MY FIRST MISSION TO BHUTAN
the last courtyard, where there is a lofty chapel, in which Sir Ugyen was erecting a gigantic sitting image of the Coming Buddha, made of stucco, and at least twenty feet high, but not then painted. A passage to the east from the third courtyard led to the north of a battlemented terrace built up from the ravine below, and a gateway on the north-west opened out on the ridge and the choten that we had reached by the lower road on the day of our arrival.
Below the eastern wall in the ravine is the building containing the prayer-wheels worked by water from which the palace took its original name of Chu-knor-rab-tsi. In it are two sets of wheels, each axle containing three manis, or cylinders, containing prayers, one above the other, the smallest at the top. They had evidently not been used for some time, so the next day, having nothing better to do, we assisted in putting them in order, by clearing out the waterways, which had been blocked with stones and rubbish, and hope it may be placed to our credit as a work of merit.
Later I received visits from the Tongsa Zimpon, who is a son of Sir Ugyen’s sister and the Bya-gha Jongpen, and is married to Sir Ugyen’s daughter, and also from the castle monks, who struck me as a much better class of men than usual, pleasant in their manners, clean, and educated.
Early one morning the sound of a very sweet-toned gong warned us that the spring ceremony of blessing the rice-fields was about to begin. A long, picturesque procession of men and women, led by the Donyer, came winding down the hillside until the first rice-field, into which water had been running all the day before, was reached. The field below was still dry, and, turning in there, they all sat down and had some light refreshment. Suddenly the men sprang up, throwing off their outer garments; this was the signal for the women to rush to the inundated field and to commence throwing clods of earth and splashes of muddy water on the men below as they tried to climb up. Then followed a wild and mad, though always good-humoured,
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