114 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



foreigners entering their houses or temples, and the lamas 

 had a sulky manner. So we refrained from going near 

 their temples or conventual buildings, and remained very 

 good friends. Their religion is perhaps the oldest and 

 most spiritual in existence ; their ten commandments 

 as much worthy of respect as the Jewish Decalogue ; 

 their doctrines of monotheism and incarnation and the 

 efficacy of repeated prayer corresponding with Chris- 

 tianity; their priestly and monastic institutions being 

 practically identical. Yet, compared with its great rivals, 

 Christianity and Islamism, Buddhism takes precedence 

 as to the date of its origin and the extent of the influence 

 and power of its dogma. Here we have a country 

 which has remained unique as the only one on the now 

 well ransacked globe where British or European explorers 

 have not poked their noses ; until recently untrodden by 

 the feet of geographers, geologists, ethnologists, or anthro- 

 pologists, and all the other ' gists ' who want to know 

 everything. Yet it is a country which produced the 

 greatest conquerors, probably the oldest civilization and 

 religion which still exist, and the most unchanged and 

 unchangeable people ; a country also most interesting 

 in its natural conformation, as the land of the highest 

 mountains and the loftiest tablelands in the whole 

 world. 



