The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-07

ecclesiastics, and though from every 1 town and village. and even from many tieafless bushes by the riverside, there | fiuttered innumerable cotton, it is diff
 cut 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 comfortable 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 lof cultivation: the badness of the roads,
 often mere careless tumble of water
 worn boulders over which it is difficult
 to coax horse and impossible to run wheeled carriage-au these silent to-
 kens of poverty are not disDroved by the occasional presence of house at
 Rinchingong or Phema which betrays within evidence of piety and even taste
 of an elemental order.
 Two races only fiourished in this val l ley before the advance of the mission
 Iamas and brigands. It is difficult now to make any estimate of the real value Of the property owner by the lamase- | ries here. Although not the least ex-
 cuse for anxiety has been given by the
 behavior of any one man in the force,
 the hoarding abbots of this petrimo- nium have been sorely alarmed by the advent of the English, and vast quan- l titles of ecclesiastical ornaments have
 been carried off to the hillside and
 buried. The zhumars and marmes, or shrine lamps, aften beautifully worked
 and jewelled. are in almost all cases
 gone altogether or replaced by com moner substitute. The great damrus,
 or twin drums. composed of the topes
 of two human skulls-one a mans and the other a woman's-fastened back to
 back and covered with sheepskin, and
 great golden thunderbolts which are 1 the especial pride of the temples. the lsilver-gilt clarinet-like 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 feet to ten l feet long, resting on the ground at their ends. and so heavy that framework 1 of wood had to support the mouth piece. have proved too cumbersome to
 move, and the gilded and jewelled
 Buddhas in the inner shrine have been | left to protect themselves. But the ap- pearance of the Lamas, themselves, fat and .well-clothed. bellies the aspect of 1 their striped gompas. The brigands of Bhutan. who have hitherto levied a
 heavy blackmail upon Sikkimese and Chinese traders using the valley, have found their occupation gone, but the
 gaudiness of some of the abandoned
 houses in the valley is attributed 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 rattling among the frozen willow shoots, and lying like mama wherever it falls on the ice-gripped earth, the scene is
 beautiful. Everything falls into it's place-the dark slopes of the advancing
 mountains. which thrust their feet into the valley and turn it out of it's course: the rich understanding battalions of 'dark green pines, already dusted with