"Is there not, among those books, some account of the prophet Issa?"

"No, sir," answered the monk. "We only possess a few principal treatises
relating to the observance of the religious rites. As for the
biographies of our saints, they are collected in Lhassa. There are even
great cloisters which have not had the time to procure them. Before
coming to this gonpa, I was for several years in a great convent on the
other side of Ladak, and have seen there thousands of books, and scrolls
copied out of various books by the lamas of the monastery."

By some further interrogation I learned that the convent in question was
near Leh, but my persistent inquiries had the effect of exciting the
suspicions of the lamas. They showed me the way out with evident
pleasure, and regaining my room, I fell asleep--after a light
lunch--leaving orders with my Hindu to inform himself in a skillful way,
from some of the younger lamas of the convent, about the monastery in
which their chief had lived before coming to Lamayure.

In the morning, when we set forth on our journey, the Hindu told me that
he could get nothing from the lamas, who were very reticent. I will not
stop to describe the life of the monks in those convents, for it is the
same in all the cloisters of Ladak. I have seen the celebrated monastery
of Leh--of which I shall have to speak later on--and learned there the
strange existences the monks and religious people lead, which is
everywhere the same. In Lamayure commences a declivity which, through a
steep, narrow and sombre gorge, extends toward India.

Without having the least idea of the dangers which the descent
presented, I sent my carriers in advance and started on a route, rather
pleasant at the outset, which passes between the brown clay hills, but
soon it produced upon me the most depressing effect, as though I was
traversing a gloomy subterranean passage. Then the road came out on the
flank of the mountain, above a terrible abyss. If a rider had met me, we
could not possibly have passed each other, the way was so narrow. All
description would fail to convey a sense of the grandeur and wild beauty
of this canyon, the summit of the walls of which seemed to reach the sky.
At some points it became so narrow that from my saddle I could, with my
cane, touch the opposite rock. At other places, death might be fancied
looking up expectantly, from the abyss, at the traveller. It was too
late to dismount. In entering alone this