Note 23 — Chapter II · RESIDENCE AT TASHILHUNPO.

At about noon a great procession arrived from Dechan Phodang23 to pay homage before the image of the Emperor of China kept in the monastery. From the roof of the minister’s house I commanded an excellent view of the southern and western quarters of the town. The Tung-chen told me that to-day was a Chinese holiday, the anniversary of their present Emperor’s accession to the throne, when all Chinese and subjects of the Emperor are required to offer him homage and to pray to Heaven for his long life and prosperity. Within the monastery there exists an image of the Emperor of China, probably Chien-lung, to pay reverence to which the procession I now saw, headed by the Lhasa Shape, the Ambans, the Shape Bora of Tsang, was now advancing. Flag-bearers and a mounted troop came first, then Tibetan officials, in their best apparel of brocaded satin (kinkab), painted with the dragon of the Tartars, and Chinese satins of various colours and patterns, riding on richly caparisoned ponies, were marching slowly and solemnly towards the western gate of the monastery. The Chinese were conspicuous by their pigtails and petticoats, and, though very well dressed, were all black and of villainous appearance, greatly contrasting with the respectable Tibetan gentry, which forced me to think that they were all recruited from low-class people from Western China; and the Tung-chen told me that these men were noted in Tibet for their dissipated and licentious habits.