A SUMMER IN HIGH ASIA. 



afforded him endless amusement), captured five 

 specimens of Papilio machaon (the common swallow- 

 tail) with one swoop of the net. On reaching the 

 Indus Valley, the most noticeable proof of our being 

 in Ladakh, the country of Lamaism, was the frequent 

 occurrence of the long piles of "mani" stones, 

 These stones, so often described by travellers, are 

 usually flat and of varying size ; an average one 

 would be perhaps some nine inches in length, and 

 on each one is scratched or carved in varying 

 degrees of elaboration, the sentence, " Om mani 

 padmi om " (" Oh ! the life in the beautiful lotus, 

 oh ! "), or, as it is sometimes translated, " Oh ! the 

 jewel in the beautiful lotus ! " the mystic formula 

 of the Buddhist. These stones are built up in walls 

 usually some five feet or so high, and perhaps the 

 same in width, which extend sometimes for as 

 much as a quarter of a mile along the road. 



Each good Buddhist is supposed to add his 

 stone to the pile as he passes, and this latter has to 

 be left on the right-hand side as you go along, as, 

 if passed by on the left, the inscriptions would be 

 read backwards, and bring harm rather than good 

 to the Buddhist who had deposited the stone. 

 Accordingly there is always a path on both sides of 

 the piles. These stones you have always with you 

 on the main roads in Ladakh, and they generally 

 denote the propinquity of a village. This day, too, 

 I saw, for the first time, " churtens," the burying- 

 places of Lamaism, queer dome-shaped erections of 



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