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 brass rings affixed to large bosses 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 “‘ Turpoché,” 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 Raja, 

