ut the window; but, the door
open, the window shut. Another peculiarity is that milk, butter, curds,
all insupportably odious to a Chinese, are especially favourite food with
the inhabitants of Kan-Sou. But it is, above all, their religious turn
of mind which distinguishes them from the Chinese, a people almost
universally sceptical and indifferent as to religious matters. In
Kan-Sou there are numerous and flourishing Lamaseries in which reformed
Buddhism is followed. The Chinese, indeed, have plenty of pagodas and
idols of all sorts and sizes in their houses; but with them religion is
limited to this external representation, whereas in Kan-Sou everyone
prays often and long and fervently. Now prayer, as everyone knows, is
that which distinguishes the religious from the irreligious man.

Besides differing materially from the other peoples of China, the
inhabitants of Kan-Sou differ materially amongst themselves, the
Dchiahours marking that sub-division, perhaps, more distinctly than any
of the other tribes. They occupy the country commonly called
_San-Tchouan_ (Three Valleys), the birthplace of our cameleer
Samdadchiemba. The Dchiahours possess all the knavery and cunning of the
Chinese, without any of their courtesy, and without their polished form
of language, and they are accordingly feared and disliked by all their
neighbours. When they consider themselves in any way injured or
insulted, they have immediate recourse to the dagger, by way of remedy.
With them the man most to be honoured is he who has committed the
greatest number of murders. They have a language of their own, a medley
of Mongol, Chinese, and Eastern Thibetian. According to their own
account, they are of Tartar origin. If it be so, they may fairly claim
to have preserved, in all its integrity, the ferocious and independent
character of their ancestors, whereas the present occupiers of Mongolia
have greatly modified and softened their manners.

Though subject to the Emperor of China, the Dchiahours are immediately
governed by a sort of hereditary sovereign belonging to their tribe, and
who bears the title of Tou-Sse. There are in Kan-Sou, and on the
frontiers of the province of Sse-Tchouan, several other tribes, having
their own special rulers and their own especial laws. All these tribes
are called Tou-Sse, to which each adds, by way of distinction, the family
name of its chief or sovereign. Samdadchiemba, for example, belonged to
the Ki