y" I would introduce "many are," and would
not care to contest his conclusion further. It does seem to me
preposterous to credit Buddhism with the whole of the vast population of
China, the great majority of whom are Confucianists. My own opinion is
that its adherents are not so many as those even of Mohammedanism, and
that instead of being the most numerous of the religions (so-called) of
the world, it is only entitled to occupy the fifth place, ranking below
Christianity, Confucianism, Brahmanism, and Mohammedanism, and followed,
some distance off, by Taoism. To make a table of percentages of mankind,
and to assign to each system its proportion, are to seem to be wise
where we are deplorably ignorant; and, moreover, if our means of
information were much better than they are, our figures would merely
show the outward adherence. A fractional percentage might tell more for
one system than a very large integral one for another.

JAMES LEGGE.

THE TRAVELS OF FA-HIEN

CHAPTER I

~From Ch'ang-gan to the Sandy Desert~

Fa-Hien had been living in Ch'ang-gan. [1] Deploring the mutilated and
imperfect state of the collection of the Books of Discipline, in the
second year of the period Hwang-che, being the Ke-hae year of the cycle,
[2] he entered into an engagement with Hwuy-king, Tao-ching, Hwuy-ying,
and Hwuy-wei, that they should go to India and seek for the Disciplinary
Rules.

After starting from Ch'ang-gan, they passed through Lung, [3] and came
to the kingdom of K'een-kwei,[4] where they stopped for the summer
retreat. When that was over, they went forward to the kingdom of
Now-t'an, crossed the mountain of Yang-low, and reached the emporium of
Chang-yih.[5] There they found the country so much disturbed that
travelling on the roads was impossible for them. Its king, however, was
very attentive to them, kept them in his capital, and acted the part of
their danapati.[6]

Here they met with Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, Sang-shao, Pao-yun, and
Sang-king; and in pleasant association with them, as bound on the same
journey with themselves, they passed the summer retreat of that year [7]
together, resuming after it their travelling, and going on to
T'un-hwang, [8] the chief town in the frontier territory of defence
extending for about eighty li from east to west, and about forty from
north to south. Their company, increased as it had been, halted there
for some days more than a month, after which Fa-hien and his four