ABSTRACT
The Thibettans are of medium height, of fair complexion, not without an olive hue. They are rather well built and bare of face, for their beards do not grow. Their memory is good and they are clever, kindly and courteous by nature, good craftsmen, active and extremely industrious. Owing to the good and salubrious climate there is not much illness, save in big towns like Lhasá and Giegazzé where licence breeds venereal diseases. They have a remedy for it which cures quickly, but not permanently, and must be repeated often. Every ten or twelve years an epidemic of smallpox carries off many people. It is so deadly because anyone showing symptoms of the malady is driven out of his house into the country, where, under a tent, exposed to the bitter cold and the bad weather he is shunned by all save perhaps some relation who has had smallpox. Once the epidemic is over for years there are no more cases. 56
