230 BUDDHIST MANES. 



himself generally useful, on a salary of four rupees a-month 

 and his food. 



After two days' rest we made a fresh start. For two 

 marches our route lay along the right (north) hank of the 

 Indus. We passed several of those curious oblong-shaped 

 cairns which are so often seen by the wayside in Tibet, 

 called manes. They are formed of small slabs of rough stone 

 piled loosely one upon the other, and vary in length from a 

 few yards to sometimes several hundred. Each flat stone 

 has inscribed on it the words, " Om mani padmi hom " — 

 meaning, God ! the jewel in the lotus. We passed one 

 of these erections, which was some five or six hundred 

 paces long, and every stone of it had, I was told, this 

 short prayer engraved on it. All Tibetan Buddhists con- 

 stantly repeat these words when twirling their little hand 

 prayer- cylinders, which contain a scroll inscribed with the 

 same mystical sentence, and each revolution is supposed to 

 represent a repetition of it. The Tibetans always pass these 

 manes, or roadside shrines, on the right, whichever direction 

 they may be travelling, — thereby, I suppose, ensuring their 

 going round them should they return by the same route ; 

 circumambulation, as well as rotatory motion, being among 

 the ritual forms of the Tibetan Buddhist religion. 



Across the Indus, opposite to where our path quitted its 

 valley at Khurroo, is the great Buddhist monastery of 

 Hemis, hidden away in a sequestered gorge. It is said to 

 contain several hundred Lamas. We now turned north- 

 wards up a narrow glen leading to the Chang la (pass), and 

 encamped at Chimray, where there is another fine monas- 

 tery perched high on a hill. 



The pass, although over 18,000 feet high, is easy to cross, 

 but we suffered somewhat from the rarefied air. Besides 

 the usual shortness of breath and the feeling of extra 

 weight and lassitude, more especially about the legs, in me 

 it produced headache and nausea, which I did not get rid 

 of until the following day, when we descended to Tanksee. 



I 



