IN THE HIMALAYAS 87 



quite put matters right, especially when I repeated 

 after them, " Om Mani Mani." 



I wanted to make a sketch of the ugliest one, but 

 he ran away and hid in his cell and could not be got 

 out, much to the amusement of his brother monks. 

 I made a sketch of him afterwards from memory, 

 and some of the others sat for me and did not seem 

 to mind for how long they sat. We tried to buy 

 from them different little relics that we saw, but 

 they were quite determined against that, on no 

 account might we take anything away with us. 

 We offered more rupees, but it was of no use. To 

 our surprise after dark one after another of them 

 came stealing into the mess tent : they came singly 

 and each brought some treasure with him. The 

 cook brought a short whip, the one he used for his 

 donkey, mounted in brass, and with a bunch of 

 small leather thongs on it. I bought a very much 

 dented holy water bottle and a copper spoon, and 

 Ned some other things; but the greatest treasure 

 was a small copper box with a glass window in front 

 of it, and clips to pass a strap through so that it 

 could be worn on the arm. This contained the 

 ashes of a Lama made up into the form of a Buddha, 

 and wrapped round most carefully in a dirty piece 

 of yellow cloth and tied with a long silk string. 

 We both wanted this, of course, and Ned was bidding 

 for the image while I bid for the box. After the 

 deal was over and all the monks gone, Ned said it 

 was stupid of the red monk to sell the image without 

 the box. I thought it was still more stupid to sell 

 the box without the image. We settled that they 



