arians who thus visited Europe must have
been struck with the pomp and splendour of the ceremonies of Catholic
worship, and must have carried back with them into the desert enduring
memories of what they had seen. On the other hand, it is also known
that, at the same period, brethren of various religious orders undertook
remote pilgrimages for the purpose of introducing Christianity into
Tartary; and these must have penetrated at the same time into Thibet,
among the Si-Fan, and among the Mongols on the Blue Sea. Jean de
Montcorvin, Archbishop of Peking, had already organized a choir of Mongol
monks, who daily practised the recitation of the psalms, and the
ceremonies of the Catholic faith. Now, if one reflects that Tsong-Kaba
lived precisely at the period when the Christian religion was being
introduced into Central Asia, it will be no longer matter of astonishment
that we find, in reformed Buddhism, such striking analogies with
Christianity.

And may we not proceed to lay down a proposition of a more positive
character? This very legend of Tsong-Kaba, which we heard in the very
place of his birth, and from the mouth of several Lamas, does it not
materially strengthen our theory? Setting aside all the marvellous
features which have been added to the story by the imagination of the
Lamas, it may be fairly admitted that Tsong-Kaba was a man raised above
the ordinary level by his genius, and also, perhaps, by his virtue; that
he was instructed by a stranger from the West; that after the death of
the master the disciple, proceeding to the West, took up his abode in
Thibet, where he diffused the instruction which he himself had received.
May it not be reasonably inferred that this stranger with the great nose
was an European, one of those Catholic missionaries who at the precise
period penetrated in such numbers into Upper Asia. It is by no means
surprising that the Lamanesque traditions should have preserved the
memory of that European face, whose type is so different from that of the
Asiatics. During our abode at Kounboum, we, more than once, heard the
Lamas make remarks upon the singularity of our features, and say,
roundly, that we were of the same land with the master of Tsong-Kaba. It
may be further supposed that a premature death did not permit the
Catholic missionary to complete the religious education of his disciple,
who himself, when afterwards he became an apostle, merely applied
himself, whether from hav