as now served. It consisted of a
kind of porridge, to which was added new milk brought in by the "Master
of the Herds," dried fish from a lake, and buttered tea, the last two
luxuries produced in our special honour. Never had food tasted more
delicious to us, and, I may add, never did we eat more. Indeed, at last
I was obliged to request Leo to stop, for I saw the monks staring at him
and heard the old abbot chuckling to himself.

"Oho! The Monastery of the World, where folk grow _hungry_," to which
another monk, who was called the "Master of the Provisions," replied
uneasily, that if we went on like this, their store of food would
scarcely last the winter. So we finished at length, feeling, as some
book of maxims which I can remember in my youth said all polite people
should do--that we could eat more, and much impressed our hosts by
chanting a long Buddhist grace.

"Their feet are in the Path! Their feet are in the Path!" they said,
astonished.

"Yes," replied Leo, "they have been in it for sixteen years of our
present incarnation. But we are only beginners, for you, holy Ones, know
how star-high, how ocean-wide and how desert-long is that path. Indeed
it is to be instructed as to the right way of walking therein that we
have been miraculously directed by a dream to seek you out, as the most
pious, the most saintly and the most learned of all the Lamas in these
parts."

"Yes, certainly we are that," answered the abbot Kou-en, "seeing that
there is no other monastery within five months' journey," and again he
chuckled, "though, alas!" he added with a pathetic little sigh, "our
numbers grow few."

After this we asked leave to retire to our chamber in order to rest, and
there, upon very good imitations of beds, we slept solidly for four and
twenty hours, rising at last perfectly refreshed and well.

Such was our introduction to the Monastery of the Mountains--for it had
no other name--where we were destined to spend the next six months of
our lives. Within a few days--for they were not long in giving us their
complete confidence--those good-hearted and simple old monks told us all
their history.

It seemed that of old time there was a Lamasery here, in which dwelt
several hundred brethren. This, indeed, was obviously true, for the
place was enormous, although for the most part ruined, and, as the
weather-worn statue of Buddha showed, very ancient. The story ran,
according to the old abbot, that two centuries or