Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-06-24
IN STRANGE TIBET.
Why Its Capital City Is Cut OF From
the Rest of the World. .

Tibet lies between the latitude "
Rome and Cairo yet. owing to the fact
that it is nearly all one series or lo1ty
tablelands, its climate is purely Arc
tic. There is hardly any rain and pit-
| ing, dry winds send dust or dry sno"
storms forever raging across its in
lhospitable uplands.
Lhassa, it's capital, is the Mecca OF
| the Buddhist world, and pious Budu-
hists gain much merit by making the
pilgrimage.
The reason why this strange city
has been so completely cut off from
the rest of the world is really simple
enough. The Chinese, who conquered
the whole country between the years
/ 800 and 1920, have inculcated among
the Tibetans their own dislike of the
foreign devil" The Chinese had
selfish object in view. They wanted
to keep all the Tibetan trade to them
selves. Some years ago there was
war between Tibet and Nepal. Tibet
beat Nepal, and one of the conditions
of peace was that the trade routes
from India should be closed. How
well the closing of these routes has
benefited the Chinese may be gathered
from the fact that Chinese tea of very
worst quality-mere sticks most OF
it-sell in Lhassa for 3s a pound.
The government of Tibet is dual
The political side run by Chinese Am
bans, who draw fat salaries from the
wretched Tibetan taxpayers; internal
and religious affairs are managed by
the Dalai Lama and a council of five
-four mobiles and one layman.
The Amban makes yearly tours OF
inspection through the country, ana
as he goes collects his salary, which
amounts to the comfortable sum or
about 35 pounds a day. On one oc-
casion, when calling at town named
Shigatse, the Amban suddenly de-
manded "a pounds a day. The in
furiatcd villagers struck at this eX-
tortion and stoned him. Troops were
hurried and terribly flogged, receiving
400 strokes; while the two mayors
had the flesh cut away from their
hands Small wonder, then, that the
Chinese are not loved by the Tibe-
tans!
The choosing of the Dalai Lama Is
one of the oldest bits of swindling to
be found anywhere. The main ar
| ticle of the LamaiSt creed is transmit
grafton. When a Lama dies it is be-
| leved that he will at once reappear
| in human form, and it becomes the
| duty of his survivors to determine III
which child he is reincarnated. There
are certain physical signs. usually pc
cular to didicate the reborn saint,
and the names of children answering
to the required description are writ
ten on pieces of paper. which are
rolled up and placed in Il golden urn.
| On the eighth day the urn is spun
until name has come out three
times.
Then the boy is brought to Lhassa.
and submitted to certain tests. Pure
humbug, of course, but they serve TO
deceive the populace. The election
must then be sanctioned by the chi
nesc emperor, and the wretched little
DOy Is lllStallcu III MS new ulSlllltS'
The country is full of converts
some of them containing as many as
1000 monks, nearly all of whom
claim to be reincarnated. 1t is said
that for every family in Tibet there
are at least three monks
| The Tibetan penal code is curious.
Murder is punished with fine. vary =
ing according to the Importance or
the slain; theft by n fine of seven TO
one hundred times the value of the
article stolen Here. again, the fine
depends on the social importance or
the person from whom the theft has
been committed. The harbOrer OF a
thief is looked upon as a worse Grim
| inal than the thief himself. Ordeals
by fire and boiling water are still
used as proofs of innocence or guilt,
exactly as was the custom in Europe
i'm the Middle Ages.
| And if the LamaS never inhict
death, they are adopts at torture
! London Answers.