NOTE 6.—­The first precept of the Buddhist Decalogue, or Ten Obligations of the Religious Body, is not to take life.  But animal food is not forbidden, though restricted.  Indeed it is one of the circumstances in the Legendary History of Sakya Muni, which looks as if it must be true, that he is related to have aggravated his fatal illness by eating a dish of pork set before him by a hospitable goldsmith.  Giorgi says the butchers in Tibet are looked on as infamous; and people selling sheep or the like will make a show of exacting an assurance that these are not to be slaughtered.  In Burma, when a British party wanted beef, the owner of the bullocks would decline to make one over, but would point one out that might be shot by the foreigners.

In Tibetan history it is told of the persecutor Langdarma that he compelled members of the highest orders of the clergy to become hunters and butchers.  A Chinese collection of epigrams, dating from the 9th century, gives a facetious list of Incongruous Conditions, among which we find a poor Parsi, a sick Physician, a fat Bride, a Teacher who does not know his letters, and a Butcher who reads the Scriptures (of Buddhism)! (Alph.  Tib. 445; Koeppen, I. 74; N. and Q., C. and J. III. 33.)

NOTE 7.—­Coral is still a very popular adornment in the Himalayan countries.  The merchant Tavernier says the people to the north of the Great Mogul’s territories and in the mountains of Assam and Tibet were the greatest purchasers of coral. (Tr. in India, Bk.  II. ch. xxiii.)

CHAPTER XXXII.

OF THE GREAT RIVER OF BADASHAN.

In leaving Badashan you ride twelve days between east and north-east, ascending a river that runs through land belonging to a brother of the Prince of Badashan, and containing a good many towns and villages and scattered habitations.  The people are Mahommetans, and valiant in war.  At the end of those twelve days you come to a province of no great size, extending indeed no more than three days’ journey in any direction, and this is called VOKHAN.  The people worship Mahommet, and they have a peculiar language.  They are gallant soldiers, and they have a chief whom they call NONE, which is as much as to say Count, and they are liegemen to the Prince of Badashan.[NOTE 1]

There are numbers of wild beasts of all sorts in this region.  And when you leave this little country, and ride three days north-east, always among mountains, you get to such a height that ’tis said to be the highest place in the world!  And when you have got to this height you find [a great lake between two mountains, and out of it] a fine river running through a plain clothed with the finest pasture in the world; insomuch that a lean beast there will fatten to your heart’s content in ten days.  There are great numbers of all kinds of wild beasts; among others, wild sheep of great size, whose horns are