LHASA 497
highest authority, Pundit Nain Singh, gives (from a mean of twenty observations) 29 39 17", a result which closely confirms the Jesuit record. The longitude according to the protraction of the same explorer's route is 90 57 13". 1 The height above the sea, by repeated observation of the boiling point, n stated at 11,700 feet (but the report of Nain Singh, on his second visit, gives 11,910). The city stands near the middle of a tolerably level plain, which is surrounded on all sides by hills, and extends about 13 miles from east to west and about 7 miles from north to south. It lies half a mile to the north of a considerable river called the Kichu Tsanpu, or Tsang-chu, flowing here from east-north-east (called by the Mongols, according to Klaproth, Galjao-Muren, or "Turbulent River"), and joining the great Tsanpu (or upper course of the Brahmaputra) some 35 miles to the south-west.
The hills round the city are absolutely barren, and without growth of any kind except an occasional bush of so-called "Tartar furze." There are, however, gardens scattered over the plain round the city, and these are planted with trees of some size (it would seem cedar, willow, and cypress). Four defiles in the encompassing hills, by which the approaches to the city pass, are defended by as many forts. We may quote the description of Huc, which, though a little vague, is vivid, and is the only passage affording anything like a picture of this city, so difficult of access: –
"The sun was about to set as we completed our descent of the innumerable zigzags of the mountain path. Issuing into a wide valley, we beheld on our right Lhasa, the famous metropolis of the Buddhist world. The multitude of aged trees which encircle the city as with a girdle of foliage, the lofty white houses, terminating in flat roofs surrounded by turrets, the numerous temples with their gilt canopies, the Buddhala [Potala], crowned by the palace of the Dalai Lama, – all unite to give Lhasa a majestic and imposing
appearance."
The meaning of the name Lhá-Sa is "God's ground." Formerly it used to be known to the Mongols as Barontala, the "right side" or western region; now, according to Huc they call it Monhe Dhot or Dehot, "Eternal Sanctuary."[1] In eastern Turkestan it seems to be best known as Jo, a name which properly refers to the great central temple of which we shall speak.
The city is nearly circular in form, and according to Nain Singh less than a mile in diameter. It was walled in the latter part of the 17th century, but the walls were destroyed during the Chinese occupation in 1722. The population has been estimated at 40,000 to 80,000; the last estimate perhaps including the great population of monks and students in the convents near the city.[2]
The chief streets of the city are wide and straight, and in dry weather tolerably clean, but the inferior quarters are unspeakably filthy, and are rife with evil smells and large mangy dogs.[3] Part (much the greater part, according to Nain Singh) of the houses are of clay and sun-dried brick, but those of the richer people of stone and brick. All, however, are frequently white-washed, the doors and windows being framed in bands of red and yellow. In the suburbs there are houses entirely built of the horns of sheep and oxen set in clay mortar. This construction, according to Huc, is very solid and highly picturesque.
1 This is corrected to the latest value of Madras longitude, viz , 80 14 51".
The houses generally are large, and of three stories at least. The owner of the house, with his family, occupies the upper story, whilst the two lower floors swarm with tenants. Externally the lower part of Tibetan houses generally presents lofty dead walls pierced by a few air-holes only; above these rise tiers of windows with projecting balconies, and over all flat broad-eaved roofs at varying levels. According to Desideri, in the better houses there are often spacious and well-finished apartments, the principal halls, the verandas, and terraces being often paved with a composition of coloured fragments of stone set in a cement of resin, &c., which with much beating and rubbing becomes like a surface of polished porphyry. In every house there is a kind of chapel or shrine, carved and gilt, on which are set images and sacred books, and before them lamps and incense, with the usual offerings of barley, fruits, &c.
Lhasa is not only the nucleus of a cluster of vast monastic establishments, which attract students and aspi rants to the (so-called) religious life from all parts of Tibet and Mongolia, and the seat of a quasi papacy, but is also a great place of pilgrimage, so that the streets and public spaces swarm with visitors from every part of the Hima layan plateau, and from all the steppes of Asia between Manchuria and the Balkash Lake, who come to adore the living Buddha, to seek the purgation of their sins and the promise of a happy transmigration, and to carry away with them holy relics, blessed rosaries, and all the miscellaneous trumpery which is set forth to catch the money of idle people in Asia and Europe, whether they are pilgrims or frequenters of mineral waters,[4] whilst as usual a great traffic arises quite apart from the pilgrimage. The city thus swarms with crowds attracted by devotion and the love of gain, and presents an astonishing diversity of language, costume, and physiognomy; though, in regard to the last point, varieties of the broad face and narrow eye greatly predominate. Much of the retail trade of the place is in the hands of the women, Huc's account of the curious practice of the Lhasa women in plastering their faces with a dark-coloured unguent is well known, but it does not rest on his authority alone.
During the month of December especially traders arrive from western China by way of Tatsienlu (Tachindo of the Tibetans), bringing every variety of silk-stuffs, carpets, china-ware, and tea; from Siningfu (commonly in Tibet and Turkestan called Siling, Ziling, or Zling, a circumstance that has caused sundry misapprehensions) come silk, gold lace, Russian goods, carpets of a superior kind, semi-precious stones, horse furniture, horses, and a very large breed of fat-tailed sheep; from eastern Tibet musk in large quantities, which eventually finds its way to Europe through Nepal; from Bhutan and Sikkim, rice; from the latter also tobacco; besides a variety of Indian and European goods from Nepal and Darjiling, and charas (resinous exudation of hemp) and saffron from Ladak and Kashmir. The merchants, who arrive in December, leave Lhasa in March, before the setting in of the rains renders the rivers impassable.
The tea importation from China is a large matter, on which an interesting paper has been written by Mr E. Baber. The tea is of the coarsest quality, derived from straggling and uncared-for trees, allowed to grow to a height of 10 feet or more, and the coarsest produce of these. This is pressed into bricks or cakes, and carried by porters. The quantity that pays duty at Tatsienlu is about 10,000,000 lb, besides some amount smuggled. No doubt a large part of this comes to Lhasa. Tea is an
5 Among articles sold in the Lhasa bazaars are numerous fossil bones, called by the people "lightning bones," and believed to have healing virtues.
- ↑ The first word of this phrase is certainly the Mongol mungke, "eternal." The second is probably a clerical error for dehot, which may represent the Jo of the next sentence, which is literally (Tib.) "master, lord," and is applied to very sacred images.
- ↑ Nain Singh says that a census in 1854 gave "9000 women and 6000 men, exclusive of the military and the priests." But these words are subject to too many doubts for precise interpretation.
- ↑ The Chinese have a proverb as to the three products of Lhasa being dogs, drabs, and lamas.
- ↑ 5
