RECIPE FOR A DALAI LAMA

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 44, 20 August 1938, Page 27

RECIPE FOR A DALAI LAMA

Second-Lieutenant P. G. Burder, of j the Ist Battalion, the Leicestershire! Regiment, recently arrived in Darjeeling, the Indian hill station, after walking to Gyantse, in Tibet, and back, says the "Daily Express," He walked 466 miles horizontally and 96,000 ft up and down. It took him a month, arid reduced a pair of-j what he described as "extremely comfortable" boots to uppers, with the studs of the soles held together by strands of leather. - . The climbing involved in the hike was more than three times the height of Mount Everest. Mr. Burder, who is 23, said that he ate well and slept well, and found the rest bungalows along the itmte as comfortable as his boots had been at the beginning of the journey. He was welcomed everywhere, and gained the impression that. Tibet is inhabited by happy, friendly farmers and equally courteous monks. Everyone working, in the fields sang. The hiker described Tibetan women as very pretty, and said that the more emancipated ones have given up smearing their faces with the red grbase| ordered by the fifth Dalai Lama early; in the seventeenth century. They chat vivaciously with the passing stranger and take a very active part in the social life of the country, though in his own domestic circle the Tibetan man is the dominant partner. Polygamy and polyandry, both of which- are practised in parts of the country, do not seem to prevent a happy, family life.

I Mr. Burder found the whole country concerned at the continued absence of either a Dalai Lama or a Tashi Lama. Country people everywhere attributed last year's poor crops to the lack of a spiritual ruler. Tibetans are eagerly awaiting the appearance, of the signs of the Dalai Lama's reincarnation. The signs, Mr. Burder was told, are five; folds of flesh on the shoulders, large ears, marks like a conch shell on the hands, "tiger marks" (stripes) on the legs, and long, up ward-curling eyebrows. | Apparently it is. not necessary for all the signs tb be present. The last Dalai Lama had the first three. .:. Walking, into Tibet by the one route which foreigners are allowed to use, Mr. Burder found at least seven kinds of rhododendron in bloom, and the hillsides of the Chumbi Valley covered with azaleas. * On the fresh-water otter lake at Dochen Mr. Burder saw black-headed gulls and terns, as well as such freshwater fowl as .. bar-headed = geese, brahminy . ducks, sheldrake, and | goosander. Gazelles were plentiful on the Tuna and,'.Kala plains. After lunching with the Tibetan trade agent and administrator at Gyantse, Mr. Burder was shown over the Talkhor Choide, one of the most important monasteries in Tibet. The monastery houses some 2000 monks of the Yellow Hat.sect and possesses images with gold head-dresses studded with precious stone, and. a_ nine-storey stupa whose gilded dohie" is a landmark for miles.