ements are supposed to pray for the
peace and prosperity of the whole family, emblemed by the hearth. The
movement itself is effected by the through draught occasioned by the
openings at the top of the tent.

[Picture: Turning Prayers]

The Buddhists have another mode of simplifying pilgrimages and devotional
rites. In all the great Lamaseries you find at short intervals figures
in the form of barrels, and turning upon an axle. The material of these
figures is a thick board, composed of infinite sheets of paper pasted
together, and upon which are written in Thibetian characters the prayers
most reputed throughout the country. Those who have not the taste, or
the zeal, or the strength to carry huge boards of books on their
shoulders, or to prostrate themselves, step after step, in the dust and
mire, or to walk round the Lamasery in winter's cold or summer's heat,
have recourse to the simple and expeditious medium of the prayer barrel.
All they have to do is to set it in motion; it then turns of itself for a
long time, the devotees drinking, eating, or sleeping, while the
complacent mechanism is turning prayers for them.

One day, on approaching a prayer barrel, we found two Lamas quarrelling
furiously, and just on the point of coming to blows, the occasion being
the fervour of each for prayer. One of them having set the prayer
automaton in motion, had quietly returned to his cell. As he was
entering it he turned his head, doubtless to enjoy the spectacle of the
fine prayers he had set to work for himself, but to his infinite disgust,
he saw a colleague stopping his prayers, and about to turn on the barrel
on his own account. Indignant at this pious fraud, he ran back, and
stopped his competitor's prayers. Thus it went on for some time, the one
turning on, the other stopping the barrel, without a word said on either
side. At last, however, their patience exhausted, they came to high
words; from words they proceeded to menaces, and it would doubtless have
come to a fight, had not an old Lama, attracted by the uproar, interposed
words of peace, and himself put the automaton in motion for the joint
benefit of both parties.

Besides the pilgrims whose devotion is exercised within or about the
Lamaseries, you find many who have undertaken fearfully long journeys,
which they execute with a prostration at every step. Sad and lamentable
is it to see these unhappy victims of error enduring, to