TO TAZEDO, ON THE CHINESE FRONTIER. 517 



Kutti — and which having surmounted, you reach that place. Kutti is a 

 considerable town, where all things needful are to be had in abundance. 

 The mass of people are Bhotias — but many Cashmirians and Neivdrs, 

 and some Chinese, reside there for traffic. All the inhabitants wear woollen, 

 and speak the Bhotia language. Kutti is (inclusively) the boundary of 

 Shot, considered with reference to physical geography, and to the speech 

 of the majority of the people. Five hundred soldiers, (musketeers and 

 archers) several officers, and four pieces of ordnance, are stationed at 

 Kutti by the ruler of Lahassa, and travellers going from Nepal produce 

 their passports to the chief authority at Kutti, who keeps them in his 

 own office, and if satisfied with the views and conduct of those who pro- 

 duce them, gives to them new passports under his own hand to the governor 

 of Tingri. 



11th Stage, of nine cos, to Yir-lib. A level road of seven and a half cos 

 brings you to the town of Phihgya-ling, which is a monastery of several 

 hundred Lamas. Here, on the fourth day of the new year, is celebrated 

 an annual festival, which festival the Bhotias call Tupchi-shiti. Upon 

 this occasion, all the Lamas assemble in the temple of the monastery, and 

 with drums, gongs, and trumpets made of men's thigh-bones, make music, 

 to which they dance before the gold and silver images of the gods. 

 Afterwards the Ldmas eat, drink, and are merry. The Laics, who have 

 any petitions to offer to heaven, come on this occasion to the monastery — ■ 

 and first making five prostrations before the images, put a white silk 

 scarf on the neck of some chosen one : next, take a handful of grain, and 

 raising it first to their foreheads, sprinkle it on the image. All the Ldmas 

 of Phihgya-ling rigidly practise abstinence from women — nor is a female 

 ever suffered to approach their monastery, save at the annual festival just 

 mentioned. From Phingya-ling, one and a half cos, brings the traveller 

 to Yir-lib, his halting place, which is a hamlet of six or eight houses of 

 Bhotias. 



m 4 



