Page:Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet.djvu/206

Rh me. He then tied two silk handkerchiefs together, and threw them over my shoulders. I was conducted to my cushion; we had two or three more dishes of tea, as many graces, a cup or two of whisky, and betel-nut. I then retired. The walls of the presence chamber were hung round with Chinese landscapes mixed with their deities painted on satin. The ceiling and pillars were covered with the same devices, and at the lower end of the room, behind where I sat, there were three or four images placed in niches. Before them were censers burning with incense, and lamps with butter; little silver pagodas and urns, elephants' teeth, flowers, &c., the whole ornamented with silks, ribbons, and other gewgaws. Among these I must not omit to mention a solitary print of Lady Waldegrave, whom I was the means of rescuing out of the hands of these idols; for it happening to strike some of the household that she would make a pretty companion to a looking-glass I had given the Deb Rajah, she was hung up on one of the pillars next the throne, and the mirror on the other.

The palace is a very large building, and contains near 3000 men, and not a woman. Of these about 1000 may be gylongs, some of the former chief's adherents, who are kept in a kind of imprisonment, and the rest the Rajah and Lama's officers, and all their train of servants. A tower, about five or six stories high, rises in the middle, and is appropriated to Lama-Rimboché. He dwells near the top. His apartments are furnished in the style of the Eajah's, but better. In the former chiefs days nobody could see him, but times are altered. His reception was like the Rajah's, only no khilat or whisky. On our arrival he lived in a castle on a little mount behind the palace. His apartments were finished while we were there, and a large image of Sakya was gilded and set up in his presence chamber. When he came down the Rajah went out to meet him. After the first visit he used to receive us without any ceremony, and appeared to have more curiosity than any man I have seen in the country. One day Mr. Hamilton was