anything else--he came out admirably.

Day after day passed; suns rose and suns set; and it was clear that
the monks did not mean to let us leave their precincts in a hurry. Lady
Meadowcroft, having recovered by this time from her first fright, began
to grow bored. The Buddhists' ritual ceased to interest her. To vary the
monotony, I hit upon an expedient for killing time till our too pressing
hosts saw fit to let us depart. They were fond of religious processions
of the most protracted sort--dances before the altar, with animal masks
or heads, and other weird ceremonial orgies. Hilda, who had read herself
up in Buddhist ideas, assured me that all these things were done in
order to heap up Karma.

"What is Karma?" I asked, listlessly.

"Karma is good works, or merit. The more praying-wheels you turn, the
more bells you ring, the greater the merit. One of the monks is always
at work turning the big wheel that moves the bell, so as to heap up
merit night and day for the monastery."

This set me thinking. I soon discovered that, no matter how the wheel is
turned, the Karma or merit is equal. It is the turning it that counts,
not the personal exertion. There were wheels and bells in convenient
situations all over the village, and whoever passed one gave it a twist
as he went by, thus piling up Karma for all the inhabitants. Reflecting
upon these facts, I was seized with an idea. I got Hilda to take
instantaneous photographs of all the monks during a sacred procession,
at rapid intervals. In that sunny climate we had no difficulty at all in
printing off from the plates as soon as developed. Then I took a small
wheel, about the size of an oyster-barrel--the monks had dozens of
them--and pasted the photographs inside in successive order, like what
is called a zoetrope, or wheel of life. By cutting holes in the side,
and arranging a mirror from Lady Meadowcroft's dressing-bag, I completed
my machine, so that, when it was turned round rapidly, one saw the
procession actually taking place as if the figures were moving. The
thing, in short, made a living picture like a cinematograph. A mountain
stream ran past the monastery, and supplied it with water. I had a
second inspiration. I was always mechanical. I fixed a water-wheel in
the stream, where it made a petty cataract, and connected it by means
of a small crank with the barrel of photographs. My zoetrope thus
worked off itself, and piled up Karma for all the village whethe