An Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet - Prajna Quest

TIBET. 353corporal punishment, and the favoured lover eftaces the obloquy ofhis transgression by a pecuniary fine.If,in general society, the males be sometimes chargeable with coldnesstowards the female sex, they cannot, therefore, be said withcynical severity, to forbid them all indulgence; since very precisechastity, before they marry, is not expected in the fair sex, thoughwhen they have once formed a contract, they are by no means permitted,with impunity, to break it.We halted for the night, and pitched our tents near a small andsolitary village.The following morning we again proceeded on our route. Tibetdoes not exhibit, at this season of the year, either a rich or varied prospect; it is all a leafless, dreary scene, not a blade of grass, and scarcelyany vestige of verdure is to be seen ; one uniform russet brown coversalike the vallies and the hills. On the summits of the latter, in somesituations, springs are seen arrested in their fall, and converted intosolid monuments of ice, firmly fixed until the genial warmth of summershall return to make them How.Some of them, now in view, were ofprodigious bulk and altitude, resembling immense columns, and theycontributed greatly, together with the universal nakedness of both hillsand vaUies, to impress the traveller with an idea of the bleakness ofthe region, and the severity of the season.The atmosphere, indeed,was now in an extreme degree keen and pure.During three months that I had passed in Tibet, I had not witnessedthree cloudy days. The dryness of the soil, and scantiness of vegetation,contributes little towards charging the air with humidity. The