[CHAPTER LXXXIII.]
A Tearful Departure from Lhasa.
Lhasa was at that time in a state of such intense excitement over the festivities that the people hardly seemed to know what they were doing. The police force of the city is not large: it consists of thirty constables (Kochakpa) and thirty policemen (Ragyabpa), and the whole energies of the force were devoted to the duty of guarding the persons of the Grand Lama and his Co-adjutor. Every official and priest was busily engaged in the duties of his office; none could spare even a thought for anything outside his immediate sphere of occupation—in short the time could not possibly have been more favorable for my plan of escaping from the city. Still it was necessary to take precautions, for there were many priests from Sera in the town, and I therefore determined to divert attention by wearing, instead of travelling clothes, a suit of ordinary ecclesiastical garments which I had borrowed from the Minister a few days before.
At eleven o’clock, on the day of my departure, my kind, host and hostess of the Thien-ho-thang prepared for me a farewell dinner of vegetables only. It was a very sad meal, and the two children, a boy of five and a girl of eleven years old, were almost inconsolable at the thought of my departure. Poor things, they did their best to retain me and I must confess that I never before felt so strongly the force of childish affection.
Some of the members of the family were very anxious to testify their respect by accompanying me for a mile or two on my journey, but as it would have been hard to escape observation had we left the house in a large party, we agreed to go out one by one, and meet again in the grove in front of the Rebon Temple outside the capital. So, with a coolie to carry my baggage, I started off by myself through the crowded streets, and when right in front of the Great Temple was accosted by a policeman. I felt sure that something had been detected, and gave myself up for lost.
He looked me straight in the face, and said “I congratulate you,” and when he found I did not reply he repeated his congratulations. I did not know what he was congratulating me about, but at least it did not look as if he were going to arrest me, and I continued my silence, but he made three low bows as signs of his congratulations, and made as though I would pass on. Suddenly it occurred to me that I was wearing a suit of ecclesiastical garments borrowed from the Minister, and that doubtless the policeman had jumped to the conclusion that as I was wearing such dignified robes I had been appointed physician to His Holiness (as indeed it was rumored), and that he expected a reward of money for his well-meant felicitations. So I gave him a ‘single-handed blessing,’ and a tanka of money, which made him stick out his tongue in gratitude, and so went on my way. I reckoned it as a thing most auspicious that I should have met the man in front of the Temple, and thus have commenced my journey with words of felicitation.
There are some points about the Tibetan police which I must not omit to mention. They receive no salaries, and live on the alms of the community, though their methods of solicitation differ materially from those of ordinary beggars. At stated periods they go, usually in companies of three, through the streets, and standing at the gates of private houses cry out as follows:
“We have come to receive alms from the wealthy, and you are so wealthy that you can easily relieve our distress. We therefore pray you, the savior of the poor and the friend of the needy, to give thirty pieces of gold to thirty poor men who with their wives live in miserable huts, and the gift you give us this day shall be brought home to our women and make them happy. We shall fill our broken cups with fragrant liquor and let them lie down this evening in a state of blissful intoxication. Lha-kyallo.[4]”
They will go on repeating these dirge-like petitions at the gate until at last some one comes out and gives them a few silver coins and some parched wheat-flour in a tin pan covered with a small kata. There is no fixed amount to be given, but if a rich man does not give them what they think they have a right to expect, they will let him know what they think. They are not supposed to beg at Temples, but as a matter of fact every Temple gives them something for the sake of its own credit, and for peace and quiet.
All the money that is thus collected is handed over to one of the Kochakpa, who distributes it in regular monthly instalments to the members of the Force. But the Lhasa police have also further sources of income. When a wealthy pilgrim from the country arrives in the city they ask for a donation from him, and if they do not get at least one tanka they will set the worthless people of the city on to attack him and not stir a finger for his protection. Every countryman therefore finds it to his interest to pay this blackmail to the police, and when I was in Lhasa as a layman I had paid my tanka like the others. But since I had assumed the priest’s robe they had not been able to demand anything from me, and therefore I suppose that my friend thought the opportunity of getting a present in return for his congratulations was too good to be lost.
If a policeman goes on a journey, say to arrest a thief, he takes nothing with him for the expenses of his journey. He goes to any house he chooses and takes what they give him to eat and drink, and if he is going on to a place where there is no entertainment to be had he just orders the people of the house to provide him with whatever he requires. The Kochakpa however are far superior to the ordinary policemen. They have a regular salary from the Government, and so do not live on blackmail.