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snow ava l a nches
 Snow Avalanches
Beliefs, Facts, and Science

Francois Louchet
Professor Emeritus of Condensed Matter Physics at Grenoble University
(Grenoble institute of Technology), now retired, 38410 St Martin d’Uriage,
France; https://sites.google.com/site/flouchet/,
francoislouchet38@gmail.com

1
 1
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First Edition published in 2021
Impresion: 1
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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
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contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Use At Your Own Risk

Mountaineering, and more particularly off-piste skiing, are dangerous and can involve exposure
to avalanches and other hazards.
The present book aims at disclosing and disseminating the essence of avalanche triggering
processes. The resulting guidelines cannot eliminate these hazards, but they can help understand
and manage them.
The content provided in this book is given “as is” and in no event shall the author be liable for
any damages, including without limitation damages resulting from discomfort, injury or death,
claims by third parties or for other similar costs, or any special incidental or consequential dam-
ages arising out of the use of this publication.
This book is obviously no substitute to training, experience, skill and wisdom.
Foreword and Acknowledgements

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail
Ralph Waldo Emerson

This was a magnificent, resplendent, brilliant, gorgeous winter Sunday morning. After a week-long
period of snowstorms, an incredible sun was shining on tremendous amounts of freshly fallen
snow. I was reluctantly wearing a pair of terrible snowshoes instead of my preferred cross-country
skis, and we were walking with my wife Marie and a couple of friends, Jacqueline and Serge Macel,
between the Valloire ski resort and “lac des Cerces”. A short distance beyond the small shepherd
cabin of Plan Lachat, at the foot of the Galibier pass, we suddenly heard a loud bang coming from
the Pointe du Vallon, and immediately noticed a huge avalanche tumbling down from the very top
of the steep slope, readily turning into an airborne powder flow. “Watch out, watch out!” Serge
shouted, pointing at two skiers a significant distance below, trying to escape the avalanche front.
They obviously could not succeed, and were readily swept out by the impressive flow like miser-
able tiny beetles. The avalanche went on, crossed the small Valloirette creek, climbed up the op­pos­
ite riverside in our direction, and stopped at about 100 m from where we were standing. The whole
thing got rooted to the ground. Not the slightest noise. Not the slightest sign of life. I hurtled down
the path towards Valloire trying to get help, yelling to other trekkers down-slope, who in turn tried
passing on the message to other hikers, while my companions were desperately scanning the clos-
est part of the avalanche flow. After a while, I was flown over by a helicopter. I clearly heard it land
higher up, out of my sight, and take off again only after a few seconds. I received the explanation
15 minutes later while rushing back to join my group: I met two guys skiing down towards Valloire
and asked them what was going on up there. They furiously replied that they were themselves the
skiers caught by the avalanche, and that I shouldn’t have given the alarm or called the helicopter!
I was told later on by my group that the head of one of the skiers was jutting out above the snow
level. He succeeded in getting out, found his companion, and extracted him from the avalanche.
The latter was terribly angry to have lost . . . his glasses! And his main comment was that he was a
professional mountain guide, and that they were not responsible for the avalanche release, for the
“obvious” reasons that the avalanche started at a significant distance above them, and that they
have already crossed this slope several times in the past without any problem.
As far as I remember, that was in February 1997. At this time, I didn’t know much about ava-
lanches, but I was deeply convinced that such statements were stupid. All I had to do was figure
out why. This is how I started my research work on avalanches.
This work could not have been achieved and the present book would not have been written
without sometimes fortuitous, but always invaluable and priceless encounters, often turning
into warm, long lasting and unforgettable friendships. I will especially mention and gratefully
acknowledge:
Malcolm Heggie and Jany Thibault. Both of them sadly passed away recently. Both of them had
been working on dislocation core structures in covalent crystals, Malcolm essentially on theoretical
models in diamond and ice, Jany and myself on electron microscopy and modeling dislocation
x Foreword and Acknowledgements

cores in semiconductors. Dislocations in such crystals and in ice are quite similar. In addition to
my immoderate taste for mountaineering, this was probably one of the reasons for my interest in
ice and snow. I first met Malcolm in the seventies. We visited each other several times in the uni-
versities of Toulouse, Exeter, and Grenoble. He introduced me to the concept of soliton, in the
sense of a solitary broken bond in a covalent dislocation core, on which I built theoretical models
of dislocation mobility in pure and compound semiconductors. Malcolm and I shared numerous
conferences, particularly with Jany during several two-week workshops in Aussois. Jany was also a
brilliant physicist, and a top-range mountaineer. She used to organize a few ski and trek programs
during such conferences. As for Malcolm, after having tried to teach him cross-country skiing in
thick and steep forest environments, I remember him complaining his skis were longer than the
average tree separation.
Kolumban Hutter, met during my very first conference on avalanches at Innsbruck EGS sym-
posium in 2000. I started my talk saying something like: “I am a physicist. I’ve been working on
plasticity and rupture of crystalline materials for more than 20 years, but I do not belong to your scientific
community.This is my first contribution to avalanche research”. I had no idea what would be the reac-
tions of the audience to my presentation. Kolumban was the very respected session chairman and,
as such, was sitting in the front row, just facing me. I was presenting a fairly simple but original
slab avalanche model, showing that a transition from a tensile crown crack instability to a shear
basal one occurred for a universal angle A cos 2 / 3 =35.3o . The chairman’s comment was: “Let’s
define that as Louchet’s angle!” Thank you, Kolumban, for having immediately trusted me during
my avalanche initiatory rite!
Jérôme Weiss and Paul Duval, with whom I have been working on ice plasticity and fracture at
the Grenoble Glaciology Department for more than 10 years. Thank you Paul for your invaluable
glaciologist experience during our work on ice slip geometry, dislocation cross-slip, and dynamic
recrystallization. Thank you also Jérôme for your pioneering work on dislocation avalanches by
acoustic emission analysis, which was the starting point of a long and fruitful collaboration on self-
organized critical dislocation dynamics. With our common PhD student Thiebaud Richeton, we
showed in particular that such a behavior was shared by a number of other materials, and we evi-
denced a quite general “mild” (Gaussian) to “wild” (scale-invariant) transition controlled re­spect­
ive­ly by short-range or by long-range elastic interactions. Based on our numerous discussions, this
period also gave me the opportunity of revisiting Hall–Petch law and Andrade creep in terms of
approaches of a critical point.
Jérôme Faillettaz, a young mechanical engineer fond of skiing and mountaineering. I was his
PhD thesis supervisor. During innumerable coffee-fueled discussions, we discovered together
unknown and unexpected fantasies of avalanches. We scoured a number of international meetings,
carefully avoiding awfully clean and expensive conference hotels, sharing a can of beans in a cheap
room in Davos, or spending a couple of nights in a small tent in the hills during an EGS confer-
ence in Nice. Jérôme is now a Senior Researcher at Zürich University. Thank you so much Jérôme
for your disrespect to scientific or any other type of “authority”, your enthusiasm, and your con-
fidence. Thank you also for your careful reading of the proofs of this book, and your quite sensible
comments.
Jean-Robert Grasso, who helped us enter the universe of Self Organized Criticality. Together
with Jérôme, we designed a specific cellular automaton, disclosing the mechanisms responsible for
such a scale-invariant (and probably self-organized) critical behavior, and merging all gravita-
tional flows into a single formalism. Thank you Jean-Robert for your brilliant idea to spend a year
in UCLA, while Jérôme and myself were in Grenoble. Owing to the time lag between Grenoble
and Los Angeles, and the back and forth daily mailing, the succession of our respective sleeping
and active periods resulted in a quasi-continuous working time. Our paper on the cellular automaton
 Foreword and Acknowledgements xi

in Physical Review Letters was written within an incredible short time, and qualified for illustrating
the front cover of the journal.
Alain Duclos, met somewhere in the Canadian Rockies. We were attending a snow and ava-
lanche workshop in Penticton (British Columbia), a small town with a nice old wooden shop serv-
ing mugs of coffee and beer, and selling tons of second-hand books. I bought a number of them
(books, not mugs), much to my backpack’s and my own backbone’s misfortune. Alain was quite
interested in the work presented at the meeting by Jérôme and myself. We decided to continue our
passionate discussions when coming back home. We did. I became the secretary of his newly cre-
ated Data-Avalanche Association, now widely recognized in the avalanche field. Alain and many
other members of the Data-Avalanche association taught me much of their long-standing field
experience. We shared numerous discussions, working sessions, field experiments, and also
friendly working dinners. A lot of thanks to all of them. Particular thanks again to you Alain for
sharing your invaluable field knowledge and analysis during proof reading of this book, and also
to Céline Lorentz for designing a schematic in chapter 5 of this book.
Joachim Heierli, who proposed the innovative “anticrack” concept. Thank you Joachim for
your participation in field experiments in Aussois, and for sharing spirited scientific discussions in
Edinburgh, Davos, Grenoble, and Freiburg.
My brother Jean for his careful and detailed reading of the manuscript, and his meaningful
remarks.
My four anonymous referees, for their interesting and valuable comments, that helped me
improve and complement several parts of the book, and also my Editors for the particularly effi-
cient and trustworthy relationship I had with them.
Finally, and above all, I would like to pay a special tribute to my wife Marie, to whom I dedicate
this book. She has been enduring and still endures the formidable and terrific role of a researcher’s
wife, living every day with a guy able to suddenly stop in front of any weird object by the roadside,
immediately falling into a contemplative ecstasy, keeping his brain in a state of intense excitement
until the deepest and ultimate secrets of the “thing” have eventually been revealed. She deserves
my profound admiration for her patience, and my infinite gratitude for her constant and unfailing
support.
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1
Introduction

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

Lao-Tzu

The names of many places and villages in European mountains refer to memories of old, more
recent, or recurrent avalanching events, as “lavancher” or “lavachet” in local French-speaking
alpine dialects, coming from “labina” in Latin. This is also the root of the term “Lawine” in
German, “avalanche” in English and French, “avalancha” in Spanish, and “valangha” in Italian.
An avalanche may be defined as the destabilization and flow of part of the snow cover. We shall
essentially deal here with the former, focusing on avalanche triggering mechanisms. Studies of
avalanche flow processes indeed mainly involve fluid mechanics, and are usually described by
classical Navier–Stokes equations, despite the difficulty due to heterogeneity (e.g. vertical snow
density gradient) and specific non-linear aspects of dynamical snow behavior. This is another and
quite interesting story to look at, but partly out of the main scope of the present work. Meantime,
avalanche triggering mechanisms have been debated for decades, and need some re-foundation on
clear scientific bases. This is the main goal of the present book.
Snow avalanches share a number of characteristics with some other types of gravitational flows.
Avalanches shown in Figs 1.1 and 1.2 perfectly illustrate slab avalanches and loose “snow” ava-
lanches, as defined hereafter, except that they actually are gypsum sand and not snow avalanches!
Another feature shared by gravitational flows is given in chapter 5, showing common statistical
characteristics between snow avalanches, landslides, and rock-falls, all of them belonging to the
same class of critical phenomena.
Avalanche studies are at the intersection of several traditional fields of science or practice. Each
community (physics, mechanics, mathematics, practitioners, etc.) has its own language, which
may yield some misunderstandings. The present book is written in a language used in physics, but
equivalents will be given for clarity if necessary. In this respect, it should be useful to make clear a
few definitions and several idioms that are used to characterize avalanches.
The snow cover is a layered structure built up during successive snowfalls. Upper layers may
be destabilized and glide down as a whole, resulting in “slab avalanches”. The glide plane, the
interface between the gliding slab and the older snow substrate, is known as the “basal plane”. It
initially consists of a “weak layer” (WL) made of brittle snow, whose collapse may trigger the
avalanching process. But the snow cover may also glide as a whole on the underlying bare ground,
giving rise to so-called “full-depth” avalanches.
More precisely, three main types of snow avalanches are usually distinguished:

i) Slab avalanches. Their release results from the initial failure of an underlying weak layer
(WL) that separates two adjacent snow layers. Such a failure, that may or may not result in
avalanche release, usually propagates beneath the slab over distances ranging from meters

Snow Avalanches: Beliefs, Facts, and Science. Francois Louchet, Oxford University Press (2021). © Francois Louchet.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198866930.003.0001
2 Snow Avalanches

Fig. 1.1 Gypsum sand slab avalanche, illustrating slab snow avalanches,White Sands National Park,
New Mexico (USA). (Photograph by François Louchet).

to kilometers, and is associated with a downward displacement (or “settlement”) of the

slab, and sometimes with an audible “whumpf”, an onomatopoeic term for the muffled
noise produced by the settlement. They are responsible for most human fatalities, and
therefore deserve specific interest.
ii) Loose snow avalanches. In cold fluffy snow, i.e. with low cohesion, they occur preferentially
on steep slopes. They are often thought to be triggered by the destabilization of a few snow
grains that knock out a couple of other ones, and so on, usually resulting in a narrow snow
slide flowing down as a superficial combination of tiny sluffs from a quasi-punctual starting
point (Fig. 1.2), and gradually growing in size. Their bed surface is ill defined. They may be
quite harmful when pouring down into narrow gullies. By contrast, in wet snow conditions,
low cohesion results from lubrication by melt water, and may help release of loose snow
avalanches on gentler slopes, with significantly larger sizes. A detailed description of such
mechanisms will be found in (Daffern 1992, Tremper 2008).
iii) Full-depth avalanches, actually encompassing all other types together, which is the reason
why a variety of full-depth avalanche definitions are found in the literature.

A few other terminologies are often used:

i) The distinction between “dense” and “airborne powder” avalanches essentially refers to
avalanche flow processes. As we shall focus on triggering mechanisms, this question has in
principle no call to be discussed in detail here. However, some avalanche flow characteristics
 Introduction 3

Fig. 1.2 Loose dry gypsum sand avalanches, illustrating loose snow avalanches, White Sands National
Park, New Mexico (USA). (Photograph by François Louchet).

may be determined by initial conditions, and powder flows may originate from particular
triggering processes.
ii) Slab avalanches can be artificial (or accidental) or spontaneous (or “natural”), depending
on whether they result from some external action (skier, animal, explosives, etc.) or not.
Spontaneous avalanches necessarily involve some time-dependent ingredients, as an over-
load due to a cornice rupture, a new snowfall, or accelerating creep (i.e. viscous flow) that
may bring the system from ductile deformation to brittle failure (Gubler and Bader 1988).
However, the possible role of the WL is still under debate in this last case.

Owing to the complexity and variability of the snow cover and of unexpected variations of
weather conditions, forecasting avalanche release is a formidable task. Our belief is that an
increased knowledge and understanding of underlying mechanical and thermodynamical pro-
cesses can significantly help both hazard control and mitigation measures.
The main goal of the present book is thus to disclose and analyze the main processes involved
in avalanche release. It seems useful to start in chapter 2 with a short review of the basics of snow
structure and topology. Snow being a complex arrangement of ice crystals, themselves found in
oodles of geometrical shapes, sizes, and formation mechanisms, we shall essentially focus on those
that are more directly involved in avalanche release. Readers interested in further developments
are referred to specialized textbooks.
4 Snow Avalanches

We shall essentially focus on two snow peculiarities. Since the snow cover results from an accu-
mulation of snowflakes, it may be considered as a granular material, with quite original properties
due to the unusually large grain surface vs volume ratio, and to their changeable healing propen-
sity. Snow also being a mixture of ice, air, and water, the topological concept of percolation is of
interest to deal with stress distribution in the snow cover, and will be briefly discussed.
Chapter 3 will be dedicated to some mechanical and physical concepts ruling deformation,
fracture, and friction processes, with particular attention paid to the simplicity of the analysis, but
without betraying the scientific validity of the arguments.
Chapters 4 and 5 will get into the very heart of the matter, with a thorough exploration of slab
avalanche release mechanisms. First, observations and field experiments will be analyzed. The
modeling section will empanel digital simulations and analytical approaches, whose results will be
extensively discussed.
Chapter 6 will deal with superficial and full-depth avalanche triggering, discussing the various
possible types and corresponding mechanisms, essentially in terms of self-organized criticality for
the former, and of percolation for the latter.
Finally, chapter 7 will tentatively discuss the expected influence of the present and unprece-
dented climate warming on avalanching activity and associated hazards.
The reader is also encouraged to visit the Data-Avalanche site http://www.data-avalanche.org/
for further and more practical information, more particularly on risk management and mitigation
strategies.
2
Snow, an Intriguing, Complex,
and Changeable Solid

We must always tell what we see, but above all, and this is more difficult,
we must always see what we see
Charles Péguy

The purpose of the present chapter is to give the minimum basic concepts that will be useful for
understanding avalanche problems. For more information, the reader is referred to the consider-
able bunch of snow treatises available in libraries and bookshops, and more particularly to
chapter 3 of the excellent book by Tony Daffern (1992) on avalanche safety. It is however worth
noting that the very particular structure of snow, made of complex and changing mixtures of ice,
air and water, endows this material with a considerable variety of physical properties. The topo-
logical concept of percolation, that can be conveniently used for exploring these properties, will be
discussed at the end of the chapter.

2.1 From ice to snow

Figure 2.1 shows the water phase diagram. Line AD separates solid (left) from liquid (right), and
AE separates liquid (top) from vapor (bottom). As shown by the horizontal line BC, under usual
pressure conditions found on the Earth’s surface (so-called “normal conditions”), water solidifies
at 0°C (into 1H type ice crystals, with a hexagonal crystallographic structure), and boils at 100°C.
Beyond the “critical point” E, liquid and vapor phases cannot be distinguished any more. There
is no sharp transition in this case between these phases. In other words, phase boundaries vanish.
We deal in this case with a “supercritical” fluid. Actually, the concept of criticality is by far
more general than its application to the water phase diagram. We shall return to this concept in
Appendix A for other applications.
A particularly interesting and well known feature of ice crystals is illustrated by the negative
slope of line AD: starting from a state in the solid phase, a pressure increase at constant tempera-
ture brings the system through the AD line up to the liquid state. The physical reason for this
counter-intuitive peculiarity is that, due to the specific molecular bonding of 1H crystals, ice dens-
ity is lower than that of water, i.e. ice takes up a larger volume than the same weight of water. This
property results in floating ice cubes, or at a different scale, drifting icebergs. Taking the problem
the other way round, another and obvious consequence of this specificity is that trying to shrink
the volume of a piece of ice by external pressure favors melting, since liquid water satisfies with a
smaller volume than solid ice.
Snow being made of ice, it inherits the same property, which has interesting consequences in
ski practice: in “warm” snow, ski pressure favors the formation by local melting of a thin water

Snow Avalanches: Beliefs, Facts, and Science. Francois Louchet, Oxford University Press (2021). © Francois Louchet.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198866930.003.0002
6 Snow Avalanches

218
D E

B C
1.00
SOLID LIQUID VAPOR

A
0.006
T

0.001 100 374

Fig. 2.1 Phase diagram of water. Pressure is in atmospheres, and temperature in °C. A is the triple point
where the three phases (solid, liquid, vapor) coexist. E is the critical point, beyond which there is no sharp
transition between liquid and vapor. The negative slope of the DA line is responsible for quite specific
characteristics of the water solid/liquid transition (see text).

layer that helps sliding, despite the fact that warming by ski friction on snow also contributes to the
same melting effect. This is by far less efficient in colder snows, a phenomenon well known by
cross-country skiers, who have the strange feeling of skiing on dry sand instead of snow, more
especially if they are using the skating technique.

2.2 Snow crystals

Snow crystals nucleate from a supersaturated atmosphere, helped by dust particles through a
reduction of interfacial energy. They nucleate as single crystals, i.e. in which water molecules are
precisely arranged along parallel directions and stacked planes. The well-defined V-shaped geom-
etry of water molecules (Fig. 2.2) results in precise molecular arrangements when condensed in
the solid state. In the 1H solid phase (our well known common ice, stable under our Earth’s pres-
sure and temperature conditions), the 104.45° angle between O–H bonds in the free molecule
slightly deforms up to 109o, in order to comply with a stable hexagonal crystallographic symmetry
(Schulson and Duval 2009). By contrast with Oxygen atoms, Hydrogen ones exhibit a limited
long-range ordering, obeying Bernal–Fowler rules (Pauling 1933):

i) two Hydrogens are located close to each Oxygen.

ii) each O–O bond must not contain more than one Hydrogen.

However, such features are of little importance in snow mechanical properties.

 Snow, an Intriguing, Complex, and Changeable Solid 7

Due to the 109° angle of the H2O molecule, snow crystals exhibit a simple 6-fold symmetry,
resulting however in impressive oodles of complicated shapes, depending on temperature, tem-
perature gradients, and humidity during nucleation and growth. A few examples are shown in
Figs 2.3 and 2.4. As a detailed description of such crystals is beyond the scope of the present work,
the reader is referred to (Daffern 1992, Libbreght 1999).

H H

Fig. 2.2 Schematic model of a water molecule H2O. The angle between O–H directions in the free mol-
ecule is 104.45°.

Fig. 2.3 Snow crystal morphology vs temperature and humidity. (After Ken Libbrecht, kgl@caltech.edu,
http://www.snowcrystals.com/science/science.html).
8 Snow Avalanches

Fig. 2.4 Examples of snow crystals: top left and right, stellar dendrites (i.e. star-shaped tree-like crystals);
bottom left, fernlike stellar dendrites (containing many side branches); bottom right, rimed crystals, result-
ing from collisions between snow crystals and freezing water droplets. (After Ken Libbrecht, http://www.
its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/class/class-old.htm).

After nucleation, such crystals aggregate during their motion in the atmosphere into snow-
flakes, each of them being made of a combination of single crystals of various orientations. Due to
the intricate shapes of snow crystals, their random aggregation into snowflakes incorporates a
significant amount of air, which results in a low density. This is why snowflakes fly around during
snowfalls, in strong contrast with hail showers. This is also why they can be easily transported by
wind, which may result in so-called wind slab formation.
The white color of snow differs from the transparent and slightly bluish aspect of bulk ice, due
to the huge surface vs volume ratio, that favors light scattering.

2.3 From snowfalls to snow layers

Snow falls on the ground forming successive layers, whose structure and properties may evolve
with time, helped again by humidity, temperature, and temperature gradient conditions, and
 Snow, an Intriguing, Complex, and Changeable Solid 9

various types of loading (further snowfalls, skiers, snowmobiles, grooming machines, etc.). In
some cases, the top layer may be formed by wind transportation, forming improperly named
“wind slabs”.
The cohesion between such layers also evolves with time. Failure of one of these interfaces,
as mentioned in the introduction, may destabilize as a whole the layer stacking sequence
located above the destabilized interface, resulting in an incipient slab avalanche. As a conse-
quence, the term “slab” refers to the group of such destabilized stacked layers, which cannot
be properly defined until triggering occurs. Such slabs are responsible for the majority of
avalanche fatalities. This is why two chapters (4 and 5) will be most entirely dedicated to slab
avalanche release.
Other types of ice crystals may form in the stacking sequence of the snow cover, at the surface
or at interfaces of already deposited layers. This is the case for instance of surface hoar, facets, and
depth hoar. Surface hoar is made of those superb ice crystals that grow at snow surface in “warm”
and humid atmospheres, due to the significant temperature gradient at the surface of a colder
snow cover during cold and clear nights. These well-known shiny flakes provide incredibly smooth
ski sliding. If they are buried during a snowfall before transformation into stronger structures, they
become a layer (still named “surface hoar”!) on which the slab may potentially slide down very
easily.
Facets and depth hoar also grow under thermal gradients, often (but not always) at interfaces
between different snow layers: indeed, during clear nights, the external temperature goes down,
whereas deeper snow layers keep warmer, due to the thermal flux from the ground (geothermal
flux). It is usually thought that this phenomenon takes place on north slopes, as the external tem-
perature is colder than on south ones, at least in the northern hemisphere (readers from the south-
ern hemisphere should translate this sentence the other way round!). It is worth noting however
that this mechanism may also occur on other slope orientations, particularly in early winter during
which the atmosphere cools down due to a weak and low sun, whereas the ground keeps warmer.
Under such a temperature gradient, the system is out of equilibrium, water molecules evaporate
from the warmer bottom layer (“sublimation”), and condense on the colder bottom part of the
upper layer, resulting in a lace of delicate brittle crystals.
In all cases, resulting intermediate interfaces consist of (or transform into) granular aggregates
of polyhedral ice grains bonded by brittle ice bridges, usually known as “weak layers” (WL)
(Fig. 2.5).
As the metamorphic transformation occurs at constant volume, the average density of the WL
is comparable to those of top and bottom layers. Yet, it may exhibit a larger brittleness for at least
two reasons:

i) It is made of bigger crystals separated by larger flaws. Griffith’s criterion developed in

chapter 3 states that larger flaws correspond to a reduced toughness.
ii) Despite the fact that the WL average density is similar to that of top and bottom layers, it
may vary across the WL thickness, the lighter zones being significantly more brittle than the
denser ones.

In addition, the lower thermal conductivity of the lighter layer increases the local temperature
gradient, enhancing the metamorphic transformation rate. For a similar reason, WLs may also
form on both sides of freezing crusts (this is called a “super gradient”).
For all these reasons, WLs are recognized to play a key role in snow slab avalanche triggering
processes. It is therefore of interest to understand in more details the weak layer behavior, in
order to be able to predict which conditions may favor slab avalanching, as detailed in chap-
ters 4 and 5.
10 Snow Avalanches

Fig. 2.5 Typical weak layer section. Bonneval sur Arc (Savoie) 22 February
2017. Scale is given by 2 cm × 2 cm squares. (Photograph by Alain Duclos).

2.4 Snow as a granular medium

Granular matter is made of assemblies of solid grains, whose sizes may range from nanoscopic up
to macroscopic scales. Properties of such ensembles strongly depend on grain sizes, through the
volume vs surface ratio R=V/S. As volumes and surfaces scale respectively as the 3rd and 2nd
powers of grain size, R is homogeneous to a length. As a consequence, the behavior of granular
ensembles is essentially ruled by volume properties in the case of bigger grains (large R values),
and by surface in the case of smaller ones.
In this respect, granular media may be defined as a wide intermediate stage in which both vol-
ume and surface effects have to be simultaneously taken into account to understand physical
properties.
In the case of mechanical (and more specifically dynamical) properties for instance, granular
media behavior is ruled by the balance between grain weight and inertia, which are volume param-
eters on the one hand, and contact interactions, obviously of surface nature on the other hand.
In the limiting case of powders, small R values enhance surface effects during contacts, as for
instance friction, cohesion, or chemical reactivity (including water capillary effects for sand or
snow for instance). In the opposite case of large R values, inertial effects dominate, resulting in
strong changes in bulk structure during collisions. This is the case for shocks between icebergs,
which may yield bulk damage and fracture. In comparison, collisions between small flying beetles
(with small R values) are much less damaging than those between heavy birds or cars, whose
external skin or shell cannot resist inertial effects.
The lower bound of this domain is usually considered to be at around 1 μm. Above this size,
indeed, grains are large enough to be unaffected by Brownian motion (i.e. thermal fluctuations),
which means that surface effects will not overwhelm volume effects any more. The upper bound
of the granular media domain is more arbitrary and difficult to define precisely, and depends on
investigated physical properties, but the centimeter or decimeter range looks reasonable.
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the palace hill, and came to a bridge called Yuthok Samba, a
hundred and twenty feet by fifteen, over which is built a roof in the
Chinese style. I crossed the bridge and went on another hundred
and twenty yards before I found myself at the western gate of
Lhasa, constructed somewhat after the Chinese fashion. I passed
through the gate and rode on some two hundred and fifty yards,
when I came to a sort of large open court. Here I had to alight, for I
was before the large temple of Buḍḍha. I enquired how the image of
Buḍḍha came to be placed in the temple. It was before king Srong-
tsan Gambo (who later introduced Buḍḍhism into the country) was
won to the religion, and when he was engaged to Princess Un-ching,
a daughter of the Chinese Emperor Ta-sung of the Thang dynasty.
She demanded a promise from his father that Buḍḍhism should be
widely preached in Tibet, and required at the same time that she
might be permitted to take with her an image of Buḍḍha, which had
just been brought from India. The request being granted, the
Princess took it to the city of Lhasa, where it has remained ever
since.
The image was thus brought into the country by the Princess at the
same time as Buḍḍhism itself. It was soon found necessary to
preach a new form of Buḍḍhism and to invent new characters in
which to write its teachings. So learned men, sixteen in number,
were sent to India to study Buḍḍhism, and to invent new characters.
Consequently, new Tibetan letters were formed, and Buḍḍhist
doctrines were translated into Tibetan. Budḍḍhism was thus taught
for over thirteen centuries, to the great advantage both of Tibet and
of Buḍḍhism. This image of Buḍḍha was not originally carved in
China, but was made by a Buḍḍhist sculptor, Vishvakarma by name,
in India, whence it was introduced into Tibet through China. When I
lifted up my thanks before this image of Buḍḍha for my safe arrival
in Tibet, I could not help shedding tears over the goodness of
Buḍḍha, which enabled me to see His image at this temple as well
as at Buḍḍhagayā in India. I need not say, for the whole story shows
it, how great is my faith in Buḍḍha. I do not mean that I do not
respect other Buḍḍhist deities; still Buḍḍha claims the greatest
worship from me, and I have entirely given myself up to Him and His
religion.
There are many cheap inns and hotels in Lhasa, but as I had been
informed that they were not respectable, I desired to stay with a
friend, a son of the premier of Tibet. While at Darjeeling I had
become acquainted with this young noble, and he had offered me a
lodging during my stay in Lhasa. I liked him, and did many things for
him, and now, though I did not mean to demand a return for what I
had done for him, I had no alternative but to go to him. So I called
at his house. It was known as Bandesha—a magnificent mansion on
a plot of about three hundred and sixty feet square. I entered the
house and asked if he was in, but heard that my friend had become
a lunatic. They told me that he had gone out of his mind two years
before, and that he went mad at regular periods. I learned that he
was staying at his brother’s villa at Namsailing, and was obliged to
go there for him, but there also I could not find him, and was told
the same thing. I waited there for over two hours, as I was told he
might come, and then I reflected that it would be of no use for me
to see a madman, on whom I could not depend, so I made up my
mind to direct my steps to the Sera monastery, for I thought it would
be better for me to be temporarily admitted in the college, and then
to pass the regular entrance examinations. So I at once hired a
coolie to carry my baggage, and started for the monastery.
Like the Rebung monastery, it was built on the slope of a hill, and
when seen from a distance looked like a village. Guided by the
coolie, I arrived at the monastery at four o’clock and at once called
at the dormitory of Pituk Khamtsan, giving myself out as a Tibetan,
as I came from Jangthang. Hitherto I had passed for a Chinaman,
but as such I should have had to go to Pate Khamtsan, where I
feared I might be detected. I had not trimmed my hair nor shaved
my face, nor bathed for a long time, and I cannot have been much
cleaner than a Tibetan, so I made up my mind to pass for one and
to live among them. The examinations for a Tibetan might be too
difficult for me; still I could command the Tibetan language almost
as well as a native, and I was often treated as one. I thought,
therefore, that I could pass without detection, and so for my own
safety I entered the monastery in this guise. The dormitory is
occupied by several priests, who in turn, by the year, take the charge
of the house. The then head of the dormitory was a very kind and
simple old man, called La-toe-pa, and when I told him about my
desire to obtain temporary admission, he gave me every particular
as to what to do.
Before I go any further in my narrative, I must say something briefly
about the Sera college. It is divided into three departments—Je-Ta-
tsang, Maye Ta-tsang, and Ngakpa Ta-tsang. The first department
contains 3,800 priests, the second 2,500 and the third five hundred.
The former two departments have eighteen dormitories, named
Khamtsan. They differ in size, for the small ones have about fifty
priests in them, while there are over a thousand priests in the
largest ones. There were two hundred priests in the house at which
I stayed. Each Khamtsan has its own property, and all the
Khamtsans as a whole are called Sera. These are the largest
divisions of the monastery, but I will not enter into the sub-divisions.
 CHAPTER XLVI.
The Warrior-Priests of Sera.
In Tibet there are two classes of priests, scholar-priests and warrior-
priests, who in Tibetan are called Lob-nyer and Thab-to respectively.
The former class of priests come to Sera, as their name shows, with
the purpose of study, at an expense of three yen or, if they take the
regular course, of eight yen a month. They graduate from the
college after a study of twenty years, during which time their special
study is the Buḍḍhist Catechism and philosophy, the principal course
of the Sera college. As they come to the college after they have
finished the study of the regular courses, most of them are from
thirty to thirty-five or thirty-six years of age when they graduate,
though a few clever priests receive the decree of doctor at the age
of twenty-eight years.
The warrior-priests have no money to pay for a course of study in
the college. They earn their way by gathering yak-dung from the
fields or by carrying from the bank of the river Kichu to the
monastery wood which has been brought in boats from Sam-ya-e or
Kongbo. Then they serve the scholar-priests as their servants. It is
also among their daily tasks to play flutes, lyres, harps, flageolets, to
beat drums, and to prepare offerings for the deities. The above tasks
may not be too humble for a low class of priests, but the warrior-
priests have another strange daily task to do by which they deserve
their strange name. Every day they repair to certain hills and
practise throwing large stones at a target, and thus test their
muscles. They jump, run up mountains, or leap down from high
rocks. At intervals they sing popular songs as loudly as they can, for
they are proud of their good voices. Then they practise fighting with
clubs. When they have no fixed task in the temple, they are seen
going by threes or fives to their respective places of practice. The
reader may wonder of what use these priests are in Tibet, and will
perhaps be surprised to know that they are of great use. When, for
instance, the higher class Lamas travel in the northern plains or in
some remote district, they take these priests as their body guards.
They are very daring. Having no wives to look after, they meet death
calmly. So invincible and implacable are these fighting priests that
they are the most feared of any in Tibet. They are very quarrelsome,
too, though they rarely fall out with one another without some
serious provocation. They scarcely ever fight for a pecuniary matter,
but the beauty of young boys presents an exciting cause, and the
theft of a boy will often lead to a duel. Once challenged, no priest
can honorably avoid the duel, for to shun it would instantly
excommunicate him from among his fellow-priests and he would be
driven out of the temple. There are chiefs among the warrior-priests,
and they have rules of their own, with officers to see them well
carried out. This is an open secret, and the warrior-priests are
therefore allowed sometimes to do things quite unbecoming to
priests or anybody else. When any grave matter occurs, the chiefs
are often ordered to attend to it with the other warrior-priests.
A duel being agreed upon, both the fighters go to the appointed
place, mostly in the evening. They fight each other with swords
while the umpires judge their way of fighting. If either of the
combatants does anything cowardly or mean, the umpire leaves the
fighters to themselves, till one or the other is killed. If both fight
bravely till they are wounded, the umpire bids them stop fighting. He
tells them to make peace, and takes them to Lhasa, where they
make friends over a cup of chang (beer or wine). The use of all
intoxicants being strictly prohibited in the Sera monastery, many
warrior-priests, when they go to Lhasa, take the opportunity of
drinking much of them, and under that influence they do many rude
things.
One day, some one accidentally discovered that I was a doctor, and
from that time I came to be paid undeserved respect by these
priests. When they were wounded in their feet or hands during their
practice they came to me for cure, and I was strangely successful
with them. I think that half-civilised people are more easily cured of
wounds than civilised people. A sprained arm was so easily set right,
that the warrior-priests began to consider me to be a doctor
indispensable among them. Besides, I scarcely ever took fees from
them for their recovery, and I gave them medicine gratis, except
when they offered me something in return and compelled me to
accept it. This kindness won me their hearts. They saw that it often
made them worse to go to a native doctor when they were wounded
in a duel, while I treated their wounds, or set their bones, gratis and
far better than their native doctors did. This pleased them so much
that I became a great favorite among them. Everywhere I was
greeted with the protruded tongue of salutation.
Besides, I was helped and guarded by them in many respects. They
are very true to their duties and obligations. They may look a little
rough, but they are much more truthful than the nobles and other
priests of the land, who, though kind and truthful at first sight, are
deceitful and crafty in seeking their own benefit and happiness. The
warrior-priests are as a rule not deceitful and cunning at heart, and I
have found in them many other points that claim my respect and
liking. On the other hand, I was often troubled in my intercourse
with the Lamas, who hide a mean and crafty behavior under their
warm garments of wool. So far for the two classes of priests.
I had trimmed and shaved neither hair nor beard in my journey of
over ten months, so that they had grown very long. On the day after
my arrival, therefore, when I got a priest to shave my head, I asked
him to shave off my beard also. He wondered why I wanted to have
it shaved off, and told me that it would be very unwise of me to do
so when it had grown so beautiful. He seemed to think that I was
joking, and I was obliged to let it grow. A beard is much valued by
the Tibetans, because they generally have none, though the
inhabitants of Kham and other remote provinces grow beards. They
are so eager to have a beard, that after I was known to be a doctor
I was often asked to give medicine to make the beard grow. They
would say that I must have used some medicine to make my beard
grow so long.
As my object was to be a student priest I bought a hat, a pair of
shoes, and a rosary, according to the regulations of the monastery. I
did not buy a priest’s robe, as I could in time use the one which had
been given to me. So I went to Je Ta-tsang, chief professor of the
department which I was to enter, for him to question me before I
was admitted as a probationary student; but I found that no
examinations were to be given. I called on the professor with a
present of the best tea to be procured in Tibet. His first question
was: “Where are you from? You look like a Mongolian; are you not
one?” Being answered in the negative, he asked me several
geographical questions, for he was well acquainted with the
geography of the country. But I answered well, as I had travelled
through the provinces on my own feet. It was thus settled that I
might be admitted on probation. So I saluted the Lama with my
tongue out, and he put his right hand on my head, as usual, and put
a red cloth about two feet long round my neck as the sign of my
admission. The reader must know that one has to put such a piece
of cloth round the neck in the presence of all noble Lamas in Tibet. I
had then to appear before the priest who sees that the laws are
carried out, and to get his permission, and I found that as I had a
permit from the professor I could easily get the sanction of the
priest, and thus I was admitted into the college. I had then to
prepare myself for the regular entrance examination of the
department of logic.
On the following day I found a teacher to help me in my preparation.
Finding however that one teacher was not sufficient for the many
subjects I had to study, I engaged a second, and I was thus soon
busy preparing myself. There was a Lama living in the dormitory
opposite to mine, a stout priest who seemed to be very learned. One
day I was called to his room to see him, and among other questions
I was asked if I had not come with a caravan of Ruto from
Jangthang to the Sakya temple. I was told that among the disciples
of the Lama there was one Tobten, a nice gentle Tibetan, and this
person happened to be the one who had treated me very kindly
during my journey with the caravan. It was this man who had asked
me if I would take meat, and whom I had told that I did not take it.
I had hitherto been supposed to have come from Jangthang, but
now I was entirely unmasked.
“Then you are not from Jangthang,” said the Lama, and then he told
me that he had heard I was a Chinaman and good at writing
Chinese characters. On my confessing that I was not a Tibetan he
was grieved, because he feared that my deceit might bring trouble
upon the dormitory, for a Chinaman must go to Pate Khamtsan. He
then asked me why I had violated the regulations of the place, and I
replied that I had been robbed, as he might have heard from his
disciple, at Jangthang, and that I had not money enough to enter
into the Pate Khamtsan as a Chinaman. Besides, I said, I should
have to pay something for service every year, if I went to the
Chinese house. Having told him all these secrets, I then asked him
to help me to stay with him, as I could not go to the other house.
The Lama said that his disciple had told him of the robbery, and that
he was very sorry for me, adding that he would leave the matter till
objection should be made. So I was left there without further
trouble, and I passed for a man from Jangthang. In this way I kept
on studying day and night, till I had a great swelling in my
shoulders. I was obliged to draw some blood from the shoulders by
a device of my own, and then I went to a druggist in the city to buy
some medicine, which soon cured the swelling.
 CHAPTER XLVII.
Tibet and North China.
On the 7th of April I went to see a great service of prayer for the
Chinese Emperor in connexion with the “Boxer” war. It was held not
only at Sera, but at every temple in Tibet. At the monastery where I
lived they held a secret meeting for seven days, during which time
special priests offered secret prayers. They were then to perform
something secret for the victory of China. On enquiry I was told that
Peking was invaded by the troops of several foreign countries, and
that the Chinese seemed to have been beaten. They might be too
late, they said, but they prayed for the safety of the Emperor of
China. I was quite anxious to know more particulars, but they were
all kept secret, and no one would tell me any more.
The prayer service was held in the Tsochen Hall at Sera, and
commenced with a long warlike procession. First came the players
on lyres, flageolets, drums, and large flutes, followed by men
carrying incense-burners. Then came ten nice looking Tibetan boys,
still in their teens, all dressed in fine Buḍḍhist robes ornamented
with colored Chinese crape, and each burning incense. Next followed
fifty spear-like objects on each side of the road, each surmounted
with a movable blade like that of a Chinese spear. These blades had
hilt guards, under which hung gold brocade or fine colored Chinese
crape, sixteen feet long, thus making the spear twenty-five feet long
altogether. The spear, the handle of which was either of gold or gilt,
seemed rather heavy, for two strong warrior-priests carried each of
them. Then came a triangular board about six feet high, with various
figures made of butter on it, and after it another triangular board,
four feet high, with some red figure made of a mixture of baked
flour, butter and honey. These boards were borne by seven or eight
men. After them came some two hundred priests, dressed in
handsome robes and scarfs quite dazzling to the eye. Half of these
beat drums, while the other half carried cymbals. After these priests
came the chief Lama, who was to offer the secret prayer. He had
dressed himself in the splendid robes of his high rank. Last of all his
disciples followed.
Thus the procession presented a grand sight, and the people of
Lhasa came out in great crowds to see it. It marched out about two
hundred yards from the great hall to an open yard outside the stone
fence, where the view opened as far as Lhasa. Another two hundred
yards further, the procession came before a grass-roofed shed, built
of bamboo, wood and straw. There the chief Lama recited something
in front of the triangular figures of butter and of baked wheat, and
of the spear-shaped objects, while the two hundred priests around
him chanted verses from the Buḍḍhist Scriptures, and beat drums
and cymbals. A priest with a pair of cymbals walked through the
lines of the priests; he seemed to be a sort of band-master, for he
marched through their ranks beating time. His steps and gait were
very odd and different from any dancings that I had ever seen. Soon
the chief Lama was seen pretending to throw away his rosary, at
which signal the spear-bearers threw their spears at the shed and
then the triangular board of baked flour was thrown at it also. They
then set fire to the shed, at the burning of which the priests as well
as the spectators clapped their hands, crying out “Lha-kyallo! Lha-
kyallo!” This is a Tibetan word, meaning “surely the Gods will
triumph.” Thus was the ceremony over, one of the most splendid I
had ever seen in Buḍḍhism. On the following day all the priests of
the monastery were invited to Lhasa to attend the Cho-en Joe
service, which lasted a month, to pray that the Dalai Lama of Tibet
might be kept from all evil during the year. This was a celebration
said to be only second in importance to the other. I also went to
Lhasa, and took lodging in the house of a Palpo merchant.
In the capital I got more definite information about the Boxer
trouble. Perhaps some merchants who had returned from China, or
some who had came from Nepāl or some who had been to India,
might have brought the news; but it was all very laughable and
unreliable. Some would say the Emperor of China had bequeathed
his throne to the Crown Prince and absconded, while others told me
that the Emperor was defeated and was then in Sin-an. The trouble
was brought about, some said, by a wicked minister, who married an
English lady to the Emperor, while others asserted that there was a
country called Japan, which was so strong that her troops took
possession of Peking. Another said that a famine prevailed in China
and people were all famished; indeed, every sort of rumor was
abroad in the Tibetan capital.
I was especially pleased to hear something about Japan, even the
very name of which had not yet been heard in Tibet, and some
merchants told me that Japan was so powerful and so chivalrous
that even when her army had taken possession of Peking, she had
sent shiploads of rice, wheat and clothing to the Chinese capital to
relieve tens of thousands of natives who were suffering from famine.
But others would say against Japan that she could not be such a
friendly country, but must have done what she had done merely out
of her crafty “land-grabbing diplomacy,” as the British nation did.
Rumor after rumor was making its way through Tibet, and I did not
know what to believe. Only I was pretty sure that a war had broken
out between China and other Powers. In the meantime the Palpo
merchant with whom I was staying was going to Nepāl. I utilised the
occasion and through his kindness sent two letters, one to Rai Saraṭ
Chanḍra Ḍās in India, and the other to Mr. I. Hige of my native
province. I was glad to find afterwards that they reached their
destination, but it was very difficult to send a letter in that way; one
must first see that the man by whom it is to be sent is honest and
not likely to betray one’s secret, and one cannot easily trust a
Tibetan. But my Tibetan had more than once been shown to be true
to his trust.
The Cho-en Joe was a meeting of a kind I had never seen before. In
the first place there was a Sakya temple over two hundred and forty
yards square, with another and central Sakya temple, one hundred
and twenty yards square. A wide pavement ran along inside the
walls, where the ordinary priests sat. The same kind of pavement
was found on the second and third floors. No priest was admitted
into the Sakya temple but the Dalai Lama or the “greater”
professors, though they did not always attend the meetings. Some
twenty thousand priests attended that celebration, while over
twenty-five thousand assembled on the occasion of the festival held
at Lhasa for the safety of the Emperor of China. About five in the
morning the sound of flutes called all the priests in Lhasa to the
place of meeting. They chanted the Scriptures and were given butter
and tea, as usual, three times, at intervals of thirty minutes. Of the
twenty thousand very few were regular priests, the rest being either
warrior-priests or loafers, who came only with the mean object of
filling their stomachs. Instead of reciting from the Scriptures,
therefore, they were openly doing all sorts of things during the
meeting, such as singing profane songs, or pushing each other
about. One could see the rowdiness of these warrior-priests, who sat
there making obscene jokes, and often quarrelling with one another.
The warrior-priests being so lawless, some guard-priests are detailed
to keep order among them. The guard-priest does not judge
between the quarrelling priests, but strikes them any time he sees
them quarrelling. So he is much feared by the other priests, who
take to their huts at the first sign of his presence. Still he often takes
them by surprise, and thrashes them most mercilessly on head,
limbs or body, so that occasionally they even die from the effects of
his rough treatment. This is not, however, considered to be murder,
the perpetrator of the deed is not punished, and the body of his
victim is simply thrown away for the birds to devour.
Warrior-priests train themselves for two hours in the morning. They
take baked flour in tea during that time, and at the end they are
given some gruel. Usually the gruel is made of rice, with much meat
in it, and is given gratis. Each priest brings a bowl which holds a pint
or more, and he takes a bowlful of gruel and three cups of tea. On
their way back to their respective lodgings, they receive ge, which in
Tibetan means ‘alms,’ from the officers. It is said that some believers
give as much as twenty-five sen or fifty sen per head to each of the
priests. In this respect some Tibetan merchants, landowners and
high officers are very generous, for they are sometimes known to
give eight or nine thousand yen in alms to these priests. There are
many who give that sum in that way, and much money is known to
be sent for that object from Mongolia.
There once was among these priests a Russian spy from Mongolia.
He had the degree of doctor, and held the office of Tsan-ni Kenbo.
He often made such donations, and his fame had spread far and
wide. Such alms-giving, without religious faith, did not improve his
spiritual condition in the least; but so many merchants give money
for the sake of their business, that this doctor was content to think
his alms had also promoted his virtue. In these ways the priests get
much money, and the festival season is the best time of the year for
them. Sufficiency begets bad conduct, and it is during such times
that the priests are most contentious and vindictive, and that duels
are most frequent. A duel is not generally fought in Lhasa itself; as a
rule they only appoint the place and time for it and fight it after they
get back to their own dormitories, because while they are in Lhasa
they are under the authority of the magistrate priest of the Rebung
temple, and not of their own temples. This magistrate is known to
be so severe, strict and exacting, that they are afraid to fight a duel
before him, and they patiently wait till they return to their own
temples.
On the day that the great celebration was over, I saw a festival
procession. First came groups dressed as the four divine kings,
followed by the eight devil kings, each with a special mark. Each
group was followed by three or five hundred priests, differently
dressed. Unlike a religious procession in Japan, which is as a rule
very solemn, the Tibetan procession marched in a sportive manner,
for the persons in it played with one another while moving. They
would even joke with the spectators. They carried in the procession
various treasures and musical instruments, such as drums, lyres,
pipes, flageolets and Indian flutes, the most attractive objects being
some imitations of dragons. There were many strange figures
formed, as they told me, after the model of the treasures of the
submarine dragon’s palace. Imitations were there of every
instrument, treasure, or dress found in Tibet, and of the old
costumes that are found in Tibetan history; and several Indian tribes
were to be seen in the long procession of over two and a half miles.
It is impossible to enter into details, as I saw it only once; my
memory does not serve me for other particulars.
This procession had one of the strangest of origins. It is said that
Ngak Wang Gyamtso, the fifth Pontiff of the New Sect, devised the
procession after one which he saw in a dream in the Buḍḍhist
Paradise, and it seemed quite fitting that such a curious procession
should have so vague an origin.
 CHAPTER XLVIII.
Admission into Sera College.
I did not see as much of the festival as I might have done, because I
had to go through my formal entrance examinations before the
festival was entirely over, and I devoted all spare moments to
preparation. Once more I overworked myself, but I bought some
more medicine, and was soon well again. This caused no little
wonder among my neighbors, and I was often asked if I had studied
medicine. I must have studied it, they would say, because I could
cure my own illness, and I was obliged to tell them that I had read a
few books on medicine. This led me to practise it among them
afterwards.
Before the celebrations were over, I went back to my own monastery
for my examination. It was on April 18th that I presented myself
with forty other candidates. I was given both written and oral
examinations, besides the recitation of a passage from the
Scriptures. The examinations were such as are generally given to
those who have finished the common course in Tibetan schools.
They were not so difficult for me as I had expected, and I was
admitted to the college, though all were not equally fortunate, for
only seven out of the forty passed. Among the successful members
were a few warrior-priests also. They had run into debt, and had
since studied hard to be admitted. But, let me say, their object was
something more than mere study. Scholarships were awarded, from
fifty sen to one yen and sometimes two yen a month per scholar-
priest. The amount was not fixed, but it generally came to some ten
yen a year. It was on account of that sum of money that many
warrior-priests tried to pass the examination. I was admitted as a
student of the first class, in which priest-students varying from boys
in their teens to men in the forties and fifties were studying the
Buḍḍhist catechism, according to the Tibetan fashion. Their way of
studying was so interesting and active, and they were so earnest
and fervent, that one would have thought they were quarrelling with
one another while discussing.
The catechism is a very pleasant performance, and the ways of
questioning, emphasis, and intonation are quite interesting. The
catechised sits in a certain attitude, and the questioner stands up
with a rosary in his left hand, and walks towards him. He stretches
out his hands with the palm of the left hand downwards and that of
the right hand upwards and claps them together, uttering the words,
Chi! chi tawa choe chan. Here ‘Chi’ means the heart of the
Boḍhisaṭṭva Mañjushrī and its utterance is supposed to make the
questioner one with Him, whose real body is knowledge. The rest of
the utterance literally means, “in that nature of the truth.” The sense
of the whole is “We shall begin the discussion following the nature of
Truth as it is manifested in the Universe.” Then the discussion begins
in earnest according the rules of the logic of Nyāya. The first
question, for instance, may be whether Buḍḍha was human or not.
Whether the answer is in the affirmative or the negative, the
questioner goes on to ask; “But he was not above mortality, was
he?” If he be answered in the affirmative, he will say that it could
not be so, for Buḍḍha was no more than mortal. The answerer, if
bright enough, will then reply that Buḍḍha, though himself above
death, submitted himself to it in his incarnated body. He must say
also that Buḍḍha had three bodies, called in Saṁskṛṭ Ḍharmakāya,
Sambhogakāya and Nirmānakāya, and in Tibetan, Choeku, Lonjoeku
and Tulku. These terms mean: ‘The all pervading body consisting of
the purest virtue of Truth in him’, ‘the body derived from his
countless virtues, enjoying complete happiness with the light of
Truth,’ and ‘the body derived from his boundless mercy and
transcendental knowledge for the good of all beings.’
A VEHEMENT PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSION.
If the catechised shows any weak point in his answers, the
questioner never fails to take advantage of the opportunity, and
drives him on, saying for example that Buḍḍha was a real man born
in India. Whether the answer be in the affirmative or negative, he
will go on asking many questions in succession, and that with so
much animation that, when he utters the words of a question, he
beats time with hands and feet. The teacher always teaches the
catechists that the foot must come down so strongly that the door of
hell may be broken open, and that the hands must make so great a
noise that the voice of knowledge may frighten the devils all over
the world, by a fearless heart and a brave attitude. The object of the
questions and answers is to free the mind from all worldliness, and
to get into the very bottom of Truth, giving no power to the devils of
hell in the mind.
To show how excitedly the catechism is carried on, it is said that a
countryman once came to see the scene. The question happened to
be about physiognomy (kan-sa), which in Tibetan is synonymous
with a tobacco-pipe. The countryman thought that they were
disputing over a tobacco-pipe, and was very much surprised that a
pipe should be the matter of the quarrel, for the priests were
seemingly very much provoked and railed at each other and
exchanged blows! Three years later, the same countryman came to
worship at the temple of Sera, and again happened to see the
priests disputing hotly about what he thought to be a pipe. He saw
them strike each other at the end of the dispute, and felt very sorry
for them. So he thought he would settle the dispute by arbitration.
He then walked among the priests, holding out his pipe, which he
meant to give them. Though it was none of his business to come
among the priests, he offered the pipe and begged them to settle
the dispute, thereby causing great laughter among them. It is with
such excitement and with hardly any formality that the questions are
asked and answered. Still it must not be supposed that one could
answer these questions without a knowledge of Buḍḍhism. One has
to read many texts and reference books before one can go through
these questions. It takes the natives twenty years of hard and
unceasing study, with examinations every year, to obtain the degree
of a doctor.
The catechism forms the chief part of the education of Tibetan
priests. This method seems to excite so great an interest among
priest-students that there are always many Mongolians in Tibet, who
come so far and through so much hardship with the sole object of
receiving education there. There are three hundred Mongolians at
the Sera college, and hardly fewer at other large temples, such as
that of Tashi Lhunpo. The New Sect of Buḍḍhism owes a great deal
of its fine prospects to its catechism, while the Old Sect has already
lost popularity and is now tottering. It is by this spirited Catechism
that the naturally dull and lazy Tibetans are goaded on to
understand Buḍḍhism, and are very rich, for a half-civilised nation, in
logical ideas. But let me add, it is only the learned that are rich in
logical ideas; the people at large, who have received little education,
are far from being intelligent.
The Catechism is generally held at some beautiful place, where there
are many fine trees, such as elms, willows, nuts, peaches and
various others which are not found in Japan, though on the whole
Tibet does not possess a large variety of trees. The ground under
the trees is covered with beautiful white sand. When the first
Catechism is over, the priests have what is termed the Garden of
Truth, at some equally well-wooded place, where there are varieties
of flowers. The ground there is also covered with white sand, and
enclosed by stone walls five or six feet high with a gateway
constructed in Chinese fashion. The priests gather themselves there
to read from the Scriptures, and after the reading, they begin
questioning one another. Here they make no difference of classes,
but ask one another concerning their text books and everything else.
This helps them a great deal to improve their knowledge and
wisdom.
At the other place, there may be no more than one questioner and
one answerer, the rest keeping silence, whether the class consist of
fifty or a hundred priests. The questioner and the answerer might
change, but they could be taken only from that one class. In the
garden, however, there are no such limitations, there is no difference
of classes, and young and old priests are seen questioning each
other. So one may easily fancy how noisy and excited they are.
While I was having a Catechism among them under a peach-forest
in blossom, snowflakes began to fall on us. I stopped questioning
and, struck with the beautiful scene around me, I wrote two
Japanese poems which served to give my friends at home some idea
of my thoughts.

In spring the blooming flowers of the peach

Are fully blown in “Dharma-garden” there,
Greeting with welcome glee the friendly snows.
Under their shades the wrangling priests discuss,
With their vehement, uncouth gestures strange,
Their doubts to melt, like to the melting snows
Beneath these trees emitting odours sweet.

Day and night I studied in this way. But finding soon that it left me
too many precious hours to have only one teacher, I now found
another priest to teach me. I went to them to receive their
instruction, while they too sometimes came to teach me. I thus
made considerable progress in my learning.
There is a strange custom which a new college student has to
observe as a sign of his admittance. I had to go to Lhasa and to
travel, as a sign of my admittance, for two days to beg for fuel. But
one day a young priest next door quarrelled with another young
priest and hit him with a stone, which dislocated the bone of his
upper arm. The wounded lad was a special favorite of his instructor,
who feared very much that he might be deformed. Bone-setting is
quite unknown to the Tibetans, and their doctors, who have no
knowledge of how to set a dislocated bone, apply heated iron, or
give some medicine to drink or use. I was on my walk and happened
to hear the pitiful cries of the wounded boy, and was told, when I
asked why they did not send for a doctor, that it was far better not
to do so, as it would only be a heavy expense for nothing. They
were not going to have one. When I asked if no doctor in Tibet
could set a dislocated bone, they seemed to be much surprised at
my improbable question. It was with some difficulty that I made
them believe that a dislocated bone can be easily set. So going to
the wounded boy, I easily set his bone, while a Tibetan held his
head and left hand. Then I acupunctured that part where the muscle
was a little swollen, and the boy was soon cured.
 CHAPTER XLIX.
Meeting with the Incarnate
Bodhisattva.
This healing made me an object of much talk, and I soon found
myself surrounded by many patients. I now began to fear that I
should thus be prevented from studying, and so fail to accomplish
my chief end. So I tried every means to keep the patients from me,
but the more I declined, the more patients I found brought to me,
and I was at last obliged to get some medicines from Thien-ho-
thang (a Chinese druggist) in Lhasa. I gave the medicines to these
patients, most of whom recovered either through their faith in me or
through the efficacy of the drugs; for I had studied the rudiments of
medical science (of the old school, it is true) and this enabled me to
use the medicines. There is one disease which is most feared as
fatal by the Tibetans. It is dropsy, little, if at all different from beri-
beri. No one in the neighborhood of Lhasa seemed to know how to
cure the disease. I prepared for it a medicine of which I had been
told by a Tibetan hermit, and gave it to some patients suffering from
dropsy. I am glad to say that this medicine cured six or seven
patients out of every ten, though I could not heal cases that were
far gone.
This made me quite famous and my name, known only in my own
monastery at first, began to be known in the whole city of Lhasa and
in the country as far as Shigatze. Often two horses were sent on for
me from places of three days’ journey distant to take me to patients.
I took no reward from the poor, but gave them medicine gratis. This
may have had a great deal to do with my popularity, and I came to
be regarded as a God of medicine.
There are many cases of consumption in Tibet. I gave my medicine
to those patients who were in the first stages of the disease, but
chronic cases I left without any medicine, to meditation or religious
services that they might gain salvation, and die at ease. This, I was
told, made some patients fear to come to me, for it was said that
those to whom medicine was given recovered, while the others,
whom I taught about death and the future, without giving them any
medicine, were sure to die. Some did not like to be told that death
was near them, and women especially were frightened to come
before me. The Tibetans have a strange habit. When they fall ill,
before any doctor is sent for, a sorcerer is asked to see which doctor
is best and what kind of medicine is good. Some doctors, therefore,
are so wicked as to bribe the sorcerer to recommend them to the
patients. The sorcerer, too, being pleased enough to see the patients
cured by the doctor whom he suggested, began to recommend me
to his patients when he saw my name was making so great a stir in
Tibet. He would tell his patients to be sure to come to me. I never
asked him to mention me, nor even saw him in person; nor is it
probable that he ever saw me. His recommendation must have come
out of his love of fame. When, therefore, a high officer or priest fell
ill and was told by his sorcerer to see me, I was sure to be sent for.
A horse was sent to bring me, generally with a letter of introduction.
Often I received a letter politely requesting me to come, and
wherever I went, therefore, I was very kindly received, for the life of
the patient was supposed to depend entirely on me.
Fame travels surprisingly fast, and at last mine reached the Royal
Court, so that I was one day called there. The Dalai Lama was not in
reality ill, but desired to see what I looked like. In Tibet it is no easy
matter to see His Holiness. He may be seen while passing, but no
ordinary priests or even high priests can have the privilege of talking
to him. This was, therefore a great honor to me, and I took the
liberty of riding the horse sent to take me to the Royal palace. The
Grand Lama was not then at Potala, but at his country palace called
Nolpu Lingka, in a forest along the Kichu, south-west of Potala. This
palace is much newer than the other, and the Pope enjoys the
coolness there in summer.
I rode along a wide road in the forest for about three hundred and
fifty yards, till I came to a high stone wall over twenty feet high and
three hundred and fifty yards square. I went west through the large
gate in the wall, and found on both sides of the road inside the gate
many white boxes in the shape of post pillars about six yards apart.
In them incense is burned when the Dalai Lama goes along the
road. Lofty trees are grown in the courtyard on both sides of the
road, though there is a very wide lawn within the court. After about
a hundred yards, I came to a square piece of ground enclosed by
stone fences about one hundred and fifty yards square, along which
were seen many beautiful stone houses for the priest officials to live
in. These houses have each a flower garden which is beautifully
decorated with as many trees and plants as can be found in Tibet.
What is stranger still, at the four corners as well as some other parts
of the stone fences are found little kennels, in which two or three
score strong Tibetan dogs are chained. They bark terribly from their
high pens. The Dalai Lama is said to be so fond of dogs that
whoever brings him a strong hound is treated very kindly and
receives great rewards. Hence many dogs are brought from great
distances. None of his predecessors, however, have had such a liking
for dogs. The gates to the Papal palace are at the east and west
corners of the walls and face south. About thirty yards from the gate
was a large house into which my horse was led. Then I was taken to
the house of the Court Physician.
This residence of the Court Physician has four large rooms, parlor,
study, servants’ room and kitchen. The house is approached through
a garden full of beautiful flowers, and one then comes to a curtain of
white linen. Going under the curtain, one enters another garden, at
one side of which is the entrance to the parlor.
The parlor has Chinese sliding doors in white, with panes of glass. In
the room were two images, one of Buḍḍha and the other of Tsong-
kha-pa, the founder of the New Sect, set on a gilt stand, with
pictures of dragons, peacocks, and flowers. Such images are found
in most shrines of the New Sect. Before the images were Tibetan
candlesticks of silver, with three butter-candles that were left
burning both day and night. The Physician was sitting on a Tibetan
carpet with painted flowers, and there were two beautiful high desks
before him, in front of which there was a fur cushion for the guest to
sit upon. I was told to sit on this fur cushion, and very soon a
servant priest brought in the very best tea, which he poured into the
physician’s cup and then into mine on the desk. The physician was
said to be very kind and gentle, and his face resembled mine so
much that we might be taken for brothers.
The physician told me that the Dalai Lama was not seriously ill and
that it was because I had healed so many patients that he wished to
see me. But, he added, as he was very busy, I must not talk long
with him. He said that the Dalai Lama might have something that
the physician must consult me about.
After this talk with the physician, I was led by him to the Palace, and
we went north towards the gate mentioned above. There was a
guard-priest at the gate, who was dressed in a tight-sleeved priestly
cloak, which no common priests are allowed to put on. He keeps
guard with a club. Inside the gate there was a stone pavement some
twenty yards square, surrounded by covered ways, where there
were some things in the shape of stools. There was another gate
about nine yards wide in front of this. The inner gate was guarded
by four priests, each with a short club instead of a long one. Walking
about ten yards from the inner gate into the inner court, I found on
both walls a picture of a fierce looking Mongolian leading a tiger by a
rein; and the walls, which were roofed over, had a court between
them. Instead of going straight through the court, I went left along
the covered way till I came to the end of the western wall, when the
Dalai Lama appeared from his inner chamber.
He was preceded by Dunnyel Chenmo the Lord Chamberlain, and
Choe Bon Kenbo the Papal Chaplain. After His Holiness came Yongjin
Rinpoche the Papal Tutor. The Dalai Lama took his seat on the right
hand chair in front, and the two former attendants stood on each
side, while the Tutor sat on the chair a little below them. Seven or
eight high priests sat before His Holiness. The Court Physician
leading me a little to one side, in front of the Dalai Lama, saluted
him. I saluted him three times, and taking my robe off one of my
shoulders I stepped before him, when His Holiness stretched out his
right hand to put it on my head. Then I withdrew about four yards
and stood beside the physician.
AN AUDIENCE WITH THE DALAI LAMA.
The Dalai Lama then began by praising me for having healed many
poor priests at Sera. He told me to stay long at Sera and to do as I
had done, and I answered that I would do with pleasure as he
wished me. I had been told that the Pope was well versed in
Chinese, and I feared that he might speak in Chinese, for then my
imposture would be discovered. I had made up my mind, therefore,
that I would in that case frankly tell him to what nationality I
belonged, that I might be worthy of a Japanese, for I deemed it to
be a great honor to be granted an interview with him.
Luckily, however, he did not talk Chinese, but instead inquired in
Tibetan about Buḍḍhism and Buḍḍhists in China, which I answered
to his satisfaction. He was pleased to tell me that he was thinking of
appointing me to some high office. After the talk I was honored by a
cup of tea in the presence of the Dalai Lama and drank it with much
ceremony, though he retired to his chamber before I had finished
drinking.
The Dalai Lama was dressed in a cloak different from that of a
common priest. He had on a silk hood and a great robe called
saṅghāṭi and under it a fine putuk of Tibetan wool about his waist.
His under dress was what is called tema woven of the best Chinese
sheep wool. He wore a fine Papal crown on his head though he is
said to be often bare-headed, with no crown at all. He held a rosary
in his left hand. He was then aged twenty six. He is about five feet
eight inches high, a moderate height in Tibet.
The Dalai Lama looks very brave. His eye-brows are very high, and
he is very keen-eyed. Once a Chinese phrenologist remarked that
the Tibetan Pope would bring about war one day, to the great
disturbance of the country, for though brave-looking, he had an
unlucky face. Whether the prophesy comes true or not, he really
looks the very man of whose face a phrenologist would be sure to
say something. He has a very sharp and commanding voice, so that
one could not but pay reverence in his presence. From my long
acquaintance with the Dalai Lama, during which I heard and saw
much of him and had frequent interviews with him, I judge that he
is richer in thoughts political than religious. He was bred in
Buḍḍhism, and in it he has great faith, and he is very anxious to
clear away all corruption from the Buḍḍhism and Buḍḍhists in Tibet.
But political thoughts are working most busily in his mind. He seems
to fear the British most, and is always thinking how to keep them
from Tibet. He seems to give full scope to all designs calculated to
check the encroaching force of the British. I could plainly see this
while remaining near him. Had he not been on his guard, however,
which he always is, he must have been poisoned by his retainers. He
has often been on the point of being poisoned, and each time his
caution has detected the conspiracy and the intriguers were put to
death.
None of the five Dalai Lamas from the fourth to the ninth in Tibet
reached their twenty fifth year; all were poisoned when eighteen or
twenty-two years old. This is almost an open secret in Tibet, and the
reason is that, if a wise Dalai Lama is on the throne, his courtiers
cannot gratify their selfish desires. Some of these seem to have
been wise Dalai Lamas, for they received special education until they
were twenty-two or three years old. History proves that they have
written books to instruct the people.
I could not help shedding tears when the ex-Papal Minister of
Finance, at whose house I was staying at one time, told me about
the fate of the predecessors of the present Dalai Lama. The Papal
Court is a den of disloyal thieves who go by the name of courtiers,
and they do all they can to neutralise the force of the few loyal
courtiers, who are too weak to do anything against them. The ex-
Minister for Finance was among the ill-fated party driven out of the
court by these toadies, who pretended to pay great reverence to the
sacred Monarch before the people, simply because they could not
otherwise stay in their offices. When anything happened against
their interests, they conspired to communicate with one another and
to accuse falsely the loyal courtiers. They would often go so far as to
slander them shamelessly, and say that such and such a person had
been guilty of a disrespectful act against the Dalai Lama.
In this subtle way some wicked courtiers turned honest scholars or
priests out of the court, and the Dalai Lama is surrounded by these
pretended loyalist devils. Hence he is so dangerously situated, that
he is obliged to pay the greatest attention to what is offered him to
eat, lest some poison should have been put in it. I could not but
shed tears for him, when I thought that there could be no court on
earth so full of wicked courtiers. But the present Dalai Lama is so
prudent and particular that these evil doers can get no chance of
doing anything against him. Still, he is really in great danger. He is
wise for his age, for, young as he is, he seems to have great
sympathy with the afflicted, and is much respected, and indeed
almost worshipped, by his people, though much disliked by the evil
local governors, whom he has been known to punish, to deprive of
their estates, and to imprison for their evil deeds.

INNER ROOM OF THE DALAI LAMA’S COUNTRY HOUSE.

I often had occasion to see the inner chamber of the palace and
found that it was magnificent. It is built in the Indian, Chinese and
Tibetan styles. The garden has an artificial hill in it after the Chinese
fashion, while, as is seen in a Indian garden, it has a lawn outside
with some charming flowers. The place seems very good for walks.
The inside of the palace is built after the Tibetan style, while a part
of the roof is Chinese and the rest purely Indian. The royal garden
has various rocks and has here and there such trees as willows,
peaches, elms and many other strange trees found only in Tibet. In
Tibet only few flowers bloom in summer, though there are many in
winter. A variety of flowers, such as chrysanthemums, poppies,
magnolias, tulips, and others are planted in front of the palace
veranda. The pavement is decorated here and there with glittering
jewels, and the walls are painted by the best painters in Tibet. The
papal throne stands on two Tibetan mats at the farther side of the
room, and beside the throne is spread a thick Tibetan carpet, over
which is a Chinese carpet of wool. A table of costly wood is set on
the carpets. There is a tea-bureau, over which hangs a picture of Je
Rinpoche, painted on a gold-dusted canvas. There are many such
rooms, besides, which I was not allowed to enter, but which looked
very beautiful from the outside. I was often invited to the chief
physician’s to talk about medicine with him. He taught me several
things about medicine that I did not know, though the medical
knowledge which I had gained from my own books enabled me to
keep up with him in the talk. This must have done a great deal to
make the chief physician welcome me so much. He even said he
would be most glad to recommend me as a Court Physician.
He said that he would do his best to that end, telling me at the same
time to see the premier and some other Ministers of State. My
answer was however that I could not very well stay long in Lhasa,
for I was most earnest to study Buḍḍhism. I told him also that I
intended to go to India to study Samskṛṭ, and at this he felt very
sorry, for when I left there would be no good doctor in the city.
When I said that my object was not medicine, but to study
Buḍḍhism, the physician very plausibly argued that as it was the
ultimate object of Buḍḍhism to save men, I might as well stay in the
city as a doctor to practise medicine. The doctor, I said, only relieved
men of earthly pains, but could hardly do anything toward the
salvation of souls. What doctor, however skilful, could save a dying
patient? Besides, I feared I might do them more harm than good,
for I had only a smattering of medicine after all. I might heal them
of their diseases, but I could not give peace to their souls, while a
priest could free them from the most painful and durable of all
diseases. It was more urgent to study how to heal this. Buḍḍha was
the greatest doctor, who had given eighty-four thousand religious
medicines to eighty-four thousand mental diseases, and we, as His
disciples, I said, must study His ways of healing. On these grounds I
declined his offer. Finding me so firm in my resolution, the physician
went on to say that, if I ever tried to leave the city for India, or
some other far-off country, the Dalai Lama would give orders to keep
me in the country, and that my only happiness lay in staying to work
among the priests. When I heard this I began to repent that I had
been telling him my secrets rather too plainly. I feared it would put
me to some inconvenience to insist on going to India, and soon
changed the subject of our talk. So far about my medical practice;
but now, something took place of which I had never dreamed.
 CHAPTER L.
Life in the Sera Monastery.
What happened was this. It became a matter of hot discussion
among the priests of our dormitory Pituk Khamtsan whether they
should leave me to stay there or not, because I was being received
by the Grand Lama, the noblemen and the Ministers, as a great
doctor. After a long discussion, the priests came to an agreement
that they should make a special rule on my account, and put me in
one of the best rooms. I was, of course, pleased to be removed from
my strangely smelling, dark and dirty room to a free, clean
apartment. I saw the Dalai Lama on July 21st, and was removed into
the good room toward the end of the same month. It is one of the
regulations of the college that no new-comer shall have a separate
room for himself, but that he shall live with some one else in a room,
though occasionally a rich student may enjoy the possession of a
dirty room for himself on admission. Though not among the poor, I
was not eligible to have a room, even a dirty one, all to myself. A
priest must reside there some ten years before he is allowed to live
in a room of the fourth class; after three years more he may be
removed to a study room of the third class. But it must be
remembered that everything depends on money. When he receives
the degree of a doctor, he is given a second-class room. The rooms
of the first class are used only by incarnate Lamas, who come to
study. As things were I was given a second-class study. It was a
cosy structure of two storeys with a kitchen and a closet. Some
studies have third floors, but my new quarters were only two-
storied. The room upstairs was the best. To live in such a house,
however, one must have articles of furniture as well as some
servant-priests. I was now like a poor boy, who had grown up all of
a sudden and had been given a house to keep. I was obliged to
procure many articles needed for my new condition, all of which I
had fortunately money enough to buy.
The priests, though diverse in studies, may be classified into three
large divisions, higher, middle, and lower. By the middle class of
priests, I mean those who spend about seven yen a month for their
keep. They do not pay for their dwellings, which are provided by
their temple, though some Khamtsans, which are in debt, take rents
from their priests for their studying-rooms. When a Khamtsan is too
full of priests, some of them go to seek rooms for themselves in
some other, in which case they pay from one to three yen a month,
or twenty-five sen for a dirty room.
A suit of clothing as used by student-priests consists of a hood of
common wool cloth, a shirt, and a priest’s robe, besides a pair of
shoes. It costs twenty yen to provide all these articles. At breakfast
they take butter-tea and baked flour. Rich priests make tea for
themselves every morning, though three large bowlfuls are given in
the hall of the monastery. In the afternoon they drink tea again, this
time with some meat, chiefly dried, though at times raw. In the
evening they take some gruel of baked flour, cooked with cheese,
radishes and fat. Butter-tea is always found in a bowl on the table.
The Tibetan in general drinks much tea, because very few
vegetables are eaten as compared with the amount of meat. A tea-
cup is covered with a silver lid. When it gets cool, it is drunk and
new tea is poured in again and left some twenty minutes to cool,
though in winter no more than five or six minutes are needed,
during which time those at table will talk to one another, or read
from the Scriptures or do some private business. Such are the meals
of a middle-class priest. Most priests have some landed property,
and some of them breed yaks, horses, sheep and goats in the
provinces, though it would be rare for one of the middle-class to
have more than some fifty yaks and ten horses. These animals are
also employed in ploughing the fields, but no more than ten lots of
land may be ploughed by two yaks in a day. The priests can hardly
lead a well-to-do life without such property or some private
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