elves and their agents live and prosper on the fat of the land. The
masses are maintained in complete ignorance, and seldom is a layman found
who can write or even read. Thus everything has to go through the Lamas'
hands before it can be sanctioned.

[Illustration: TUCKER VILLAGE AND GOMBA]

The lamaseries and the Lamas, and the land and property belonging to
them, are absolutely free from all taxes and dues, and each Lama or
novice is supported for life by an allowance of _tsamba_, bricks of tea,
and salt. They are recruited from all ranks, and whether honest folks or
murderers, thieves or swindlers, all are eagerly welcomed on joining the
brotherhood. One or two male members of each family in Tibet take
monastic orders, and by these means the monks obtain a great hold over
each house- or tent-hold. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that in
Tibet half the male population are Lamas.

In each monastery are found Lamas, Chibbis, and a lower grade of ignorant
and depraved Lamas, slaves, as it were, of the higher order. They dress,
and have clean-shaven heads like their superiors, and do all the
handiwork of the monastery; but they are mere servants, and take no
direct, active part in the politics of the Lama Government. The Chibbis
are novices. They enter the lamasery when very young, and remain students
for many years. They are constantly under the teaching and supervision of
the older ones, and confession is practised from inferior to superior.
After undergoing, successfully, several examinations they become
effective Lamas, which word translated means "high priest." These Chibbis
take minor parts in the strange religious ceremonies in which the Lamas,
disguised in skins and ghastly masks, sing and dance with extraordinary
contortions to the accompaniment of weird music made by bells, horns,
flutes, cymbals and drums.

Each large monastery has at its head a Grand Lama, not to be confounded
with the Dalai Lama of Lhassa, who is believed, or rather supposed, to
have an immortal soul transmigrating successively from one body into
another.

The Lamas eat, drink and sleep together in the monastery, with the
exception of the Grand Lama, who has a room to himself. For one moon in
every twelve they observe a strict seclusion, which they devote to
praying, and during which time they are not allowed to speak. They fast
for twenty-four hours at a time, with only water and butter-tea, eating
on fast-days sufficient food only