The two religious sects are distinguished by yellow and red caps; the latter are comparatively few, allow marriage to the lamas, but do not differ materially in their ritual or tenets. There is no country where so large a proportion of the people are devoted to religious service as in Tibet, nor one where the secular part of the inhabitants pays such implicit deference to the clergy. The food of the Tibetans is taken at all hours, mutton, barley, and tea constituting the staple articles. On all visits tea is presented, and the cup replenished as often as it is drained. Spirits and beer, both made from barley, are common beverages. On every visit of ceremony, and whenever a letter is sent from one person to another, it is necessary to connect a silk scarf with it, the size and texture being proportioned to the rank and condition of the parties. The sentence _Om mani padmí hum_ is woven upon each end. ~OM MANI PADMÍ HÛM.~ The following note by Col. Yule, condensed from Koeppen’s _Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche_, contains the most satisfactory explanation of this puzzling mystic formula: “Om mani padmí hûm!--the primeval six syllables, as the lamas say, among all prayers on earth form that which is most abundantly recited, written, printed, and even spun by machines for the good of the faithful. These syllables form the only prayer known to the ordinary Tibetans and Mongols; they are the first words that the child learns to stammer, and the last gasping utterance of the dying. The wanderer murmurs them on his way, the herdsman beside his cattle, the matron at her household tasks, the monk in all the stages of contemplation (_i.e._, of _far niente_); they form at once a cry of battle and a shout of victory! They are to be read wherever the Lama church hath spread, upon banners, upon rocks, upon trees, upon walls, upon monuments of stone, upon household utensils, upon strips of paper, upon human skulls and skeletons! They form, according to the idea of the believers, the utmost conception of all religion, of all wisdom, of all revelation, the path of rescue and the gate of salvation!... Properly and literally these four words, a single utterance of which is sufficient of itself to purchase an inestimable salvation, signify nothing more than: “O the Jewel in the Lotus! Amen!” In this interpretation, most probably, the _Jewel_ stands for the Bodhisatva Avalokiteçvara, so often born from the bud of a lotus flower. According to this the whole formula is simply a salutation to the mighty saint who has taken under his especial charge the conversion of the North, and with him who first employed it the mystic formula meant no more than _Ave Avalokiteçvara!_ But this simple explanation of course does not satisfy the Lama schoolmen, who revel in glorifications and multitudinous glossifications of this formula. The six syllables are the heart of hearts, the root of all knowledge, the ladder to re-birth