Those, however, who permit themselves this license, are in very ill odour, and always take care to get out of the way of the police. It is said that the edict of the Nomekhan has been greatly promotive of the public morality. We are not in a position to affirm the contrary, with decision, but we can affirm that the Thibetians are far indeed from being exemplary in the matter of morality. There is lamentable licentiousness amongst them, and we are disposed to believe that the blackest and ugliest varnish is powerless to make corrupt people virtuous. Christianity can alone redeem the pagan nations from the shameful vices in which they wallow. At the same time, there is one circumstance which may induce us to believe that in Thibet there is less corruption than in certain other pagan countries. The women there enjoy very great liberty. Instead of vegetating, prisoners in the depths of their houses, they lead an active and laborious life. Besides fulfilling the various duties of the household, they concentrate in their own hands all the petty trade of the country, whether as hawkers, as stall-keepers in the streets, or in shops. In the rural districts, it is the women who perform most of the labours of agriculture. The men, though less laborious and less active than the women, are still far from passing their lives in idleness. They occupy themselves especially with spinning and weaving wool. The stuffs they manufacture, which are called poulou, are of a very close and solid fabric; astonishingly various in quality, from the coarsest cloths to the finest possible Merino. By a rule of reformed Buddhism, every Lama must be attired in red poulou. The consumption of the article in Thibet itself is very large, and the caravans export considerable quantities of it to Northern China and Tartary. The coarser poulou is cheap, but the superior qualities are excessively dear. The pastile-sticks, so celebrated in China, under the name of Tsan-Hiang (perfumes of Thibet), are an article of leading commerce with the people of Lha-Ssa, who manufacture them with the ash of various aromatic trees mixed with musk and gold dust. Of these various ingredients, they elaborate a pink paste, which is then moulded into small cylindrical sticks, three or four feet long. These are burned in the Lamaseries, and before the idols which are worshipped in private houses. When these pastile-sticks are once lighted, they burn slowly, without intermission, until they are completely consumed, diffusing all around a perfume of the most exquisite sweetness. The Thibetian merchants, who repair every year to Peking in the train of the embassy, export considerable quantities of it, which they sell at an exorbitant price. The Northern Chinese manufacture pastile-sticks of their own, which they sell equally under the name of Tsan-Hiang; but they will sustain no comparison with those which come from Thibet.