The only Lamas who, at certain periods of the year, are legally allowed an unusual amount of freedom with women, are those who practise the art of making musical instruments and eating-vessels out of human bones. The skull is used for making drinking-cups, _tsamba_ bowls, and single and double drums. The bone of the upper arm, thigh-bone, and shin-bone are turned into trumpets and pipes. These particular Lamas are said to relish human blood, which they drink out of the cups made from men's skulls. When I left the Gomba--my new friends, the Lamas, bowing down to the ground as I departed--I walked about the village to examine all there was to be seen. Along the water's edge at the east end of the village stood in a row a number of tumbling-down Choktens of mud and stone. These structures consisted of a square base surmounted by a moulding, and an upper decoration in ledges, topped by a cylindrical column. Each was supposed to contain a piece of bone, cloth, or metal, and books or parts of them, that had once belonged to a great man or a saint. Roughly drawn images were occasionally found in them. In rare cases, when cremation had been applied, the ashes were collected in a small earthenware urn and deposited in one of the Choktens. The ashes were made into a paste with clay, and then flattened into a medallion on which a representation of Buddha was either stamped from a mould or engraved with a pointed tool. The interior of the houses at Tucker was no better than the outside. Each habitation had a walled court-yard. The top of the wall, as well as the edge of the flat roof of the house, was lined with masses of tamarisk for fuel. In the court-yard sheep and goats were penned at night. The human beings who occupied the rooms were dirty beyond all description. There were hundreds of flying-prayers over the monastery, as well as over each house. The people, laughing and chatting, stood on the roofs watching us. While I was strolling about some fifty or sixty men armed with matchlocks and swords appeared on the scene. I looked upon them with suspicion, but Kachi reassured me, and said they were not soldiers, but a powerful band of robbers encamped about half a mile off, and on friendly terms with the Lamas. As a precaution I loaded my rifle. This was quite sufficient to cause a stampede of the armed crowd, followed, in the panic, by all the other villagers who had collected round us. Like all Tibetans, they were a miserable lot, though powerfully built and with plenty of bluster about them.