Church of Rome. Each Tartar kingdom has a Grand Lama, who is selected
from the members of the royal family. There is also a Grand Lama for
all Thibet. This personage resides in the Lamasery, like a living idol,
receiving every day the adorations of the devout, upon whom, in return,
he bestows his blessing. Everything which relates to prayers and
liturgical ceremonies is placed under his immediate superintendence.
The Mongol Grand Lama is charged with the administration, good
order, and executive of the Lamasery; he governs while his colleague
is content to reign. Each Lamasery of the first class has a Living
Buddha for its head. He is believed to be immortal. When his death is
reported, there is no mourning in the Lamasery; for it is believed that
he will soon reappear as a child. The augur, or Tchurtchur, indicates
the place where the child will declare himself, and this always occurs.
A certain precocious child announces that he is the Living Buddha, and
the people immediately display the most enthusiastic joy. The child
is rigidly examined as to the residence, habits, and property of the
deceased Buddha. If his answers are satisfactory, and they generally
are, he is conducted in triumph to his Lamasery, the people prostrating
themselves along his path.
The Grand Lamas who govern have a number of subalterns, who direct the
details of administration. After this staff, the inhabitants of the
Lamasery are divided into Lama-masters and Lama-disciples, or Chabis.
Each Lama has under his direction one or more Chabis, who live in his
small house and execute all the details of the household. These Chabis
are also considered as pupils, and when they fail to commit their
studies to memory they are severely punished.
All instruction, both in Thibet and Tartary, is ecclesiastical. It is
said that the majority of the people constantly act with a view to a
future life. They are, in fact, much more consistently religious,
according to their notions, than the so-called Christian nations of
Europe. As to the character of those notions, we may learn from the
Thibetian work entitled "The Forty-Two Points of Instruction delivered
by Buddha," that they are purely moral. According to this book, "there
are in living creatures ten species of acts which are called good,
and also ten species of acts which are called evil. There are three
which appertain to the body, murder, theft, and impurity; four, which
appertain to speech, are words sowing discord, insulting maledictions,
impudent lies, and hypocritical expressions; three appertaining to
the will, are envy, anger, and malignant thoughts." The wicked man
who persecutes a good man is compared to a madman who spits against
heaven, the spittle falling back in his face. The man who seeks riches
is compared to a child who cuts itself while trying to eat honey with
a knife. Voluptuousness is denounced as a sin, and the dominion of the
mind over the passions of the heart is rigidly enforced. The belief
in a spiritual God, who rewards good actions and punishes evil ones,
is common to all Tartars and Thibetians. They believe that he is the
beginning and end of all things, and that he has assumed the human
shape and appeared among men to stimulate them to do good. They divide
living beings into six classes, angels, demons, men, quadrupeds, birds,
and reptiles, corresponding to the six syllables of the prayer they
constantly repeat: "Om mani pad me houm." (Oh, the gem in the lotus,
Amen.) The meaning of this singular prayer is said to be an aspiration
after divine perfection. The reward of the just and perfect is believed
to be an absorption into the blissful soul of the Deity.
The monasteries of these people differ in some respects from the
Catholic establishments of Europe. It cannot be said that the Lamas
live in community. You may find among them all the graduated shades of
poverty and wealth that you see in mundane cities. Every third month,
the authorities make a distribution of meal to all the Lamas of the
Lamaseries without distinction. The voluntary offerings of the pilgrims
to Hounboum come in aid of this donation. Some of these offerings are
in money; but generally they consist of a tea-drinking entertainment,
to which all the Lamas are invited. These entertainments are very
expensive.
A large number of the Lamas gain a livelihood by the ordinary
occupations of life; but a certain class devote themselves entirely to
study and contemplation. Among the industrial Lamas, a number occupy
themselves in printing and transcribing the Lamanesque books. The
Thibetian writing proceeds horizontally from left to right. Stereotype
printing on wood is alone practised, no use being made of movable
type. The Thibetian books resemble a large pack of cards, the leaves
being movable and printed on both sides. The manuscript editions of
the Lamanesque books are enriched with illustrative designs, and the
characters are elegantly traced. The Lamas use sized paper and a bamboo
pen. Their inkstand is filled with cotton saturated with ink.
In each Lamasery there is a Faculty of Prayers, and the Grand Lama and
the students of this department are often appealed to by the government
to preserve their locality from calamity. On these occasions, the Lamas
ascend to the summits of high mountains, and spend two whole days in
praying, exorcising, and in erecting the Pyramid of Peace--a small
pyramid of earth whitened with lime, a flag, inscribed with Thibetian
characters, floating above.
[Illustration: THE PYRAMID OF PEACE.]
Each Lamasery has also a Faculty of Medicine. The physicians assign to
the human frame four hundred and forty-four maladies. In the medical
books the symptoms are described and the remedies stated. Bleeding and
cupping are sometimes resorted to. The books contain much quackery,
but also a large number of valuable recipes, the benefits of which are
confirmed by long experience and observation.
Four great festivals are observed by the Tartars and Thibetians during
the year. The most famous of all is the Feast of Flowers, which takes
place on the fifteenth day of the first moon. It is celebrated with
the greatest magnificence at Hounboum, where, at the appointed time,
a vast number of pilgrims congregate. Three months are occupied in
preparation, a Council of Fine Arts being appointed to superintend.
The most remarkable achievements are the butter-works--all the Asiatic
nations being represented with their peculiar physiognomies and
costumes in fresh butter. MM. Gabet and Huc state that this butter-work
and the arrangement of the flowers excelled anything they ever
beheld as the result of art. At night the exhibition was splendidly
illuminated. In front of the principal temple there was a theatre with
its performers and decorations, all of butter. The _dramatis personæ_
were a foot high, and represented a community of Lamas on their way to
solemnize prayer. The Lamas were movable puppets. The day after the
Feast of Flowers not a trace remains of these splendid works. All are
demolished, and the butter thrown to the cows.
The Thibetians have made extensive progress in those arts which are
generally considered the flowers of civilization. Their architecture,
though somewhat fantastical, often appears grand. Some of their temples
are very imposing. Most of the houses at the capital at Lha-Ssa
are several stories high, terminating in a terrace, slightly sloped
to carry off the water. They are white-washed all over, except the
bordering round the doors and windows, which is painted red or yellow.
The people of Lha-Ssa are in the habit of painting their houses once a
year, so that they always seem as if just built. In one of the suburbs,
the houses are built of the horns of oxen and sheep, and they present
a most fantastical appearance. Lha-Ssa is laid out with broad streets,
and surrounded with a beautiful wall of gardens. Besides the taste
and architectural skill displayed in the erection of the temples and
dwelling-houses of the capital, we find a number of grand mausoleums
in various parts of Thibet, which evince a high degree of development
in art. The Thibetians are not in the habit of burying their dead.
In general, the bodies are left upon the summits of the mountains,
or thrown to the dogs, being esteemed but as worthless clods; but
mausoleums have been erected in honor of famous Grand Lamas.
[Illustration: THEATRE AT THE FEAST OF FLOWERS.]
The manufactures of the Thibetians are various and valuable. Although
the severest labor is performed by the women, the men employ themselves
quite profitably, especially in spinning and weaving wool. The stuffs
they manufacture, which are called poulon, are of a very close and
solid fabric, and surprisingly various in quality, from the coarsest
cloths to the finest possible merino. By a rule of reformed Buddhism,
every Lama must be attired in red poulon. The consumption of the
article in Thibet is very large, and considerable quantities are
exported. The pastile-sticks, so celebrated in China, are manufactured
at Lha-Ssa, of various aromatic trees, mixed with musk and gold
dust. When these sticks are lighted they consume slowly, and diffuse
around an exquisite perfume. The Thibetians have no porcelain, but
they manufacture all kinds of pottery in great perfection. The only
tea-service used throughout Thibet is a wooden cup, which is either
carried in the bosom or suspended from the girdle. Some of the most
costly cups have the property of neutralizing poisons.
The agricultural productions of the Thibetians are very poor. They
cultivate a little wheat and still less rice. The chief production is
tsing-kon, or black barley, of which is made the tsamba, that basis
of the aliment of the entire Thibetian population. All the labor of
cultivating the ground is performed by the women. The implements used
are of the most primitive description, and the work is wretchedly done.
Thibet is exceedingly rich in metals. Gold and silver are collected
there so readily, that the common shepherds have become acquainted with
the art of purifying these precious metals. Specie is of a low value,
and, consequently, goods maintain a high price. The monetary system of
the Thibetians consists entirely of silver coins, which are somewhat
larger than French francs. On one side they bear an inscription,
and upon the other, they have a crown of light, small flowers. To
facilitate commerce, these coins are cut into pieces, the number of
flowers remaining on each piece determining its value--a very simple,
yet adequate arrangement. In the larger commercial transactions, ingots
of silver are employed. The Pebouns, or Indians settled at Lha-Ssa, are
the only workers in metals at the capital. In their quarters, you may
find ironsmiths, braziers, plumbers, tin-men, founders, goldsmiths,
jewellers, machinists, and even chemists. There all sorts of vases
are manufactured for the use of the Lamaseries, and some of them are
exquisitely ornamented. While these Indians are the chief manufacturers
of Thibet, the Katchi, or Musselmen, are the leading merchants. Their
religion and their trade are respected by the government.
The greater portion of the wealth of Thibet is the property of the
Lamaseries. The people experience all the misery consequent upon the
existence of an overpaid church establishment. Yet they are so devoted
to their religion that they are never weary of making rich offerings to
the Lamas. There are swarms of beggars throughout the country; but it
is only just to observe that the Thibetians are kind and compassionate,
and that those who are blessed with a goodly store give freely.
The condition of woman is always a fair test of progress in
civilization. Polygamy prevails, with the sanction of the Lamanesque
religion, in Thibet and Tartary. But the first wife is always the
mistress of the household, and the most respected in the family. MM.
Gabet and Huc thought polygamy a real blessing to the people of those
countries. Celibacy being imposed on the Lamas, and the class of those
who shave the head and live in Lamaseries being so numerous, it is
easy to conceive what disorders would arise from the multiplication
of young women without support, and abandoned to themselves, if girls
could not be placed in families in the quality of second wives. Divorce
is frequent, and it takes place without any intervention of civil or
ecclesiastical authorities. In Tartary, the women lead an independent
life, coming and going at pleasure.
The Thibetian women submit, in their toilet, to a custom or law
scarcely credible. Before going out of doors they always rub their
faces over with a sort of black, glutinous varnish, the object being
to render themselves as ugly and hideous as possible. This practice
is said to be about two hundred years old, and tradition says that
it originated with an austere Lama king, who desired to check
licentiousness of manners. At present, the women who bedaub their faces
the most hideously are esteemed the most pious. The women lead an
active and laborious life. Besides fulfilling the various duties of the
household, they concentrate in their own hands all the petty trade of
the country, whether as hawkers, as stall-keepers in the streets or in
the shops. Little or no restraint is imposed upon them. Their general
character for morality is good--in fact, if compared with that of other
Asiatic women, quite exemplary. They are strictly attentive to their
devotions, and will even go beyond the men in deeds of penance and
mortification of the body.
We hope we have given a sufficient idea of the recent revelations
concerning Thibetian and Tartarian life to awaken an interest in
further developments. The discoveries of the French missionaries have
but opened the way for others of the highest importance to mankind.
From what we have related, it will be inferred that the work of
Christianizing Asia will not be so difficult as has hitherto been
supposed; that reformed Buddhism is a good preparation of one hundred
and seventy millions of people for the reception of those truths which
Christians believe to be necessary to the salvation of man; and that
we have not false idols to throw down, but to a belief essentially
pure, spiritual, and godly, to add that definite knowledge of a new
dispensation, the universal prevalence of which must banish strife from
the face of the earth, and render it a realm of uninterrupted bliss.
* * * * *
REMEMBERED HAPPINESS.
MANKIND are always happier for having been happy; so that if you make
them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence, by the memory
of it. A childhood passed with a due mixture of rational indulgence,
under fond and wise parents, diffuses over the whole of life a feeling
of calm pleasure, and in extreme old age is the very last remembrance
which time can erase from the mind of man. How enjoyment, however
inconsiderable, is confined to the present moment! A man is the happier
for life from having made once an agreeable tour, or lived for any
length of time with pleasant people, or enjoyed any considerable
interval of innocent pleasure.
THE TRIALS OF A NEEDLEWOMAN.[A]
BY T. S. ARTHUR.
(Continued from page 334.)
CHAPTER VIII.
A BOY of more robust constitution and fuller of blood than Henry
Gaston, with that activity which a fine flow of animal spirits and a
high degree of health give, would have cared little for the exposure to
which he was subjected at Sharp's, even if clad no more comfortably.
But Henry had little of that healthy warmth natural to the young. He
was constitutionally delicate, and this caused him to feel more keenly
the chilling intensity of the cold to which he was frequently exposed
without sufficient clothing. His whole dress, intended to protect
him from the cold of a remarkably severe and trying winter, was a
thin shirt, the remains of one worn for nearly a year; the jacket and
trowsers, thin and threadbare, that Mrs. Sharp had made for him out of
some worn-out garment which her husband had thrown aside, and which
were now rent in many places; a pair of dilapidated yarn stockings,
with feet like a honey-comb. His shoes, the pair given him by his
mother, had been half-soled once, but were again so far gone that his
stockings protruded in several places, and yet neither his master nor
mistress seemed to take any notice of their condition, and he was
afraid to ask for a new pair. When it rained or snowed, or, worse, when
it rained with or after the snow, as it had done several times within a
week, his shoes were but a poor protection for his feet. The snow and
water went through them as through a sieve.
Before the first of February, the poor boy was almost crippled with the
chilblains. Through the day, he hobbled about as best he could, often
in great pain; and at night the tender skin of his feet, irritated
by the warmth of the bed, would keep him awake for hours with a most
intolerable burning and itching.
"Why don't you walk straight? What do you go shuffling along in that
kind of style for?" said Sharp to him one day, toward the last of
January.
"My feet are so sore," replied Henry, with a look of suffering, blended
with patient endurance.
"What's the matter with them, ha?" asked his master, glancing down at
the miserable apologies for shoes and stockings that but partially
protected the child's feet from the snow whenever he stepped beyond the
threshold.
"They're frosted, sir," said Henry.
"Frosted, ha? Pull off your shoes and stockings, and let me see."
Henry drew off an old shoe, tied on with various appliances of twine
and leather-strings; and then removed a stocking that, through many
gaping holes, revealed the red and shining skin beneath. That little
foot was a sight to pain the heart of any one but a cruel tyrant.
The heel, in many places, was of a dark purple, and seemed as if
mortification were already begun. And in some places it was cracked
open, and exhibited running sores.
"Take off your other shoe and stocking," said Sharp, in an
authoritative tone.
Henry obeyed, trembling all the while. This foot exhibited nearly the
same marks of the progress of the painful disease.
"What have you done for it?" asked Sharp, looking Henry in the face
with a scowl.
"Nothing but put a little candle-grease on it at night before I went to
bed," replied the child.
"Come out here with me. I'll doctor you," said his master, turning away
and disappearing through the back door. Henry followed as quickly as he
could walk on his bare feet, that seemed ready to give way under him at
every step. When he got as far as the kitchen, he found Sharp waiting
for him in the door.
"Here, jump out into that snow-bank!" said he, pointing to a pile of
snow that had been shovelled up only that morning, after a fall through
the night, and lay loose and high.
The poor boy looked down at his crippled, and, indeed, bleeding feet,
and, as may well be supposed, hesitated to comply with the peremptory
order.
"Do you hear, sir?" exclaimed his master seizing him by the collar, and
pushing him out into the yard. Then catching him by one arm, he set
him in the centre of the snow-bank, his naked feet and legs going down
into it some twelve or eighteen inches.
"Now stand there until I tell you to come out!"
The child did not scream, for he had already learned to bear pain,
without uttering even the natural language of suffering; although the
agony he endured for the next minute was terrible. At the end of that
time, a motion of the head of his master gave him to understand that
the ordeal was over.
"Now take that bucket of cold water, and let him put his feet into it,"
said he to a little girl they had just taken to raise, and who stood
near the kitchen window, her heart almost ready to burst at the cruelty
inflicted upon the only one in the house with whom she had a single
feeling in common.
The girl quickly obeyed, and sat down on the floor beside the bucket of
water. She handled tenderly the blood red feet of the little boy, ever
and anon looking up into his face, and noting, with tender solicitude,
the deep lines of suffering upon his forehead.
"There, that will do," said Sharp, who stood looking on, "and now run
up stairs and get a better pair of stockings for Henry."
"What do you want with a better pair of stockings?" said Mrs. Sharp, a
few moments after, bustling down into the kitchen.
"Why, I want them for Henry," replied her husband.
"Want them for Henry!" she exclaimed, in surprise. "Where's the ones he
had on?"
"There are some old rags in the shop that he had on; but they won't do
now, with such feet as he's got."
"What's the matter with his feet, I'd like to know," inquired Mrs.
Sharp.
"Why, they're frosted."
"Let him put them in snow, then. That'll cure 'em. It's nothing but a
little snow-burn, I suppose."
"It's something a little worse than that," replied Sharp, "and he must
have a comfortable pair of stockings. And here, Anna, do you run around
to Stogies, and tell him to send me three or four pairs of coarse
shoes, about Henry's size."
Anna, the little girl, disappeared with alacrity, and Mr. Sharp,
turning to his wife, said--
"Henry must have a good, warm pair of stockings, or we shall have him
sick on our hands."
"Well, I'll find him a pair," replied Mrs. Sharp, going off up stairs.
In the mean time, Henry still sat with his feet in the cold water. But
the pain occasioned by the snow was nearly all gone. Mrs. Sharp came
down with the stockings, and Anna came in with the shoes at the same
moment. On lifting the child's feet from the water, the redness and
inflammation had a good deal subsided. Mrs. Sharp rubbed them with a
little sweet oil, and then gave him the stockings to put on. He next
tried the shoes, and one pair of them fitted him very well. But his
feet were too sore and tender for such hard shoes, and when they were
on, and tied up around the ankles, he found that after getting up they
hurt him most dreadfully in his attempt to walk. But he hobbled, as
best he could, into the shop.
"Throw them dirty things into the street!" were the only words
addressed to him by Sharp, who pointed at his wet apologies for shoes
and stockings, still lying upon the floor.
Henry did as directed, but every step he took was as if he were
treading upon coals of fire. His feet, now enveloped in a closely
fitting pair of woollen stockings, and galled by the hard and
unyielding leather of the new shoes, itched and burned with maddening
fervor.
"Here, carry this hat home," said his master, as he came in from the
street, not seeming to notice the expression of suffering that was on
his face, nor the evident pain with which he walked.
Henry took the hat, and started out. He was but a few paces from the
shop, before he found that the shoes rubbed both heels, and pressed
upon them at the same time so hard as to produce a sensation at each
step as if the skin were torn off. Sometimes he would stop, and wait a
moment or two, until the intolerable pain subsided, and then he would
walk on again with all the fortitude and power of endurance he could
command. In this extreme suffering, the uppermost thought in his mind,
when on the street, kept his eyes wandering about, and scanning every
female form that came in sight, in the ever-living hope of seeing his
mother. But the sigh of disappointment told, too frequently, that he
looked in vain. He had not proceeded far, when the pains in his feet
became so acute that he paused, and leaned against a tree-box, unable,
for a time, to move forward a single step. While resting thus, Doctor
R----, who had been called to visit a patient in Lexington, came past
in his carriage and noticed him. There was something about the child,
although so changed that he did not recognize him, that aroused the
doctor's sympathies, and he ordered his man to drive up to the pavement
and stop.
"Well, my little man, what's the matter?" said he, leaning out of his
carriage window.
Henry looked up into his face, but did not reply. He knew Doctor
R---- instantly. How strong a hope sprang up in his heart--the hope
of hearing from or being taken back to his mother! The kind-hearted
physician needed no words to tell him that the little boy was suffering
acutely. The flushed face, the starting eye, and the corrugation of the
brow, were language which he understood as plainly as spoken words.
"What ails you, my little boy?" he said, in a voice of tender concern.
The feelings of Henry softened under the warmth of true sympathy
expressed in the countenance and tone of Doctor R----, and still
looking him steadily in the face, essayed, but in vain, to answer the
question.