Page:1903 Lhasa and Central Tibet by G. Ts. Tsybikoff.pdf/7

 class in form of flour, or crushed for horses, mules, and asses. The field work is done principally by "dzo" (a cross breed of yak and ordinary cattle), yaks, and asses. The principal beasts of burden are the small, hardy asses, and to some extent the ordinary horned cattle. Inhabitants of the highland regions are engaged in cattle raising, breeding yaks, sheep, and some horses. They use yaks for burden, and sheep in some places. The horse and mule are, to a certain extent, a luxury to the Tibetan, and are therefore kept only by the well to do. The native horses and mules are very small and homely, so that the rich people use only those imported from western China. In the stables of the Dalai Lama and Panchen there are blooded horses from India.

Commerce consists in supplying the cities and monasteries with agricultural products in exchange for articles of insignificant local manufacture and foreign import. The excess of domestic products is exported. The Tibetan has very few wants, chiefly limited to necessities, although some inclination toward objects of luxury, expensive ornaments, objects of cult and home adornment may be observed. The standard money is a silver coin valued at about 10 cents.

The unequal distribution of wealth and the subservience of poverty to wealth are conspicuous. There is such little commerce that labor is very cheap, the most expert weaver of native cloth receiving about 8 cents and board per day, while an unskilled woman or man laborer earns only 2 or 3 cents. The highest salary is paid to the Lamas, the prayer readers, who receive 10 cents a day for incessant reading. A house servant almost never receives pay beyond food and meager clothes. * *  *

I will now describe the more or less prominent cities and monasteries visited in Central Tibet. Chief of all, of course, is the capital, Lhasa, sometimes called "Kadan" in literature, but both names have almost the same meaning—"the land of gods," or "full of gods." Its origin dates from the time of Khan Srongzang-Gambo, who lived in the seventh century, It is said that this khan had among his wives one Nepalese and one Chinese queen, each of whom brought along a statue of the Buddha Sakyamuni, to whose worship temples were erected in Lhasa, and he settled on Mount Marbo-ri, where the palace of the Dalai Lama now stands. Lhasa is situated on a broad plain, bordered on one side by the river U-chu and on the other by high hills. If we disregard the Potala, or palace of the Dalai Lama, the city is nearly round, with a diameter of about a mile. But the numerous orchards in the southern and western parts, the proximity of the Potala with the adjacent medical college, the court of Datsaghutuktu, and the summer residence of the Dalai Lama led to the belief that it was about 25 miles in circumference. As a matter of fact, the circular road along which the pious make their marches on