uncertainty as to the result may well temper an ardour for reform which often gratifies the sensibilities of the reformer at the expense of his victim.
We (Christendom) have abolished Suttee—while we have extended the opium trade. The occasional immolation of a widow on the pyre was a dramatic tragedy which offended us, while the commonplace stage-setting of the hovelled opium-infamy spares our nerves and thus protects itself. So it may be when Tibetan institutions are held in the glaring light of European examination ; our sympathies, which are but the furthest scouts of selfishness, may cry an alarm, affrighted by evil in an unfamiliar form, and may strike at it hastily, not measuring its true magnitude nor making survey of its relations.
Imagine, in the European provinces of the year 1200 A.D., organisations whose powers should be those of feudal lord and prelate combined ; imagine buildings which should be castle and cathedral in one. Then you have, in part, the Tibetan monks and their monasteries. Add to this imagination something borrowed from the great overland traders, lords of commerce, and you may then understand the importance, in Tibetan society, of these bodies of men who combine more functions than any associations with which we are familiar.
With the complexity of function has come, of course, a corresponding complexity of organisation. First, there are the two great Orders—the Yellows and the Reds—and several lesser ones. Each has its General, supervising all the establishments of his order. Each establishment has its head ; its officials
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