une of each
individual. The elders and the Dhebas determine, according to the size
of each house, the number of men, etc., it must furnish to the oulah;
each village provides three, four, and sometimes as many as ten men. The
smaller families employ poor people as substitutes, paying them wages.
People beyond sixty years of age are exempt from the burden. If the
public service requires it, they exact oxen and horses, asses and mules
from the dwellings of the rich; the poor people club together, and three
or four houses give one beast."

The Chinese Mandarins, who always try to make money out of everything,
find means to speculate in the oulah with which the Thibetian government
furnishes them. Before leaving Lha-Ssa, they manoeuvre, by all
imaginable means, to have set forth on their road-bill a great number of
animals; they then take as many as are actually necessary, and receive,
instead of the rest, a compensation in money, which the wealthy
Thibetians much prefer to give them than to expose their animals to the
perils of the road. Others claim the whole oulah, and employ it to
transport into China Thibetian merchandise. Ly-Kouo-Ngan, whom we had
heard declare so energetically his disinterestedness, when the ambassador
Ki-Chan offered him a present on the part of the Emperor, showed feelings
much less generous in relation to the oulah.

During the day we passed at Midchoukoung, his road-bill accidentally fell
into our hands, and we were much surprised to read there that we had been
allotted two horses and twelve long-haired oxen. Yet our entire baggage
was two portmanteaus and a few bed things. "What do all these oxen
mean?" inquired we of the Pacificator of Kingdoms; "do we need twelve
beasts to carry two portmanteaus?" "Oh, it's a mistake of the
secretary," replied he; and out of politeness, we affected to be
perfectly satisfied with the answer.

It often happens, however, that the Chinese make gross mistakes as to
their speculations in the oulah; they find, on the way, for example, some
Thibetian tribes who are not at all disciplined to this kind of
contribution. It is in vain they point out to these rude and fierce
mountaineers the road-bill sealed with the seal of the Tale-Lama and that
of the Chinese ambassador; they remain inexorable. To everything that is
said to them, as an inducement to submit to the law, they have but this
answer: "For a guide you will give so much; for a horse, so much; for a