materials, all alike covered by a thick layer of dust. Finally we
reached an open terrace, from which the eyes, taking in the surrounding
region, rested upon an inhospitable country, strewn with grayish rocks
and traversed by only a single road, which on both sides lost itself in
the horizon.

When we were seated, they brought us beer, made with hops, called here
_Tchang_ and brewed in the cloister. It has a tendency to rapidly
produce _embonpoint_ upon the monks, which is regarded as a sign of the
particular favor of Heaven.

They spoke here the Thibetan language. The origin of this language is
full of obscurity. One thing is certain, that a king of Thibet, a
contemporary of Mohammed, undertook the creation of an universal
language for all the disciples of Buddha. To this end he had simplified
the Sanscrit grammar, composed an alphabet containing an infinite number
of signs, and thus laid the foundations of a language the pronunciation
of which is one of the easiest and the writing the most complicated.
Indeed, in order to represent a sound one must employ not less than
eight characters. All the modern literature of Thibet is written in this
language. The pure Thibetan is only spoken in Ladak and Oriental Thibet.
In all other parts of the country are employed dialects formed by the
mixture of this mother language with different idioms taken from the
neighboring peoples of the various regions round about. In the ordinary
life of the Thibetan, there exists always two languages, one of which is
absolutely incomprehensible to the women, while the other is spoken by
the entire nation; but only in the convents can be found the Thibetan
language in all its purity and integrity.

The lamas much prefer the visits of Europeans to those of Musselmen, and
when I asked the one who received me why this was so, he answered me:
"Musselmen have no point of contact at all with our religion. Only
comparatively recently, in their victorious campaign, they have
converted, by force, part of the Buddhists to Islam. It requires of us
great efforts to bring back those Musselmen, descendants of Buddhists,
into the path of the true God. As regards the Europeans, it is quite a
different affair. Not only do they profess the essential principles of
monotheism, but they are, in a sense, adorers of Buddha, with almost the
same rites as the lamas who inhabit Thibet. The only fault of the
Christians is that after having adopted the great doctrines o