribs, for the least direct 

 pressure on the skins makes the seams give way. A man kneeling in 

 the bow i^addles or stears with a short paddle, crossing the river 

 diagonally, and then carrying his boat on his back upstream so as to 

 come back to his starting point when swept across again. These 

 coracles are about 5 feet long, 4 broad, and 30 inches deep; two or 

 three men and a couple of hundred pounds of goods can be carried in 

 one. When leaking slightly the lioles are filled with butter. With 

 these skin boats we may compare the " bull boats " used by the Mandans 

 on the Upper Missouri, which are, however, slightly smaller than the 

 Tibetan ones, though identical with. them in all other respects. 



All other boats used in Tibet are. made by the Chinese. On some 

 of their rivers the Tibetans use heavy rafts, which four or six men 

 paddle across. They are about 12 feet long and 6 feet broad, made of 

 heavy squared logs held together by a pinned crosspiece in front and 

 behind. 



VIII. 



MONETARY SYSTEM — MEDIUMS OF EXCHANGE — WRITING — PRINT- 

 ING — TIME RECKONING — MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE — MISCELLANEOUS 

 OBJECTS. 



A Chinese author, called Wei Yiian, in his work entitled Shengwu 

 chi (Book XIV, p. 53), says that in ancient times the Tibetans used cow- 

 rie shells and knife-shaped coins, but that since the Sung, Chin, and 

 Ming periods (i. e., since the twelfth century) they have used silver. 

 He further adds that since the Cheng-tung jieriod of the Ming (A. D. 

 1436) they have paid their'taxes (or tribute to China) in silver coins. 



As far as my information goes the present coinage of Tibet has been 

 in use since the middle of the eighteenth century. It comprises only 

 one coin, a silver one called tranka, of the nominal value of about 16 

 cents of our money. Fractional currency is made by cutting the 

 tranka into pieces. (Land of the Lamas, p. 207.) The only mint I 

 know of in Tibet is at Lh'asa. The trankas minted there bear on the 

 obverse the inscription Jyal-icai Gadiin p^odrang chyog-las, " From the 

 Jyal-wa's castle of Gadan," — Jyal-wa standing for Jyal-iva jya-mts'o^ 

 the usual title of the Tal6 lama. On the reverse are theeight signs of 

 good luck, each inclosed in a small circle, and in the center is what I take 

 to be a lotus flower. These trankas are colloquially called Gadan tranka. 



Coins ot similar value, but minted in Nepaul, Indian rupees and 

 Chinese bullion, are also in use, and rupees, from their purity and the 

 impossibility of counterfeiting them, are in much greater demand than 



