of chaits and mendongs, looking like a crowded cemetery
, and planted with funereal cypresses.
The house of the principal Lama was an oblong
square, the lower story of stone, and the upper of
wood: we ascended a ladder to the upper room, which
was 24 feet by 8, wattled all round, with prettily latticed
windows opening upon a bamboo balcony used for
drying grain, under the eaves of the broad thatched
roof, The ceiling (of neat bamboo work) was hung
with glorious bunches of maize, yellow, red, and brown;
an altar and closed wicker cage at one end of the room
held the Penates, and a few implements of worship,
Chinese carpets were laid on the floor for us, and the
cans of Murwa brought round.
The Lama, though one of the red sect, was dressed
in a yellow flowered silk robe, but his mitre was re d :
he gave us much information relative to the introduction
of Boodhism into Sikkim.
The three temples stand about fifty yards apart, but
are not parallel to one another, although their general
direction is east and west. Each is oblong, and narrowed
upwards, with the door at one end; the middle
(and smallest) faces the west, the others the east: the
doorways are all broad, low and deep, protected by a
projecting carved portico. The walls are immensely
thick, of well-masoned slaty stones; the outer surface
of each slopes upwards and inwards, the inner is perpendicular.
The roofs are low and thickly thatched,
and project from eight to ten feet all round, to keep off
the rain, being sometimes supported by long poles.
There is a very low upper story, inhabited by the
attendant monks and servants, accessible by a ladder at
one end of the building. The main body of the temple
DOORWAY.
is one large apartment, entered through a small transverse
vestibule, the breadth of the temple, in which are
tall cylindrical praying-machines. The carving round
the doors is very beautiful, and they are gaudily painted
and gilded. The northern temple is quite plain : the
middle one is simply painted red, and encircled with a
row of black heads, with goggle eyes and numerous
teeth, on a white ground ; it is said to have been originally
dedicated to the evil spirits of the Lepcha
creed. The southern, which contains the library, is