Note 24 — Chapter VII · GOVERNMENT OF LHASA—CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, ETC.

When questions arise about newly reclaimed lands, the tax-collector, having no register (tsi-shi) to guide him, measures the field and superintends the harvesting, when he fixes the amount due to the State. He is forbidden fixing his assessments otherwise than by personal examination. The land-tax may be paid in three instalments—in November, December, and January, at which latter date it is remitted by the Djongpon to Lhasa or Tashilhunpo, as the case may be. The tax-gatherer has authority to remit a portion of the tax when the crops have failed for some reason or other; in fact, as a Tibetan author puts it, “as eggs are quietly taken from under a sitting-hen without disturbing the nest, so should the tax-gatherer collect the taxes without oppressing or disturbing the misser.”24