s in converting the sectaries of Buddha.

While we three, master and pupils, were thus absorbed in studies so
important, Samdadchiemba, who had no sort of vocation for things
intellectual, passed his time lounging about the streets of Tang-Keou-Eul
and drinking tea. Not at all pleased with this occupation of his time,
we devised to withdraw him from his idleness, and to utilise him in his
special character of cameleer. It was accordingly arranged that he
should take the three camels and pasture them in a valley of Koukou-Noor,
noted for the excellence and the abundance of its pasturage. A Tartar of
the locality promised to receive him into his tent, and we rejoiced in
the arrangement, as effecting the double advantage of supplying
Samdadchiemba with an occupation in conformity with his tastes, and of
giving our camels better and less costly fodder.

By degrees, all the fine things that we had imagined in Sandara, vanished
like a dream. This young man, apparently of devotion so pure and
disinterested, was in reality a dissipated knave, whose only aim was to
ease us of our sapeks. When he thought he had rendered himself essential
to us, he threw aside the mask, and placed himself undisguisedly before
us in all the detestability of his character: he became insolent,
haughty, overbearing. In his Thibetian lessons, he substituted for the
mild, gentle, insinuating tone of his former instruction, manners the
most insufferably harsh and brutal, such as the worst tempered pedagogue
would not betray towards the poorest of his pupils. If we asked him for
an explanation which perhaps he had previously given, he would assail us
with such amenities as these: "What! you learned fellows want to have the
same thing told you three times over! Why, if I were to tell a donkey
the same thing three times over, he'd remember it." We might easily, no
doubt, have cut short these impertinences by sending the man back to his
Lamasery; and, more than once, we were strongly inclined to adopt this
course, but, upon the whole, we thought it better to undergo a little
humiliation, than to deprive ourselves of the services of a Lama whose
talents were indisputable, and who, therefore, might be of the greatest
utility to us. His very rudeness, we considered, would aid our progress
in acquiring the Thibetian language, for we were sure that he would not
pass over the most trivial fault in grammar or pronunciation, but, on the
contrary, would rat