its supreme filth, and this is borne out by every experience
of Tibet.* I do not think that many of even those stalwarts
who bathe in the Serpentine on Christmas morning
would cut a valiant figure on the Tang la where the
thermometer is sometimes fifty-nine degrees lower than
the freezing point they defy in Hyde Park.
But in other ways than those of ablution, the religion
of Tibet makes no attempt to enforce healthiness. I t
is beyond question that the ophthalmia of Tibet is due
directly and the prevalence of hare-lip f indirectly to
the physical inadequacy of the Tibetan race. Pyramidal
cataract is another very common disease ; this is mainly
caused by neglect of ophthalmia, of which the origin is
again neglect of cleanliness. These physical deficiencies
or deformities might easily be supplemented by a reference
to the prevalence of smallpox and similar dirt
diseases ; but at the moment I wish simply to emphasize
the fact that a religion which neither directly nor indirectly
encourages cleanliness, is one which requires
artificial fostering if it is to remain a power among mankind.
That artificial fostering Lamaism has always received.
Partly from its inaccessibility, partly from the
superstitious veneration with which the country and its
god-king has always been regarded, and partly because
of the stubborn exclusion of foreign influences, Lamaism
has been allowed, if I may use a common phrase, to
stew in its own juice until the goodness has entirely
departed from it and from the people who are its official
ministers. I t is difficult at this moment to point to a
single recognised and observed ordinance peculiar to
Lamaism which is of the slightest use or virtue.
* Andrada politely remarks “ e se bene nelle proprie persone non hanno mol to
riguardo alia delicatura.”
t Hare-lip is a symptom of a physically under-developed human being.
It is odd to remember that an early explorer in this
country found, as he thought, every sign of Christianity
except the essence of it. In the first half of the seventeenth
century Father Andrada, in the following words
reported what he believed to be the truth in this con
nection . C
“ L ’immagini sono d’oro, & una, che vedemmo
in Chaparangue, stana à sedere con le mani alzate
e rappresentana una donna, la quale dicono che e
Madre di Dio : riconoscono il misterio dell’ incar-
natione dicendo, che il figlio di Dio si e fatto
huomo : tengono di più il Misterio della Santissima
Trinità molto distincto, e dicono, che Dio e trino
& uno. Usano di confessarsi, ma solamente in certi
casi col suo Làmba Maggiore. Hanno vasi d’acqua
benedetta molto politi, da quali pigliano i particolari
per tenerla in casa.”
There is without doubt a curious resemblance between
the ritual of the two great autocratic churches. The
arrangements inside the gompa might well be regarded
as owing their origin to Christian usages. The sano*
tuary, especially at night, bears a curious resemblance
to that of a Roman Catholic shrine. And the anti-
phonal chant of the singing men and boys, ranged just
as with ourselves in lines, decani and cantoris, the monotoned
voice and the rare tinkle of the Sanctus, combined
with the genuflexions before the altar, carry on inside
the church a merely ritualistic resemblance which adds
colour to the fanciful imaginings in deeper matters of
Father Andrada of the Society of Jesus. Nor does the
similarity stop here. The orders within the Church,