The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1905-04-13
A QUEER LAND IS THIBET.
IF THERE'S AN ODDER PLACE 1T
HAS NOT BEEN DISCOVERED.
Queen Victoria as a Bloodthirsty
Goddess-Curious Effects OF Great
Altitude-The Highest Battle and
The Highest Town in the world.

If there is any place in the world
odder than the country described by
Mr.. Perceval Landon in "The Opening
of Tnfbet," published an copyrighted
by Doubleday, Page & Co., explorers
ought to be set upon its trail.
The country begins at the level of
the top of Pixies Peak and runs mucn
higher. 1t is so high that tea boils
moro easily than on the plain; that
sores on horses backs heal with diff
ficulty; that the natives, and even
visitors, are made i'll by air pressure
when they go down to the plains.
The highest town in the world is
Phagri, whose inhabitants are also
the dirtiest of people. 1t is too cold
to keep clean. A battle was fought III
part $4,000 feet above the sea, where
1t is almost impossible even to walk.
Lhasa is a city in the clouds. The
Lamas palace is "skyscraper 600
feet long. 1t IS seventy feet higher
than the golden cross of st. PauPs
Cathedral; far taller than any build
ing in New York.
Game birds are tame in Thibet even
when nominally wild" The same
birds that the gun-shy IN Hindoostan,
where the Englishman has introduced
sport" are not afraid of man in Thi-
bet, whose religion forbids the taking
of life.
Perhaps the prayer wheels are as
odd as anything. You gain merit by
reciting "Om mani padmi hum" 1t
is easier to write it out many times,
inclose the writing in a rattle like a
watchman's and twlrl it as you walk.
Easier still to print it in fine type on
the thinnest paper and stuff with
these prayers a great water wheel
eight feet in diameter. Every time 1t
turns all those millions OF prayers are
prayed.
The Thibetan tells an arriving
guest to sit and stick to the carpet"
slowly"
The Thibetans believe that when
the country was young Buddha saw
it and observed that the people were
ali monkeys. Why, he asked, were
they not men and good Buddhists?
What chance was there in such a
country, they asked in reply, for men
to cultivate their bodies, let alone
their souls? Then said Buddha: IF
you will promise to become men and
Buddhists l will give you good and
fertile land to live in Of course
they promised, and Thibetans say
nudona made good; but visitors
doubt it.
The Thibetans have discovered that
the present Gar of Russia is rein
carnation of Tsong-kapa, the reform
er; but this, though an odd role for the
Car, is not half so odd as the rein
carnation which they have thought
fully arranged for the late Queen Vic
torla. She is really Paldenlhamo, a
dark blue lady with three eyes, who
sits upon chestnut mule, drinking
blood from skull and trampling I'M
der foot the torn and mutllated bodies
of men and women. Her crown is
composed of skulls, her eye teeth are
four inches long, and the bride, girth
and crupper are living snakes kept in
position by the dripping skin of re-
Gently fiayed man. by this reincar-
nation idea the ThiDetans mean to
convey "the highest possible personal
compliment"
If a Thibetan woman marries a
man she marries also his younger
brothers, but not older ones. Under
this system, which has not its like
anywhere else in the world, population
steadily declines.
When there is an earthquake the
Thibetans know just how it happened.
There are evil spirits; some of
them are gigantic brutes a mile in
height, with tiny mouths which pre-
vent them swallowing even the small
est crumb; naturally they suffer from
hunger, and in their agonized with
ings they are the immediate cause of
earthquakes"