ed in a
poisonous solution will surely accomplish the object of the Bogdo-Khan.

The deepest esteem and religious faithfulness surround the blind
Pontiff. Before him all fall on their faces. Khans and Hutuktus approach
him on their knees. Everything about him is dark, full of Oriental
antiquity. The drunken blind man, listening to the banal arias of the
gramophone or shaking his servants with an electric current from his
dynamo, the ferocious old fellow poisoning his political enemies,
the Lama keeping his people in darkness and deceiving them with his
prophecies and fortune telling,--he is, however, not an entirely
ordinary man.

One day we sat in the room of the Bogdo and Prince Djam Bolon translated
to him my story of the Great War. The old fellow was listening very
carefully but suddenly opened his eyes widely and began to give
attention to some sounds coming in from outside the room. His face
became reverent, supplicant and frightened.

"The Gods call me," he whispered and slowly moved into his private
shrine, where he prayed loudly about two hours, kneeling immobile as a
statue. His prayer consists of conversation with the invisible gods, to
whose questions he himself gave the answers. He came out of the shrine
pale and exhausted but pleased and happy. It was his personal prayer.
During the regular temple service he did not participate in the prayers,
for then he is "God." Sitting on his throne, he is carried and placed
on the altar and there prayed to by the Lamas and the people. He only
receives the prayers, hopes, tears, woe and desperation of the people,
immobilely gazing into space with his sharp and bright but blind
eyes. At various times in the service the Lamas robe him in different
vestments, combinations of yellow and red, and change his caps. The
service always finishes at the solemn moment when the Living Buddha
with the tiara on his head pronounces the pontifical blessing upon
the congregation, turning his face to all four cardinal points of the
compass and finally stretching out his hands toward the northwest, that
is, to Europe, whither in the belief of the Yellow Faith must travel the
teachings of the wise Buddha.

After earnest prayers or long temple services the Pontiff seems very
deeply shaken and often calls his secretaries and dictates his visions
and prophecies, always very complicated and unaccompanied by his
deductions.

Sometimes with the words "Their souls are communicating," he put