yellow rose. The village contamed about one hundred
houses, irregularly crowded together, from ten to
WALLANOHOON v il l a g e .
twenty feet high, and forty to eighty feet long ; each
accommodating several families. All were built of upright
strong pine-planks, the interstices between which
were filled with yak-dung; and they sometimes rested
on a low foundation wall: the door was generally
at the gable end; it opened with a latch and string,
and turned on a wooden pivot; the only window was a
slit closed by a shutter; and the roofs were very
low-pitched, covered with shingles kept down by stones.
The paths were narrow and filthy; and the only
public buildings besides the convents were Manis and
Mendongs; of these the former are square-roofed
temples, containing rows of praying-cylinders placed
close together, from four to six feet high, and gaudily
painted; some are turned by hand, and others by
water: the latter are walls ornamented with slabs
of clay and mica slate, with “ Om Mani Padmi om ”
well carved on them in two characters, and repeated
ad infinitum.
A Tibetan household is very slovenly; the family
live higgledy-piggledy in two or more apartments, the
largest of which has an open fire on the earth, or
on a stone if the floor be of wood. The pots and teapots
are earthen and copper; and these, with the
bamboo churn for the brick tea, some wooden and
metal spoons, bowls, and platters, comprise all the
kitchen utensils.
Every one carries in the breast of his robe a little
wooden cup for daily u se; neatly turned from the
knotted roots of maple. The Tibetan chiefly consumes
barley, wheat, or buckwheat meal—the latter confined
to the poorer classes—with milk, butter, curd, and
parched wheat; fowls, eggs, pork, and yak flesh when
he can afford it, and radishes, a few potatos, legumes,
K 3