Note 32 — Chapter II · RESIDENCE AT TASHILHUNPO.

To-day the tailor finished our winter suits, consisting of a Chinese coat (kwa-tse) and trousers (pishu).32 The lambskin lining in all the suits was quite neatly sewed. I was also furnished with a foxskin (wapa) cap, made after the Lhasa fashion. Provided with these, I felt well equipped for my journey to Dongtse. To make the linings of the coat, I had bought about sixty fine lamb-skins at a cost of Rs. 7.8. These skins appeared to have been obtained from very young lambs, which must have died shortly after birth, for the cost of a single piece of skin was not more than three or four annas, and as the live lambs would fetch at least double that price, it is not likely that they had been killed for their skins. It is, however, not unusual for the shepherds to kill ewes for the soft skin of their unborn lambs, for they fetch a high price. The demand from China for this kind of lamb-skin has, however, of late years much decreased, and the practice of killing ewes for the purpose of obtaining them is becoming rare.33