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the invocations to Chenráisi are enclosed,* comprise nearly all the duties charged on the ordinary non-philosophical Buddhist. To these may be added the visiting of holy places on great festival-days to make salutation to the various deities set up therein. This ceremony is styled chhoi-jal; and the person who performs it goes to the shrine armed with a bundle of incense sticks and a pot of butter, with perhaps some presentation scarfs. He shows his respect for the different sacred beings represented by depositing lumps of his butter in the lamp-bowl of liquid grease which stands with floating wick burning in front of each; while the scarfs are presented to the deities just as they would be in Tibet on a visit of ceremony to honored friends. The Cho-khang is a favorite resort for making chhoijal; for no such marvellous collection of deities, unique effigies, and holy relics exists any where else save there in this ganglion of halls and chapels. You enter the buildings through a mean-looking colonnade, and find yourself immediately in the presence of the chief attraction of the place-a life-size figure of Buddha, profusely gilded with thick gold, and jewelled with costly gems. It is very ancient and held to be unique, in that it represents the Buddha as he appeared when only twelve years old. Everybody makes the profoundest prostrations to this image, and it is spoken of as Cho-wo Rimpo-chhe, "the most precious master" and the "Lord Buddha, as if it were a still living being present in the flesh. A marvellous image of the Eleven-faced Chenráisi, in one of the side-chapels, is the next most important effigy. And then comes a lifesized statue of the reformer Tsong-khapa set up in a chamber with iron gratings to prevent you from entering. Other curiosities are the stone slab on which king Srong-tsan Gampo and his two chief wives used to sit and bathe; some frescoes on the wall alleged to have been painted with the blood which oozed from that same king's nose; images of the seven past Buddhas; and a strange lump of rock which is believed to prevent the Kyi river from washing away Lhásá. But, in addition, the various chapels are filled with innumerable figures of Buddhas, gods, god

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desses, and saints; some are in solid silver, others of bronze, others of sandalwood. Paldan Lha mo (a goddess) is represented by one of the most grotesquely terrific figures imaginable, with a face so horrible that it is always kept veiled. The king of the serpent-gods and Tamdin are also savage-looking ogres. One peculiarity of this vast labyrinth of shrines is the herds of mice to be seen running about everywhere, even when the place is thronged by hundreds of people tramping in solemn circumambulation round each important effigy. These mice are said to hold the transmigrated souls of deceased lamas, and are never molested.

In the great courtyard of this temple are ranged some curious statues of men famous in the history of Tibet, and who are considered still capable of affording help and protection when invoked. One of these statues represents T'ang-tong Gyal-po, celebrated for having (circa 1420 A.D.) built eight chain bridges over the Yaru Tsang-po, which still survive. Of this public-spirited character, the ku nyer, or image keeper of the Cho-khang, relates a quaint story. T'ang-tong, it seems, feared the miseries of this world very much, having inhabited it in former existences. Accordingly he managed to remain this time, before birth, sixty years in his mother's womb. There he sat in profound meditation, concentrating his mind most earnestly on the well-being of all living creatures. At the end of sixty years he began to realize that. while meditating for the good of others, he was neglecting the rather prolonged sufferings of his mother. He forthwith quitted the womb, and came into the world already provided with gray hair. Just after birth he made the pro-foundest salutations to his mother, whom he thus addressed: Mother, pardon me for all your sad hours; but I was exceedingly comfortable during my long stay within you." After adding that there exist no such comfortable quarters for residence in this world as those he had just quitted, he sat down cross-legged, absorbed in meditation. People were at once struck with the beauty of his skin, like that of an infant, in spite of his gray hairs, and with the fragrance he exuded, which was that of the lotus. He remained thus seven days, during which time his body grew to the stature of a youth. Still sitting cross-legged another week, he

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attained the size of a man. He then at length got up, put clothes on, and began to lecture on the sacred literature of the Buddhists.

OTHER ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS

in Lhásá are the four great monastic establishments known as the Four Lings. These monasteries might be termed " peculiars," having exempt jurisdiction and other privileges, while their revenues are princely. The Four Lings of Lhásá are Tan-gyailing, Kün-du-ling, Ts'e chhok-ling, and Ts'omoi-ling; and the mighty Desi, or Regent of Lhásá, is always chosen from the heads of these establishments, sub

ject, however, to the approval of the Emperor of China. The present Regent of Tibet is the abbot of Kün-du-ling, Lama Ta Ts'ak Rimpochhe. * The Meru Tá Chhoi dé is also an important monastery in the city.

PRIVY COUNCIL AND GOVERNMENT.

Lhásá is possessed of a Palace of Justice and Government Council Chamber, as august as in any other capital city. However, the same personages sit as privy councillors and as supreme judges; and in the same building, the Ká-shák. More

over when we examine who the councillors are, we shall find that the government is not so exclusively clerical as is generally supposed.

The Council of the Grand Lama and Supreme Government is termed the Ká shák Lhen-gyai, and consists of the Regent and five members, and four of these members (called Ká lön) must be laymen. These laymen are usually chosen from the higher military officers of Tibet. Their functions are executive and judicial. The representatives of the Emperor of China,

among

* Since Huc made use of the term, 'all books on Tibet style the Regent the "Nomekhan of Tibet." The explanation of Huc's mistaken use of the term is, that when he visited Lhásá the Regent happened to be the Abbot of Ts'omoi-ling, whose sacred cognomen is Nomek

han, and hence he and others have supposed

it to be the Regent's usual title always. The Regent's real title is the Desi or Sakyong.

the two Ampans, have nominally no voice in the council, but influence its proceedings by pressure upon the Regent.

Popularly a member of council is known as a Shá-pé, and this is the title which used to puzzle people in the newspaper reports of our operations against the Tibetans. It means the "lotus footed " (Zhabs pad), and is sometimes given to other high lay officials besides the Ká-löns. Any one of respectability appears to be allowed admission to the Council Hall to watch the deliberations of the members. There they sit, cross-legged on sofas, clad in long rich yellow silk robes and crowned with tall Mongol hats, with a large coral button in front. The inevitable tea-cup is beside each, and every now and then is solemnly replenished by a stately attendant. In other rooms the dung-khor-pa, or clerks, are at work. They are the civil servants of Tibet, and they, too, are imbibing tea in the same official manner. Again you may enter the offices of the Tibetan Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chhak-zo Chhempo. There are other clerks registering the receipts derivable from the landtax, the traders' tax, the pig-tax, and other sources of revenue; and as so much of it is paid in kind, chiefly in butter, tea, and sheep, these accounts must be somewhat intricate.

rush

We come forth from the Ká shák, and are no sooner without than we are greeted with a shout. We hurry along, but find we are being pursued. A dozen men, with filthy hair and foul ragged garments, up, headed by a tall scarlet-clad We soon know ruffian in a yellow turban. that they are clamoring for alms and we had better comply. For these fellows are the dreaded Ro-gya-wa, the scavengers and corpse-finders of Lhásá, the pests of the newly-arrived. They have special charge of the Lhásá cemeteries, and live in filthy huts built entirely of the horns of slaughtered yaks and sheep. To these ghouls the bodies of the lower class dead are delivered up. They carry them, with horrid cries, to the corpse-yards outside the city, where dogs and vultures are in waiting to rend and devour. The Ro gya-wa bury the bones.-Nineteenth Century.

LITERARY NOTICES.

AN INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL STUDY. GREAT LEADERS. HISTORIC PORTRAITS FROM THE GREAT HISTORIANS. Selected with Notes and brief Biographical Sketches. By G. T. Ferris. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

A great and discouraging difficulty to one who surveys a course of historical study, is the enormous range both in subjects and writ

ers.

The embarrassment of riches is bewil. dering. Of course to the special student, who proposes to investigate some particular field, and who has a large preparation for his work, there is no question of hesitation or selection. But to the general reader, fascinated with the most interesting and instructive of all branches of literature, the confusion is almost misleading. Many guides and helps have been issued from time to time, and the volume under notice, without professing any such purpose, may be classed under this head. The compiler seems to have been animated by the wish to furnish to the general reader a collection of delightful and fascinating extracts, rather than to contribute a clew of selection in the prosecution of a more elaborate investigation, but the book certainly contributes to the latter as well as to the former result. The title gives an excellent notion of the work. It is a collection of brilliant and vivid pictures, taken from the great historians of the world, which paint the personality and character of the great men of action-soldiers, statesmen, monarchs, religious leaders, etc., who have stamped themselves ineffaceably on the history of men. We are more deeply interested in the concrete than in the abstract, in what men do rather than in what they think. At least such is the case with those who are not professed students of the world's affairs. Certainly it is thought carried into action, which gives a definite impulse to progress. Following this idea the theory of the compiler has been to deal only with those characters who were men of action, even though in some cases they were thinkers and idealists as well. No reader of history with any flash of imagina. tion ever fails to try to conceive for himself some notion of the appearance, the manner, the individuality of such men as Cæsar, Mohammed, William the Conqueror, Savonarola, Richelieu, Cromwell, Frederick the Great, Mirabeau, Napoleon, etc. It is this irresistible instinct that makes volumes of memoirs

and historical gossip so enchanting to the general reader. Mr. Ferris has borne this in mind in the selections he has given us; and while he has often united with the picture of the man a graphic summary of what he did, it seems to have been the aim to use the latter only to throw light on the former.

It will be observed by those who have been to any extent historical students, that many great names have been omitted which might naturally have been included in a list of the world's great men. This is easily accounted for, when it is remembered that the purpose of the book seems to include the consideration of great authors as well as great topics. Many distinguished historians have written history on a plan which does not admit of brilliant pictures of individuals; who study human records with that grave and austere spirit which cares for principles, the philosophy of social and political evolution, rather than for those agents who have been appointed by fate to carry them out. Again, historians have their favorites, on whom they lavish the highest excellence of their literary skill. A good example of this is the portrait of Queen Elizabeth by that most delightful of English historical writers, John Richard Green. When once asked by a friend what he would wish to have saved of his literary work, if all else should be destroyed, he answered at once, "My Por traiture of Queen Elizabeth." Into this his interest and sympathy poured the finest essence of his genius. The facts that some great men have not presented the most salient features for picturesque treatment, and that brilliant historians have lavished their powers on special subjects, as, for example, the case stated above, Macaulay's sketches of Cromwell and William III., Gibbon's picture of Mohammed, and Carlyle's study of Frederick the Great, will naturally account for the compiler's omission of some characters who would naturally belong to such a work.

In any case the reader will find ample material to gratify both his historic and literary taste. There are portraits of some eighty characters, to which twenty-five historians have contributed the most graphic efforts of their genius. The sketches are short, and may be considered the plums in the historical pudding. Aside from the interest of this book to the general reader, and its value as a stimulant to historical study, it will be found an

admirable supplementary reader for the use of high schools throughout the land. It is probable that the book will have a special value in this direction from the literary excellence and the variety of its contents, as also from its suggestiveness as an entering wedge and guide to further reading.

MORE ABOUT ALASKA.

THE NEW ELDORADO. A SUMMER JOURNEY TO ALASKA. By Maturin M. Ballou. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

In spite of the fact that a quarter of a century has elapsed since Alaska came into possession of the United States, it is but little known to most readers, though several interesting books have been written about it. It is true that there are vast tracts of the Alaskan peninsula which have not been explored even by adventurous travellers, who in this age of the world take delight in attacking each new terra incognita, so far as such portions of the world still continue to exist. It may be assumed, however, that those sections of Alaska which offer any immediate inducements to the money-maker have been visited and surveyed. To the general conception this semiarctic province of ours is a bleak, inhospitable waste, only notable on account of its fur and fishery interests. Such books as that before us serve a useful purpose in clearing away some misconceptions and helping us to realize the great importance of Mr. Seward's purchase, which people laughed at when the transaction was carried out. Alaska is the most extensive of the geographical divisions of the United States, and would make a dozen States as large as Texas. Its territorial jurisdiction covers groups of islands stretching far toward the Asiatic coast, and reaching a parallel of longitude as far west of San Fran. cisco as this city is from the eastern boundary of the United States. Owing to the effect of the great Japan current. which modifies the whole climate of our Pacific coast, Alaska has a comparatively mild temperature even in the winter months, and it is by no means the barren and inclement wilderness which has been the prevalent impression. One of the great rivers of the world, almost rivalling the Mississippi and the Amazon, and discharging an enormous volume of water, the Yukon, flows through the vast domain. It is otherwise well watered, and magnificent forests are found everywhere except in the northern section, Southern Alaska is well fitted for agricultural purposes, though the territory in general will

never stand high in this category. In mines of gold, silver, iron, copper, and most important of all, coal, the resources of this region are magnificent, and only need that development which is sure to come to turn the eyes of thousands of adventurous people longingly thitherward. The working of the precious metals has already yielded remarkable results, and insures a great future in this kind of min. ing enterprise. The gold quartz formation of Alaska is said to be the richest in the world, and the Treadwell claim, valued at $25,000,000, has the most expensive and complete quartz-crushing plant known. The coal-fields are immense, and promise to produce both in quantity and quality to an extent which alone would have made the acquisition desirable.

The remarkable fisheries furnish the special interest which has so far animated the associations of Alaska in the general view. It is not too much to say that the world has nothing like them. The Yukon and other streams are the greatest of all salmon rivers, and when the fisheries and canning facilities are fully developed, the yield will be almost beyond reasonable computation. The same may be said of the halibut and herring fisheries. The resources of the territory and of its adjacent waters would almost suffice to feed the world. Of the fur seal fisheries at the Pribyloff Islands we do not need to speak, as this portion of the territory and the interests connected with them have been much written about and discussed.

The growth of the territory has been much delayed, it seems, by Congressional neglect and laxity of the administration of such law as there is. It is said to be impossible to acquire a clear title to land, and mining rights are subject to similar drawbacks. The ordinary territorial laws are not in force, and it is intimated in Mr. Ballou's book that the condition of affairs in the territory is a most perplexing one, owing to what seems to be mere neglect and indifference. Our traveller's descriptions of what he saw are graphic, and if we can trust the enthusiastic narrative (which is justified by other accounts), the tourist here may look on the most unique and magnificent scenery in the world. This is specially the case with the glacial phenomena. Ice rivers rise three thousand feet above the sea, and extend three hundred feet below it, and from these tremendous frozen torrents, which are without a parallel, immense icebergs are continually being born. The study of the glacial phenomena of Alaska affords to the scientist the finest opportunity in the world, as was

shown recently in Professor Wright's" IceAge in North America." Mr. Ballou proph. esies that when the great fascinations of the Alaska tour are fully realized by the public, it will be a favorite resort for the pleasure-seeker, as it unites so many novel and unique features and can be made with such comparative ease. To the sportsman and the naturalist Alaska offers also very great attractions. If all the intimations of the author are true, it is in one respect the most remarkable region in the world. Mr. Ballou, though not speaking from personal knowledge, avows his disposition to believe that in the mysterious interior of Alaska there still lurk living examples of the Siberian mammoth, or of a creature very similar to it. The statement is made on the authority of ex-Governor Swineford and of Mr. Fowler, late agent of the Alaska Fur Company. Both these gentlemen believe in the marvellous story, and put it somewhat as follows: "There exists a huge species of animals believed to be representatives of the supposed extinct mammoths, found in herds not far from the headquarters of the Snake River on the interior plateaus of Alaska. The natives call them bigteeth from the size of their ivory tusks. Some of these, weighing over two hundred pounds each, were from animals so lately killed as to have still some flesh upon them, and were purchased by Mr. Fowler, who brought them to the coast. These mammoths are said to average twenty feet in height and over thirty feet in length, in many respects resembling elephants, the body being covered with long coarse reddish hair. The eyes are larger, the ears smaller, the trunk longer and more slender than those of the average elephant. The two tusks which Mr. Fowler brought away with him each measured fifteen feet in length."

The inference drawn from the facts would not have been so convincing to Mr Ballou, Governor Swineford, and Mr. Fowler, had they recalled the accounts of the vast quantities of the bones of the elephas primigenius found in the northern portions of European and Asiatic Russia, and the fact that in some cases frozen carcasses were found almost untouched by decay or carnivorous attack, preserved for thousands of years in their graves of snow and ice. Such is probably the true inwardness of the Alaskan mammoth story. The fact that the mastodon is the typical fossil monster form of the elephant kind found in North America does not lessen the possibility of the mammoth in Alaska. Geologists are satisfied that

during the period preceding the glacial epoch there was a much warmer arctic climate, and that the land connection between Asia and America permitted free passage of the fauna back and forth.

Mr. Ballou gives us no end of interesting in. formation about a variety of matters connected with Alaska, and has used his eyes with the skill and alertness of the trained observer, besides acquiring a great mass of information at second hand. It is but just to say, however, that in the latter case Mr. Ballou has taken pains as far as possible to verify statements. Not the least interesting portion of the work is that relating to the various Indian tribes of Alaska, their manners, customs, etc. They differ materially in many cases from the other red races of North America, and bear strong racial and physiognomical affinities with some of the tribes of Eastern Asia. They vary widely among themselves, and have very quaint customs and superior natural intelligence. In no way do they markedly resemble that other race of arctic savages familiar to us, the Esquimaux.

Readers will find in Mr. Ballou's spirited and painstaking narrative much excellent matter to digest, and it differs from most books of travel in carrying us to a comparatively novel field.

A GREAT ENGLISH NOVELIST.

JANE AUSTEN. By Mrs. Charles Malden. (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Brothers.

The name of Jane Austen will always stand among the English classics, though with this generation she is more talked about than read. It is not probable that one in a score of culti vated people has ever read a single novel of this writer, who in her day and the period im. mediately succeeding enjoyed a reputation unique of its kind. The cordial testimony to her genius from all her own contemporaries, including such great men as Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Coleridge, Southey, Landor, and others, has been echoed in more recent times by the best judges. Her novels, however, are marked by the style and methods of a bygone period, and their limitations were the defect of the quality which marks the type of their excellence. Miss Austen was the daughter of an English clergyman, and was born in 1775. In spite of a goodly share of beauty, she remained single, and devoted the latter years of her life to literature, which she pursued with unremitting zeal to the year of her death in 1817.

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