air, to discuss all questions of
public and private interest, the chief Bomba always made himself
remarkable by the ascendancy of his eloquence and his resolute character.
When they were discussing at Angti the tax on the oulah, no one was seen,
no one heard, but the astonishing Bomba. Perched on the shoulders of a
big, tall Thibetian, he pervaded, like a giant, the tumultuous assembly,
and dominated it, by word and gesture, still more than by his factitious
stature.

The chief of Angti omitted no opportunity of giving us special proofs of
kindness and sympathy. One day, he invited us to dine with him. This
invitation served the double end of exercising towards us the duty of
hospitality, and, in the next place, of piquing the jealousy of the
Chinese, whom he hated and despised with all his soul. After dinner,
which offered nothing remarkable but a profusion of uncooked and boiled
meat, and tea richly saturated with butter, he asked us to go and see a
saloon full of pictures and armour of every description. The pictures
which lined the walls consisted of portraits, rudely coloured,
representing the most illustrious ancestors of the family of Bomba. We
observed there, a numerous collection of Lamas of every age and dignity,
and some warriors in war costume. The arms were numerous, and in great
variety. There were lances, arrows, two-edged sabres, spiral and
scythe-shaped; tridents; long sticks with large iron rings, and
matchlocks, the stocks of which were of most singular shapes. The
defensive arms were round bucklers of the hide of the wild yak,
ornamented with red copper nails; armlets and greaves of copper, and
coats of mail of iron wire, of a thick and close web, but,
notwithstanding, very elastic. The chief Bomba told us that these coats
of mail were the armour of very ancient times, which had been put aside
since the use of the gun had become general in their country. The
Thibetians, as we have said, are too indifferent in matters of
chronology, to be able to assign the time when they began to make use of
fire-arms. It may be presumed, however, that they were not acquainted
with gunpowder until towards the thirteenth century, in the time of the
wars of Tchingghiskhan, who had, as we know, artillery in his army. A
rather remarkable circumstance is, that in the mountains of Thibet, as
well as in the Chinese empire and the plains of Tartary, there is no one
but knows how to make powder. Every family ma