The men, though less laborious and less active than the women, are still far from passing their lives in idleness. They occupy themselves especially with spinning and weaving wool. The stuffs they manufacture, which are called poulou, are of a very close and solid fabric; astonishingly various in quality, from the coarsest cloths to the finest possible Merino. By a rule of reformed Buddhism, every Lama must be attired in red poulou. The consumption of the article in Thibet itself is very large, and the caravans export considerable quantities of it to Northern China and Tartary. The coarser poulou is cheap, but the superior qualities are excessively dear.
The pastile-sticks, so celebrated in China, under the name of Tsan-Hiang (perfumes of Thibet), are an article of leading commerce with the people of Lha-Ssa, who manufacture them with the ash of various aromatic trees mixed with musk and gold dust. Of these various ingredients, they elaborate a pink paste, which is then moulded into small cylindrical sticks, three or four feet long. These are burned in the Lamaseries, and before the idols which are worshipped in private houses. When these pastile-sticks are once lighted, they burn slowly, without intermission, until they are completely consumed, diffusing all around a perfume of the most exquisite sweetness. The Thibetian merchants, who repair every year to Peking in the train of the embassy, export considerable quantities of it, which they sell at an exorbitant price. The Northern Chinese manufacture pastile-sticks of their own, which they sell equally under the name of Tsan-Hiang; but they will sustain no comparison with those which come from Thibet.
The Thibetians have no porcelain, but they manufacture pottery of all sorts in great perfection. As we have already observed, their own breakfast, dinner, and tea service, consists simply and entirely of a wooden cup, which each person carries either in his bosom, or
suspended from his girdle in an ornamental purse. These cups are made of the roots of certain fine trees that grow on the mountains of Thibet. They are graceful in form, but simple and without any sort of decoration, other than a slight varnish which conceals neither their natural colour nor the veins of the wood. Throughout Thibet, every one, from the poorest mendicant up to the Talé-Lama, takes his meals out of a wooden cup. The Thibetians, indeed, make a distinction of their own, unintelligible to Europeans, between these cups, some of which are bought for a few small coins, while others cost up to a hundred ounces of silver, or nearly £40. If we were asked what difference we had discerned between these various qualities of cups, we should reply, most conscientiously, that they all appeared to us pretty nearly of the same value, and that with the best disposition in the world to be convinced, we had utterly failed to perceive any distinction of moment between them. The first-quality cups, however, according to the Thibetians, have the property of neutralizing poisons.
Some days after our arrival at Lha-Ssa, desirous of renewing our meal-service, which had become somewhat worn, we went into a cup-shop. A Thibetian dame, her face elaborately varnished with black, sat behind the counter. The lady, judging from our exotic appearance, probably, that we were personages of distinction, opened a drawer and took out two small boxes, artistically executed, each of which contained a cup, thrice enveloped in soft paper. After examining the goods with a certain degree of suspense, we asked the price: “Tchik-la, gatse resi?” (How much a-piece?) “Excellency, fifty ounces of silver each.” The words came upon us like a thunder-clap, that filled our ears with a buzzing noise, and our eyes with a conviction that the shop was turning round. Our entire fortune would scarcely have purchased four of these wooden cups. Upon coming somewhat to ourselves, we respectfully restored the two precious bowls to their respective boxes, and passed in review the numerous collection that was unceremoniously displayed on the shelves of the shop. “And these, how much are they each?” “Excellency, two for an ounce of silver.” We forthwith disbursed the ounce of silver, and carried off, in triumph, the two wooden cups, which appeared to us precisely the same as those for which we had been asked £20 a-piece. On our return home, the master of the house, to whom we showed our purchase, gratified us with the information, that for an ounce of silver we ought to have had at least four such cups as the two we had received.
Poulou, pastile-sticks, and wooden-cups, are the three principal branches of industry which the Thibetians successfully prosecute. Their other manufactures are so poor and coarse as to be unworthy
Thibet, so poor in agricultural and manufacturing products, is rich, beyond all imagination, in metals. Gold and silver are collected there so readily, that the common shepherds have become acquainted with the art of purifying these precious metals. You often see them, in the ravines, or in the hollows of the mountains, seated round a fire of argols, amusing themselves with purifying in a rude crucible the gold-dust they have found while tending their herds. The result of this abundance of the precious metals is, that specie is of low value, and that, consequently, goods always maintain a very high price. The monetary system of the Thibetians consists entirely of silver coins, which are somewhat larger, but not so thick as our francs. On one side they bear inscriptions in Thibetian, Parsee, or Indian characters; on the other, a crown composed of eight small, round flowers. To facilitate commerce, these coins are cut into pieces, the number of flowers remaining on each piece determining its value. The entire coin is called Tchan-Ka. A Tche-Ptche is one-half of the Tchan-Ka; or, in other words, is a piece of four flowers only. The Cho-Kan has five flowers, the Ka-Gan three. In the larger commercial operations, they employ silver ingots, which are weighed in a Roman balance, upon the decimal system. Generally speaking, the Thibetians reckon up accounts upon their beads; some people, however, and especially the merchants, use the Chinese Souan-pan, while the learned employ the numerals which the Europeans call Arabic, and which appear to have been of very ancient date in Thibet. We have seen several Lamanesque manuscripts, illustrated with astronomical figures and diagrams, all of them represented by Arabic numerals, which were also used in the paging of the volumes. Some of these figures differed slightly from the Arabic numerals used in Europe; the most marked difference we noticed was that of the 5, which, in these manuscripts, was turned upside down, thus:
