TIBET. 
317 
they fell to the ground. They had acquired indeed such an apparent 
intimacy with man, that they would sometimes take these pellets even 
from his hand; while kites and eagles kept at a loftier distance, and 
soared above, watching where they should descend next, and share 
with dogs and ravens in the funeral obsequies. 
The tribute of respect is paid, in this region, to the manes of the 
dead, in various ways. The sovereign Lamas are deposited entire, in 
shrines prepared for their remains, which ever after are looked upon 
as sacred, and visited with religious awe. The bodies of inferior 
Lamas are usually burnt, and their ashes preserved with great care in 
little metallic idols, which have places assigned them in their sacred 
cabinets. Common subjects are treated with less ceremony ; some of 
them are carried to lofty eminences, where, after having been disjointed, 
and the limbs divided, they are left a prey for ravens, kites, and other 
carnivorous birds. Others, with less respect, are committed to the 
usual receptacle of the dead. The last, but less frequent, mode of 
disposing of the dead, is committing them to the waters of the river. 
Burial, that is, inhuming the corpse entire in the earth, is altogether 
unpractised. 
On one side of the monastery of Teshoo Loomboo I saw the place, 
the Golgotha, if I may so call it, to which they convey their dead. 
It was a spacious area, enclosed on one part by the perpendicular 
rock, and on the others by lofty walls, raised probably with a view 
to seclude from public observation, the disgusting objects contained 
within them. At the top it was totally uncovered, so as to be per¬ 
fectly open to the birds; and at the bottom a narrow passage was left 
