All honour to these noble German missionaries, learned, genial,
cultured, radiant, who, whether teaching, preaching, farming,
gardening, printing, or doctoring, are always and everywhere 'living
epistles of Christ, known and read of all men!' Close by the mission
house, in a green spot under shady trees, is God's Acre, where many
children of the mission families sleep, and a few adults.
As the winter is the busiest season in mission work, so it is the
great time in which the lamas make house-to-house peregrinations and
attend at festivals. Then also there is much spinning and weaving by
both sexes, and tobogganing and other games, and much drinking of
chang by priests and people. The cattle remain out till nearly
Christmas, and are then taken into the houses. At the time of the
variable new year, the lamas and nuns retire to the monasteries, and
dulness reigns in the valleys. At the end of a month they emerge,
life and noise begin, and all men to whom sons have been born during
the previous year give chang freely. During the festival which
follows, all these jubilant fathers go out of the village as a
gaudily dressed procession, and form a circle round a picture of a
yak, painted by the lamas, which is used as a target to be shot at
with bows and arrows, and it is believed that the man who hits it in
the centre will be blessed with a son in the coming year.
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