ional.

The next day I traversed the Fotu-La Pass, at an altitude of 13,500
feet. At its summit stands a little _t'horthene_ (chapel). Thence,
following the dry bed of a stream, I descended to the hamlet of
Lamayure, the sudden appearance of which is a surprise to the traveller.
A convent, which seems grafted on the side of the rock, or held there in
some miraculous way, dominates the village. Stairs are unknown in this
cloister. In order to pass from one story of it to another, ropes are
used. Communication with the world outside is through a labyrinth of
passages in the rock. Under the windows of the convent--which make one
think of birds' nests on the face of a cliff---is a little inn, the
rooms of which are little inviting. Hardly had I stretched myself on the
carpet in one of them, when the monks, dressed in their yellow robes,
filled the apartment, bothered me with questions as to whence I came,
the purpose of my coming, where I was going, and so on, finally inviting
me to come and see them.

In spite of my fatigue I accepted their invitation and set out with
them, to climb up the excavated passages in the rock, which were
encumbered with an infinity of prayer cylinders and wheels, which I
could not but touch and set turning as I brushed past them. They are
placed there that they may be so turned, saving to the passers-by the
time they might otherwise lose in saying their prayers--as if their
affairs were so absorbing, and their time so precious, that they could
not find leisure to pray. Many pious Buddhists use for this purpose an
apparatus arranged to be turned by the current of a stream. I have seen
a long row of cylinders, provided with their prayer formulas, placed
along a river bank, in such a way that the water kept them constantly in
motion, this ingenious device freeing the proprietors from any further
obligation to say prayers themselves.

I sat down on a bench in the hall, where semi-obscurity reigned. The
walls were garnished with little statues of Buddha, books and
prayer-wheels. The loquacious lamas began explaining to me the
significance of each object.

"And those books?" I asked them; "they, no doubt, have reference to
religion."

"Yes, sir. These are a few religious volumes which deal with the primary
and principal rites of the life common to all. We possess several parts
of the words of Buddha consecrated to the Great and Indivisible Divine
Being, and to all that issue from his hands."