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butter (torma), which they mould with extraordinary
dexterity into conventional structures, sometimes five
or six feet high. But the altar lamps must, and do,
remain, whatever the risk, and one of the pleas subsequently
brought forward by the Abbot of Gyantse
was that a fine to be paid in butter might be commuted,
as they needed all the butter they could get for ceremonial
use on their hundred altars-Sand they urged,
with shrewd flattery, it was well known that the British
never interfered with the religion of the countries into
which they made their way.
Outside this little orange-walled gompa were five pots
in which bloomed courageously well-grown plants of
simple English stocks. It was a curious shock to see
them. How they came there it would be useless to
guess, but surely never before did stocks justify so well
Maeterlinck’s eulogy of those little flowers that “ sing
among ruined walls and cover with light the grieving
stones.” For up above the gompa rise the great towers
and buildings which lead up to the topmost structure
on the very edge of the precipice which confronts the
Lamasery to the north-west ; and even then, before the
bombardments and explosions of later days, they were
all roofless shells of stone which quivered in the light
afternoon wind.
From the castle a fine view is to be had of the town
of Gyantse and the great Lamasery of Palkhor choide,
which stretches on the slope of a southerly spur facing
the jong three-quarters of a mile away, protected by a
long crimson wall from the assaults of the prevailing
north-west wind. There are two curious things about
this monastery. First, although it is subject to Lhasa,
and therefore nominally a Gelukpa or Yellow Cap foun