days reputed unlucky, which
occur in the course of the moon, are omitted, and do not count. Thus,
for example, if the fifteenth day of the moon is a day of ill omen, they
count the fourteenth twice over, and pass on direct to the sixteenth.
Sometimes several days of ill-omen occur one after the other; but that is
of no consequence; they cut them all off just the same, until they come
to a lucky day. The Thibetians do not seem to find the least
inconvenience in such a method.

The renewal of the year is, with the Thibetians, as with all people, a
season of festivals and rejoicings. The last days of the twelfth moon
are consecrated to the preparations for it; people lay in supplies of
tea, butter, tsamba, barley wine, and some joints of beef and mutton.
The holiday clothes are taken from the wardrobes; they remove the dust
under which the furniture is generally hidden; they furbish up, clean,
sweep, and try, in a word, to introduce into the interior of their houses
a little order and neatness. The thing only happening once a year, all
the households assume a new aspect; the domestic altars are the objects
of especial care; they repaint the old idols, and they make, with fresh
butter, pyramids, flowers, and various ornaments designed to deck the
little sanctuaries where the Buddhas of the family reside.

The first Louk-So, or Rite of the Festival, commences at midnight, so
that every one sits up, impatiently awaiting this mystical and solemn
hour, which is to close the old year, and open the course of the new. As
we were not anxious to catch the exact point of intersection which
separates the two Thibetian years, we went to sleep at our usual hour.
We were in a deep slumber, when we were suddenly awakened by the cries of
joy which issued from all sides, in all quarters of the town. Bells,
cymbals, marine conches, tambourines, and all the instruments of
Thibetian music, were set to work, and operated the most frightful uproar
imaginable; it seemed as though they were receiving the new-born year
with a charivari. We had once a good mind to get up, to witness the
happiness of the merry inhabitants of Lha-Ssa, but the cold was so
cutting that after serious reflection, we opined that it would be better
to remain under our thick woollen coverlets, and to unite ourselves in
heart with the public felicity. Repeated knocks on the door of our
house, threatening to dash it into splinters, warned us that we must
renounce our