72 Description of a Mystic Play. [No. 2, 



the entrance of one of the principal idol rooms, is in the extreme right 

 hand corner, massive hrass rings affixed to large losses of brass are 

 affixed on either door, the posts of which are of carved and coloured 

 wood work. The walls of the main building with its bay windows 

 of lattice work, enclose the court-yard along the right hand side, the 

 roof is adorned with curious cylindrical pendant devices made of cloth 

 called " Thook ;" each surmounted with the Trisool or trident, painted 

 black and red. On the side facing the main entrance, the court-yard is 

 open, leading away to the doorways of other idol rooms. In the centre 

 space stand two high poles " Turpoohe," from which hang yaks' tails and 

 white cotton streamers printed in the Thibetan character. Innumerable 

 small prayer wheels are fitted into a hitch that runs round the sides 

 of the court -yard. A few large trees throw their shade on the 

 building, and above them tower the rugged cliffs of the little valley, 

 topped here and there by Lhatos, small square built altars, surmount- 

 ed by bundles of brushwood and wild sheep horns, the thin sticks of 

 the brushwood being covered with offerings of coloured flags printed 

 with some muntra or other. All preliminaries over and the actors 

 ready inside the building, the musicians,* wearing curious head- dresses 

 and robes, red being the predominant color, took up their position in 

 the verandah facing the monastery. Their instruments consisted of 

 enormous long trumpets, that draw out like a telescope to 8 or 9 feet ; 

 these issue a low, mellow, bass sound, the mouth-piece is of peculiar 

 form being a large flat disc against which the lips are pressed ; a narrower 

 trumpet globe-shaped at lower end ; flageolets, drums and cymbals 

 completed the set. The drums are peculiar, being fixed to a long handle, 

 the end resting on the ground, they are struck with a bent piece of 

 thin iron, the point of which is covered with a leather button. The 

 musicians commenced a wailing sort of air accompanied by a low chant, 

 to which the drums and cymbals beat a regular tune, but very subdued. 

 Then came, trooping out of the idol room, a set of maskers in the most 

 extraordinary dress it is possible to conceive ; they were called Tsam- 



* See Captain Melville's photographs, No. 10. This same costume is worn 

 by the musicians of the Deb and Dhurm Raja at Punakha in Bhootan, and it is 

 as well to mention here that the monks of Himis, as well as a few other monas- 

 teries in Ladakh, are of the same sect as the Buddhists of Bhootan, viz, the 

 " Dukpah" of whom the spiritual head is the Dhurm Ilaja. 



