Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-06-08
REGION is LITTLE KNOWN.
Portion OF Thibet with Which Geog-
raphers and Writers Had
But Little to Do

The Chumbi valley, which has been
described as the Engadine OF the Him
alayas and Is generally supposed to be
the conventional Arcadia of these high
lands, is as a matter of fact, not well
known to geographers. 1t is a portion
of Thibet directly administered. by
Lhasa-so far, indeed as there has
been any administration at all, says
the London Times. Like other coolest
astical temperatures, there has been
found here as well as in the papal
states, or in the liberties and principal
tiles Of the old English church, ten
dency to fatten the spiritual side OF
the community to the neglect and also
at the expense of the laity; and,
though the hillsides of the valley are
dotted with lamaseries and cells,
though the highway and the tributary
hillpaths are flanked by prayer wheels
and INSTRUCTED almost every mile with
chuertens or pious squat memorials in
plaster and stone of dead ecclesiastics.
and though from every town and vii
lage, and even from many leafess
bushes by the river side, there flutter
innumerable torn perpendicular strips
Of prayer-printed cotton, 1t is difficult
to see where the social prosperity,
which has been noticed by more than
one traveller, is to be found.
This is of course the barest and most
comfortless month in the year. Every
allowance must be made for the mo-
ment at which the advance has been
made. But the scarcity and poverty of
nearly all but the houses owned or
lived In by the lamas; the actual area
of the exiguous slopes which permit of
cultivation; the badness of the roads,
often mere careless tumble of water
worn builders over which it is difficult
to coax a horse and impossible to run
a wheeled carriage-all these silent
tokens of poverty are not disproved by
the occasional presence of a house ar
Rinchingong or Phema which betrays
within evidence of piety and even taste
of an elemental order.
Two races only fourished in this val
ley before the advance of the mission,
lamas and brigands. 1t is difficult now
to make any estimate OF the real value
of the property owned by the lama
series here. Although not the least ex-
cuse for anxiety has been given by the
behavior of any one man in the force,
the boarding abbots of this patrimoni-
UNI have been sorely alarmed by the
advent Of the English, and vast guam
titles of ecclesiastical ornaments have
been carried off to the hillsides and
buried
The zhumars and marines or shrine
lamps, often beautifully worked and
jeweled, are in almost all cases gone
altogether or replaced by commoner
substitute. The great damrus, or twin
drums, composed Of the tops of two
human skulls-one mans and the
other oman's-fastened back to
back, and covered with sheepskin; the
great golden thunderbolts, which are
the especial pride of the temples, the
silver-gilt clarinet-1ike instruments of
music-all are vanished or poorly re-
placed. In some cases the lamas have
hidden the braziers and bowls OF
wrought copper. Only the long brass
and copper trumpets, seven to ten feet
in length, resting on the ground at
their ends, and SO heavy that frame
work of wood had to support the
mouthpiece, have proved too cumber-
some to move, and the gilded and jew
eled Buddhas in the inner shrine have
been left to protect themselves But
the appearance of the lamas them
selves, fat and well-clothed, bellies tho
aspect of their stripped gompas. The
brigands of Bhutan, who have hither-
to levied a heavy blackmail upon Six
kimese and Chinese traders using the
valley, have found their occupation
gone. but the gaudiness of some of the
abandoned houses in the valley is at
tributed to this ill-gotten wealth.
Picturesque the valley is at all times.
Even now, when the first hard pellets
of the long-delayed snow are rafting
among the frozen willow shoots, and
lying like mama wherever it falls on
the ice-gripped earth, the scene Is
beautiful. Everything falls into its
place-the dark slopes of the advan-
cling mountains which thrust their feet
into the valley and turn it out of it's
course, the rich outstanding battalions
of dark green pines already busted
with white, the gray shingles of the
few close set houses which make the
towns on the maps, the bridges canti-
levered with huge boulders on their
landward ends, the occasional CLEAN OF
a golden pinnacle on a gompa or a
royal residence; above ALL perhaps,
the hurrying Ammo river, clear as
crystal in those rare lengths when 1t Is
not ruf1ing over stones, twisting hitler
and thither, now and then leaving a
wooded eyot in it's midst.
But the Chumbi valley, narrow, tor
tuotis, wind swept, priest ridden and
beset by foreign country on either
hand, has not had the chance of justi-
flying the eulogy of injudicious travel
ers. For the moment the pax Britain
MICA reigns and the wool packs come
down more freely than before; but tina
Chumbi valley probably owes its repu-
tation more to the welcome contrast it
provides to the appalling passes by
which 1t is guarded than to any intrin-
sic prosperity. 1t is a highway, and the
abode Of churchmen, who have in the
past looked down from their eyries at
4 -.