This being a festival day, when the natives were bringing offerings to the altar, we also visited the old temple, a small wooden building. Besides more substantial offerings, there were little cones of rice with a round wafer of butter at the top, ranged on the altar in order.[100] Six Lamas were at prayer, psalms, and contemplation, sitting cross-legged on two small benches that ran down the building: one was reading, with his hand and fore-finger elevated, whilst the others listened; anon they all sang hymns, repeated sacred or silly precepts to the bystanders, or joined in a chorus with boys, who struck brass cymbals, and blew straight copper trumpets six feet long, and conch-shells mounted with broad silver wings, elegantly carved with dragons. There were besides manis, or praying-cylinders, drums, gongs, books, and trumpets made of human thigh-bones, plain or mounted in silver. [100] The worshippers, on entering, walk straight up to the altar, and before, or after, having deposited their gifts, they lift both hands to the forehead, fall on their knees, and touch the ground three times with both head and hands, raising the body a little between each prostration. They then advance to the head Lama, kotow similarly to him, and he blesses them, laying both hands on their heads and repeating a short formula. Sometimes the dorje is used in blessing, as the cross is in Europe, and when a mass of people request a benediction, the Lama pronounces it from the door of the temple with outstretched arms, the people all being prostrate, with their foreheads touching the ground. Throughout Sikkim, we were roused each morning at daybreak by this wild music, the convents being so numerous that we were always within hearing of it. To me it was always deeply impressive, sounding so foreign, and awakening me so effectually to the strangeness of the wild land in which I was wandering, and of the many new and striking objects it contained. After sleep, too, during which the mind has either been at rest, or carried away to more familiar subjects, the feelings of loneliness and sometimes even of despondency, conjured up, by this solemn music, were often almost oppressive. Ascending from Neongong, we reached that pass from the Teesta to the Great Rungeet, which I had crossed on the 22nd; and this time we had a splendid view, down both the valleys, of the rivers, and the many spars from the ridge communicating between Tendong and Mainom, with many scattered villages and patches of cultivation. Near the top I found a plant of “Praong,” (a small bamboo), in full seed; this sends up many flowering branches from the root, and but few leaf-bearing ones; and after maturing its seed, and giving off suckers from the root, the parent plant dies. The fruit is a dark, long grain, like rice; it is boiled and made into cakes, or into beer, like Murwa.