The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-12-06


| broad, enormous lakeland, over 15,-
| 600 feet above sea level, the mountain
| peaks being over $4,000 feet in hight.
! The fanks of the chain of mountains
! fall sheer and steep to the plateau
! below. These mountain chains tower
aloft like gigantic walls, printing the
/ sharp outlines of their snowy peaks
and glaciers upon the deep blue of the
] sky.
/ TerrOrs of the Desert.
SO barren and wild is the northern
part of Tibet, with its violent, freezing
wind, especially in the desert. that Dr.
Sven Hedin's caravan Travelled for
eighty-fOur days without meeting a hui
man being. The Arctic is an Eden COM
pared with this desert where nature
/ is always bleak and repelling. A tree
is never seen, and here and there
a flower only once or twice each year.
Everything is bare gravel, both noun
tains and plains. There is not a glimpse
of Verdure except some scattered blades
of harsh and prickly grass which Elk
plOrer Robert Shaw described as "pierC-
ing up through the gravel like so many
discolored porcupine quilts" For water
the traveller has generally to fall back
on snow, and there is lots of it in
places, with the mercury at times down
10 4 degrees below Zero-a good frigid
breath for temperate zone nearly on
explorer of Tibet had his fingers so
numbed that he could not pull the trig-
ger to kill a wild ass he wanted for
food.
The presence of the wild yaks alone
makes ii possible for travellers to cross
this Asian desert, for dry yak manure
Is the only fuel to be found. When
the murrain destroys the yaks and an
telope the journey is out of the ques-
ton.
One of the glaciers seen by an Eng
fish explorer took its rise in a steep
snow wall or coil of about 10000 feet
altitude, and connected two lofty peaks
one of which was surveyed at "a 4S6
feet. An English soldiers remark about
Abyssinia applies equally as well to
Tibet. This Tommy Atkins said: We'll
if it's a table, it's a table with all the
legs uppermost."
An ungallant traveller said in a Lon
don club after return from Tibet
that he thought the Tibetan women
the most homely devils in the world
Photographs certainly do not give them
the appearance of much charm, their
compilations being sallow and indica-
tive of an admixture of the Mongolian
or Tartar with the nobler features of
the Indian or Persian races. One of
the most beautiful" wives of the Dalai
Lama may well be called hideous
Women of Lhassa.
AS almost every head of the house
about Lhassa is a warrior or a loafer,
the women do all the work They
wear red and blue petticoats of gaudy
stripes. cloth boots UP to the knees,
tight-fitting jackets covered with a
SheepSkin cape, the hair usually turn
ed inward under the cape, the head
bare except for odd looking cloth lap
pets that protect the ears from the bit
iF1C fV91 l. I,,.s..
precious ornament, consisting of
broad strip of leather hanging down
backward from the head top and COW
cred with rows of large imitation tur-
quoises that gradually dwindle away
to single stones near the tip. The
womens chief occupation out of doors
is to lead the fierce-looking yaks that
are to carry the burdens.
The men of Tibet as a general thing
wear cloth boots that garter at the
knee, thick wooden frocks grit about
the waist and reaching below the tops
Of the leggings and sort of black
Phrygian cap that serves the triple pur-
pose of covering their pig tailed head
shading the eyes or sheltering the ears
from the winds of the afternoons.
The Lamas, whose word is "ordain-
ed" and almost implicitly obeyed, are
the real obstacles to the success of
usually, dressed in red robe and car
ries a skuru. or prayer cylinder, in
his hand. He whirls this instrument
of piety. which is shaped like a drum,
round on its wooden handle by an al
most imperceptible motion of the hand,
aided by a string and small weight
which assists the rotation. The mon
astery of Lama is invariably on some
handy pinnacle or jammed against the
vertical face of a rock.
Ways of the Natives.
Every Tibetain village has it's
|'chorten," a large square pedestal,
twenty feet high, surmounted by
huge inverted teapot, all whitewashed
and crowned by a wooden globe or
crescent. These are tombs and are
supposed to contain the remains of
sainted Lamas. The bodies are bur
led in a standing position. At the
sides are pigeon-holes filled with odds
and ends of tiny medallions nodded
into amazingly fine figures of hun
dred-handed deities. These medallions
are made of clay that has been mixed