238 Notes on Eastern Thibet, [No. 3. 



in October and November, many of the autumn lambs die from tho 

 cold, but this is not considered any great loss as the skins are so 

 valuable. A cloak of lamb skins made of fourteen skins is worth 

 25 Thibet rupees or 10 East India Company's Eupees. 



The rams remain with the ewes always, but after the ewes are in 

 young, the rams have a sort of breeching put on. My informant's 

 notion is, that this is done to prevent annoyance to the pregnant 

 ewes, but I suspect that they are kept in this way, until the proper 

 season for letting them to the ewes. The allowance of rams is two 

 or three for every hundred ewes. The males are gelded when quite 

 young or up to a year old, the prices vary from 5 to 7 Thibet Eupees 

 per head, i. e. 2 to 3 rupees of ours. 



The Government dues on sheep farms is 10 per cent, in kind every 

 three years, this is in addition to a general tax of 1 rupee per door 

 on all houses per annum. 



During the summer season, but little fresh meat is used. The 

 Thibetans do not like it boiled, and are not partial to it raw unless 

 it has been dried. In November there is a great slaughtering in 

 the towns, and a wealthy man in the country will kill two hundred 

 sheep at this time for his year's consumption, the animal is butcher- 

 ed, skinned and gutted, and then placed standing on its feet in a free 

 current of air. It becomes in a couple of days quite hard, and 

 white, and is then ready to eat. It is kept in this way for more than 

 a year, and undergoes great vicissitudes of climate without spoiling. 

 I have seen it at Darjeeling in the rains quite dry and hard, and in 

 no way decomposed. When long exposed to the wind of Thibet it 

 becomes so dry, that it may be rubbed into powder between the 

 hands. In this state it is mixed with water and drank, and used 

 in various other ways. The Thibetans eat animal food in endless 

 forms, and a large portion of the people eat nothing else. 



The livers of the sheep and other animals are similarly dried or 

 frozen and are much prized. To a person unused to the dried meat 

 of Thibet, the liver is represented as peculiarly distasteful ; it is 

 bitter, and nearly as hard as a stone. 



The fat is simply dried, packed in the stomachs, and thus sent to 

 market or kept for home use. 



