Friendly Lamas--Chanden Sing and Mansing purified--Mansing's sarcasm--Pilgrims to Mansarowar and their privileges--For luck!--Outside the Gomba. SEVERAL Lamas came to visit me in the morning, and professed to be pleased to see us; in fact they asked me to go and pay them a visit in the Lamasery and temple. They said there was much sickness in the village, and as they believed me to be a Hindoo doctor, they wished I could do something to relieve their sufferings. I promised to do all I could, and was very glad to have this unique chance of visiting a Lamasery, and of studying the cases that would be brought before me. I carried my rifle in my hand even during this friendly visit to the Lamas. When I came out of our stuffy, dark room, preceded and followed by a crowd of inquisitive natives, I had a good look round this strange village. After the storm of the night, we did not have the beautiful blue sky that might have been expected, but over us hung threatening clouds, while the waters of the sacred lake, softly moved by the wind, made a gentle lapping sound on the beach. Chanden Sing and Mansing, the two Hindoos, divested of all their clothing except a _doti_, were squatting near the edge of the lake, having their heads shaved clean by Bijesing the Johari. I must confess that I was somewhat annoyed when I saw them using my best razor for the purpose, but I repressed my anger on remembering that, according to their religion, the fact of being at Mansarowar absolved them from all sins. My two servants, with heads turned towards Kelas Mount, seemed excited, and were praying so fervently that I stood to watch them. They washed themselves repeatedly in the water of the lake, and at last plunged into it. On coming out shivering, they each took out of their clothes a silver rupee, and flung it into the lake as an offering to the God Mahadeva. Then, with hairless faces and heads, they dressed and came to pay their salaams to me, professing to be now happy and pure. "Siva, the greatest of all gods, lives in the waters of Mansarowar," exclaimed my bearer in a poetic mood. "I have bathed in its waters, and of its waters I have drunk. I have salaamed the great Kelas, the sight of which alone can absolve all sins of humanity; I shall now go to heaven." "I shall be satisfied if we get as far as Lhassa," grumbled the sceptical Mansing, out of ear-reach of the Tibetans. Chanden Sing, who was well versed in religious matters, explained that only Hindoo pilgrims who had lost both parents shaved their heads on visiting Mansarowar, as a sacrifice to Siva, and if they were of a high caste, on their return to their native land after the pilgrimage, it was customary to entertain all the Brahmins of the town to a banquet. A man who had bathed in Mansarowar was held in great respect by everybody, and commanded the admiration and envy of the entire world.