these places
of worship that would make description tedious. Only the Ramo-che and
Moru temples, which are solely devoted to sorcery, are different. Here
one sees the other soul-side of the people.

The Ramo-che is as dark and dingy as a vault. On each side of the
doorway are three gigantic tutelary demons. In the vestibule is a
collection of bows, arrows, chain-armour, stag-horns, stuffed animals,
scrolls, masks, skulls, and all the paraphernalia of devil-worship. On
the left is a dark recess where drums are being beaten by an unseen
choir.

A Lama stands, chalice in hand, before a deep aperture cut in the wall
like a buttery hatch, and illumined by dim, flickering candles, which
reveal a malignant female fiend. As a second priest pours holy water
into a chalice, the Lama raises it solemnly again and again, muttering
spells to propitiate the fury.

In the hall there are neither ornaments, gods, hanging canopies, nor
scrolls, as in the other temples. There is neither congregation nor
priests. The walls are apparently black and unpainted, but here and
there a lamp reveals a Gorgon's head, a fiend's eye, a square inch or
two of pigment that time has not obscured.

The place is immemorially old. There are huge vessels of carved metal
and stone, embossed, like the roof, with griffins and skulls, which
probably date back to before the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet,
and are survivals of the old Bon religion. There is nothing bright here
in colour or sound, nothing vivid or animated.

Stricken men and women come to remove a curse, vindictive ones to
inflict one, bereaved ones to pay the initiated to watch the adventures
of the soul in purgatory and guide it on its passage to the new birth,
while demons and furies are lurking to snatch it with fiery claws and
drag it to hell.

All these beings must be appeased by magic rites. So in the Ramo-che
there is no rapture of music, no communion with Buddha, no beatitudes,
only solitary priests standing before the shrines and mumbling
incantations, dismal groups of two or three seated Buddha-fashion on the
floor, and casting spells to exercise a deciding influence, as they
hope, in the continual warfare which is being waged between the tutelary
and malignant deities for the prize of a soul.

In the chancel of the temple, behind the altar, is a massive pile of
masonry stretching from floor to roof, under which, as folk believe, an
abysmal chasm leads down to hell. Round th