T I BET. 
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about ten or twelve feet from the summit of the walls, is occupied by a 
deep crimson colour. A frieze, and whitened cornice surrounds the 
top. At the angles, and on different parts along the top of the wall, 
is placed a sort of ornament, which I term fasces. It is a cylinder of 
metal strongly gilt, standing upright upon a short supporter fixed in 
its centre; and is commonly about five feet high, and two or three in 
circumference. Many of them are covered with black cloth, and these 
invariably have a broad white fillet, passed round them in opposite 
directions, horizontally and perpendicularly, so as to form the figure 
of a cross; The sides are marked with letters, beaded and fluted; and 
the top is always crowned with some small ornament. The heads 
* 
of lions, well executed, projected from the angles of the building ; 
... ... * *r • 
these also were gilt, and had bells depending from their lower lips. 
• N *. ■* \ ' ' ' *\ 1 X ' • * . *, » * 
But the most showy part of this structure, which crowns the whole, 
is a spacious tented canopy, richly gilt, which is supposed to stand 
immediately over the remains of the Lama, and the centre of the py¬ 
ramid ; it overshadows the summit of the building, from the body of 
which it is elevated by its own particular support, forming to the 
whole an elegant and graceful finish. The edges of the canopy swell 
out in a bold and easy sweep. The ridge is decorated with the Chinese 
dragon, whose convolutions fill up all that space ; and round the 
canopy are hung a prodigious number of small bells, which, as well 
as those, which are distributed about all the projections of the build- 
ing, having thin square pieces of wood fastened to the clapper, make 
an inconceivable jingle, with every breeze that blows. 
