Evil Eye

The Grand Lama of Tibet, most fundamental of Fundamentalists, has bowed to Science. His mystery palace, the Potala, at Lhasa, now flashes with electricity, according to epochal word just received. Age after age, the grand Lama's seclusion has been a byword to awe. Lhasa, the Forbidden City--what European had seen it? A few 18th Century Capuchin friars; persistent but mostly unsuccessful 19th Century explorers. Not until 1904, under armed expedition of Col. Francis E. Younghusband, was there any adequate description. Since then things have moved faster in the Buddhist Mecca.

A young Tibetan engineer, Rugby graduate, who has installed the magic light, was recently reported to be regarded by his fellow natives as in league with the "evil one." His machinery was hurled into a gorge. The work went on.

Last week a smallish, modest man, with shaven head, oval, slightly pock-marked face, long, pointed, waxed mustaches, promenaded from his Lhasa villa to the Potala, most magnificent of palaces. This was the Grand Lama himself, famed politico-religious absolute primate of Buddha. Above him, to the topmost of its gold-vermilion finials, now caught by the last reflected glow of the sunken sun, soared 436 feet in air his ancient palace, crowning a green-clad mountain. The Grand Lama passed within.

He pressed a button. A swarm of jeweled lights, like golden bees, glittered down labyrinthine corridors; laughed to dingy scorn the former butter lamps; focused the palace miracle-wise to the night-enshrouded startled gazers in the valley below. "It is well," said the Grand Lama. "Remove the butter lamps."