318 SIKKIM HIMALAYA. Chap. XIV. 



the lower story of stone, and the upper of wood : we ascended 

 a ladder to the upper room, which was 24 feet by 8 

 wattled all round, with prettily latticed windows opening 

 upon a bamboo balcony used for drying grain, under the 

 eaves of the broad thatched roof. The ceiling (of neat 

 bamboo work) was hung with glorious bunches of maize, 

 yellow, red, and brown ; an altar and closed wicker cage at 

 one end of the room held the Penates, and a few implements 

 of worship. Chinese carpets were laid on the floor for us, 

 and the cans of Murwa brought round. 



The Lama, though one of the red sect, was dressed 

 in a yellow flowered silk robe, but his mitre was red : he 

 gave us much information relative to the introduction of 

 Boodhism into Sikkim. 



The three temples stand about fifty yards apart, but are 

 not parallel to one another, although their general direction 

 is east and west.* Each is oblong, and narrowed upwards, 

 with the door at one end ; the middle (and smallest) faces 

 the west, the others the east : the doorways are all broad, 

 low and deep, protected by a projecting carved portico. The 

 walls are immensely thick, of well-masoned slaty stones ; the 

 outer surface of each slopes upwards and inwards, the inner 

 is perpendicular. The roofs are low and thickly thatched, 

 and project from eight to ten feet all round, to keep off the 

 rain, being sometimes supported by long poles. There is 

 a very low upper story, inhabited by the attendant monks 

 and servants, accessible by a ladder at one end of the 

 building. The main body of the temple is one large 

 apartment, entered through a small transverse vestibule, 

 the breadth of the temple, in which are tall cylindrical 



* Timkowski, in his travels through Mongolia (i. p. 193), says, "According to 

 the rules of Tibetan architecture, temples should face the south :" this is cer- 

 tainly not the rule in Sikkim, nor, so far as I could learn, in Tibet either. 



