the monastery calls them out of life to become protecting spirits of the monastery in the invisible spheres. When a bamo dies, her daughter, if she has any, inherits the office or quality of the mother. These bamos, during life, follow the ordinary occupations of women: buying, selling, working or marrying, and their bamo-hood seems to be no drawback, in itself, to their matrimonial prospects. I heard of the case of a bamo who was the wife of a very wealthy man. But the tax, far in excess of any levied on ordinary people, must be regularly paid. If the bamo does not pay her tax, the monastery calls her soul and she dies. In the gompa for every accredited འབའ་མོ་ there is a སོབ་ or stuffed effigy, puppet, of which I have not been able to get a full description. Probably a stuffed doll or body, with a mask and garment, perhaps only a stick to hold the mask and garment up, like in a puppet-show. Each such puppet becomes the dwelling-place of the soul of a dead bamo when she dies, and in order to see to it that after death she may not do harm whilst roaming about, the puppet is bound in chains. Horrible to say, however, sometimes these chains are found broken by the guardians, and this is a sure sign that the imprisoned soul has escaped from the puppet which was its dwelling-place and that it may have started on a pilgrimage of evil works. As soon as it is found that such an imprisoned witch-soul has escaped, solemn notice is at once sent out to all Tibet to the effect that a bamo-soul has broken loose from Saskya, and the various local Lamas all through the country warn their flocks that a bamo is at large and enjoin them to be careful not to fall a victim to the wandering witch. So, for instance, they are told not to go about alone after dark, not to entertain strangers, and the like, for the bamo may assume any disguise, and any man may fall a prey to the snares of a beautiful strange woman, as any woman might be allured by an unknown man. The late Lama Sherabgyamtsho in Ghoom, whose name is so well known to all students of Tibetan, used very often to make solemn announcements of this nature and warn the Ghoom people that a bamo had escaped from Saskya. A most fitting ending to this story is perhaps to be made by quoting the old Buddhist formula “Thus I have heard,” but there is no doubt that the word མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་ acquires an interesting new meaning through this curious tale.