The people may be roughly divided into four main classes, namely, the nobility, the traders, the peasants, and the herdsmen. Many of the nobility reside in Lhasa. They have also their coun try residences scattered over the country. Next in the social scale come the traders. These are usually laymen, though many also among the monks trade on behalf of their monasteries. The traders move about into all parts of the country, spending per haps a portion of the year in the north to obtain salt from the lakes, in the east, trading in tea with China, and in the south selling wool, yak-tails, hides, etc., in India, and bringing thence cotton goods and the varied utilities of western civilization.
There is no strong middle-class in Tibet. The peasant farms generally on a small scale. He works in the fields of the local nobleman, monastery or other landlord, as well as tending his own small plot of land.
The herdsmen seek pastures for their flocks mainly in the uplands, at altitudes of over i4,000ft., and frequently move their camps to new ground. Among other members of the social organization are the beggars and the brigands.
The males are short, often not more than 5ft. 5in. in height, ex cept in eastern Tibet, where 5ft. 9in. is a general height ; the females are appreci ably shorter. The head is mesaticephalic, verging on brachycephalic in the case of many of the hereditary herdsmen ; the hair is black and somewhat wavy; the eyes are usually of a clear brown, in some cases even hazel; the cheek-bones are high, the nose is thick, sometimes depressed at the root, in other cases prominent, even aqui line, though the nostrils are broad. The teeth are strong but irregular; the ears, with tolerably large lobes, stand out from the head. The mouth is broad, the lips not full, and, among the people of the lower altitudes, decidedly thin. The beard is sparse, and is often plucked out with tweezers. Moustaches are worn occasionally.
The shoulders are broad, the arms round. The legs are moder ately developed in the people of the central and more settled parts of the country. But the eastern Tibetans and the Bhutanese branch of the Tibetan race, being all hardy denizens of steep and lofty mountains, have not only well-developed legs but are in general physical build fine specimens of the human race. The foot is somewhat small but broad, the hand coarse. The waist is much less pronounced than among many nations, as is quickly recognized by Europeans and Americans who don Tibetan at tire. The colour of the skin is a light brown, sometimes so light as to show ruddy cheeks in children, though where exposed to the weather it becomes dark brown.
The landed proprietors live in houses, solidly built around a rectangular courtyard. On three sides of this courtyard are stables and storehouses; on the fourth, opposite the gate, is the mansion itself, one or two storeys higher than the other three sides, and sometimes as much as five storeys in height. The walls are constructed of flat stones bound together with mud. In the smaller buildings, and especially in the upper layers, the stones are replaced by sun-dried bricks. The roof is flat, and is formed like the earth floor, but is not polished. Win dows are plentiful, but glass is rare. Its place is taken by wax cloth or other similar material, strong wooden shutters protecting this from rough usage. The houses of the peasants are, as a rule, solid and substantial. Here, too, the walls are of stone or sun-dried bricks, though occasionally of clods of earth. Flat roofs of beaten earth are the rule throughout the interior of the country, but in the Chumbi valley and other rainy districts they are laid on a gentle slope. Where pine trees grow, the roofs are constructed of pine shingles, kept in position by heavy stones. The shepherds and herdsmen dwell in tents of yak-hair. These tents are rectangular in shape, often some i2ft. in length, but sometimes up to 5o feet. An aperture, about two feet in width along the middle of the roof, lets out the smoke.
The staple diet of the ordinary Tibetan is yak's meat, mutton, barley flour, cheese and tea. The rich, and those who dwell in the lower altitudes, also eat fruit and vege tables in small quantities. The climate is so cold that Tibetans are compelled to eat meat, although as Buddhists they should abstain from doing so, and the production of grain, vegetables or fruit at great altitudes is very difficult. Rice cannot be grown in the cold uplands, and is thus a luxury for the wealthy only. The chief Tibetan grain food is barley.
The main beverage is tea. Brick tea from China is used, and is boiled up in water flavoured with soda. When thoroughly boiled, the mixture is taken out with a ladle and poured through a strainer into a churn. Butter and salt are added and the whole churned until it is well mixed. It looks then like café au lait. The consumption of this beverage among Tibetans is enormous, for they drink on an average from 3o to 5o cups of tea a day. They eschew tea as known in Europe and America, finding it indigestible and lacking in nutriment. The other chief beverage is beer. It is brewed from barley, and being but mildly intoxicating, a good deal can be drunk with impunity.