Although Tsiamdo is not a place remarkable for its luxury or elegance, you admire there a large and magnificent Lamasery standing towards the west, on an elevated platform which commands the rest of the town. It is inhabited by about 2,000 Lamas, who, instead of each having his small house, as in the other Buddhic monasteries, live all together in the large buildings, with which the principal temple is surrounded. The sumptuous decorations that ornament this temple make it regarded as one of the finest and most wealthy in Thibet. The Lamasery of Tsiamdo has for its ecclesiastical superior a Houtouktou Lama, who is at the same time temporal sovereign of the whole province of Kham. Five lis from Tsiamdo, towards the frontiers of China, there is a town called Djaya, which, with the countries dependent on it, is subject to a Grand Lama, bearing the title of Tchaktchouba. This Lamanesque dignity is somewhat inferior to that of Houtouktou. At the time we were in Thibet, there arose a great contest between the Houtouktou of Tsiamdo and the Tchaktchouba of Djaya. The latter, a young, bold, and enterprising Lama, had declared himself Houtouktou, in virtue of an old diploma, which he affirmed had been granted to him, in one of his former lives, by the Talé-Lama. He asserted, accordingly, his rights to supremacy, and claimed the see of Tsiamdo and the government of the province of Kham. The Houtouktou of Tsiamdo, a Lama advanced in years, did not choose to resign his authority, and, on his side, alleged authentic titles, sent by the court of Peking, and confirmed by the Grand Lama of Lha-Ssa. All the tribes, and all the Lamaseries of the province, entered into this quarrel, and took part, some with the young Lama, some with the old. After long and futile discussions, written and verbal, they resorted to arms, and for a full year these wild and fanatic tribes were engaged in bloody conflicts. Whole villages were destroyed, and their inhabitants cut in pieces. In their terrible fury, these ferocious combatants devastated everything; they pursued into the desert, with arrows and fusils, the herds of goats and long-haired oxen, and in their destructive course, set fire to the forests they found on their way.