small quantity of
arable land falling to the share of each inhabitant. In order to support
the 1,500,000 inhabitants distributed in Thibet, upon a surface of
1,200,000 square kilometres, the Buddhists were forced to adopt
polyandry. Moreover, each family is bound to enter one of its members in
a religious order. The firstborn is consecrated to a gonpa, which is
inevitably found upon an elevation, at the entrance of every village.
As soon as the child attains the age of eighteen years, he is entrusted
to the caravans which pass Lhassa, where he remains from eight to
fifteen years as a novice, in one of the gonpas which are near the city.
There he learns to read and write, is taught the religious rites and
studies the sacred parchments written in the Pali language--which
formerly used to be the language of the country of Maguada, where,
according to tradition, Buddha was born.

The oldest brother remaining in a family chooses a wife, who becomes
common to his brothers. The choice of the bride and the nuptial
ceremonies are most rudimentary. When a wife and her husband have
decided upon the marriage of a son, the brother who possesses the right
of choice, pays a visit to a neighboring family in which there is a
marriageable daughter.

The first and second visits are spent in more or less indifferent
conversations, blended with frequent libations of tchang, and on the
third visit only does the young man declare his intention to take a
wife. Upon this the girl is formally introduced to him. She is generally
not unknown to the wooer, as, in Ladak, women never veil their faces.

A girl cannot be married without her consent. When the young man is
accepted, he takes his bride to his house, and she becomes his wife and
also the wife of all his brothers. A family which has an only son sends
him to a woman who has no more than two or three husbands, and he offers
himself to her as a fourth husband. Such an offer is seldom declined,
and the young man settles in the new family.

The newly married remain with the parents of the husbands, until the
young wife bears her first child. The day after that event, the
grandparents of the infant make over the bulk of their fortune to the
new family, and, abandoning the old home to them, seek other shelter.

Sometimes marriages are contracted between youth who have not reached a
marriageable age, but in such event, the married couple are made to live
apart, until they have attained and eve