512 Mr. S. Davis on the Religious and Social 



description I had received of him, appearing to be a boy of about seven 

 years of age. He was carried on the shoulders of a priest, and the gylongs, 

 as he passed, stopped and made an obeisance. 



The fifth day was a repetition of the first. 



On the sixth day a dance was performed by four figures with masks repre- 

 senting skulls. The body and limbs were fitted closely with a white dress, 

 and round the middle hung various coloured handkerchiefs and fringes. 

 Their motions were more slow and solemn than before, and sometimes 

 accompanied with a tremulous shaking of the limbs. They withdrew 

 and returned again, bringing forth a hair cloth, held between them at each 

 corner, containing a triangular vessel, round which they danced and 

 quivered for some time, and then disappeared. 



The seventh day closed the festival with an exhibition more splendid than 

 any of the preceding. The orchestra was filled with an additional number 

 of Lamas, and a procession commenced of the superior deity, in his charac- 

 ter of Wizie Rimbochy, with many attendants, and with the grinning figures 

 already described. The dresses were extremely rich and showy, and the 

 figures moved on in slow and solemn pace round the square. Wizie 

 Rimbochy had an umbrella held over him, kept constantly twirling, and 

 six inferior personages huddled round him as agents or domestics, awaiting 

 his commands. He turned entirely round many times on the way, as if 

 surveying the multitude with his smiling, gilded countenance, and after- 

 wards took his seat upon a bench covered with carpets in front of the 

 chapel, and his attendants, after dancing for some time, seated themselves 

 on each side. Sixteen figures then made their appearance in dresses very 

 different from any of the former. These, as I was informed, personated 

 females. Each of them wore a gilded coronet, the iiair from under it 

 falling in tresses upon the shoulders. Their robes were of the brightest 

 coloured satin, girded round the waist with a white ornament formed of 

 something like gimp, which hung with tassels before. The bosom was 

 crossed over, and the sleeves tied up with some of the same material. They 

 held painted tabrets in one hand, which they touched lightly to time with 

 a bent iron in the other, and moved round the square with solemn, uniform, 

 and graceful steps. M'hen arrived opposite Wizie Rimbochy, and the 

 company seated on the bench, they drew up facing them, and sung some- 

 thing like an hymn, occasionally separating and returning again to the same 

 position, often bowing and falling on their knees as in adoration. They re- 



