d the fugitives to share their meal, and bade her
dutiful spouses serve the supposed lamas. They proffered cooked rice
coloured with saffron and other food in the excellent Bhutanese baskets
woven with very finely split cane. These are made in two circular parts
with rounded top and bottom pieces fitting so well that water can
actually be carried in them. From sealed wicker-covered bamboos the
hosts filled _choongas_ (bamboo mugs) with _murwa_, the beer of the
country, and _chang_, the native spirit. Frank and Muriel refused the
liquor; but Tashi drank their share as well as his, to give the pious
peasants an opportunity of acquiring merit. And wife and husbands
thought themselves amply rewarded by a muttered blessing.

A very different figure was that of a man lame of the right leg and
limping painfully down a steep hill in front of the fugitives. Muriel,
full of pity, whispered to her lover after they had passed him: "Oh, the
poor wretch! Did you see, dear, he had lost the right hand as well?" But
she shuddered when she learned that the cripple was a murderer punished
by the severing of the tendons of the leg and the loss of the hand that
struck the fatal blow.

In the cultivated valleys, where barley, buckwheat and mustard grew,
there were everywhere evidences of the religious feeling of the Western
Bhutanese. Every hill was crowned with a _gompa_ or chapel, _chortens_
and praying-wheels stood beside the road, and _mendongs_ or
praying-walls, a mile long, their stones engraved with sacred words,
were built near habitations.

In the villages the disguised fugitives were well treated. Food and
lodging were offered them freely in the cabins as in the great houses of
officials and rich folks, where they spent hours watching the skilled
artisans among the feudal retainers of their hosts weaving silk, making
woollen and cotton garments, brocade and embroideries, or hammering
artistic designs on silver or copper plates backed with lac. None
suspected the three of being other than they seemed. The Buddhism of
Bhutan and Tibet to-day has but one article of faith--"Acquire merit by
feeding and paying the lamas and they will win salvation for you." So
rich and poor vied in giving their best to the holy wayfarers, and
sought not to intrude on the meditations or privacy of lama and _chela_,
and welcomed the cheery company of the more worldly lay brother who
could crack a joke or empty a mug with any man and pitch the stone
quo