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trated into those regions may, and, indeed, must, have left traces of their 

 teaching in Thibet. Of course, if you go back to the Mosaic dispensation, 

 or, as Mr. Collins has done, even further than that, the question resolves itself 

 into what Mr. Collins has termed " the common heritage of mankind," with 

 reference to the desire to get rid of sin and the importance of sacrificial 

 offerings, and so forth ; but this rather leads us into the realms of the con- 

 jectural. Historically, no doubt, we can say there is sufficient proof that 

 certain missionaries and numerous other Christians have been in Buddhistic 

 Thibet, and have there shown their ritual and left some of it behind them. 

 I remember very well being struck with the antiphonal singing in the monastery 

 at Pugdal, in Zanskar, where Csonia de Kciros, the illustrious and self-denying 

 Hungarian traveller, had been successful in getting rid of the so-called Prayer- 

 wlieel worship and practice (although the terms worship and adoration are 

 not quite suitable to the practice of the prayer- wheel), and where the Abbot 

 had been so struck with the devotion of " the European disciple," who died 

 before he could carry out his long-cherished intention of penetrating into 

 Lhassa, that he offered to place his nephews as hostages in the hands of the 

 British Government, and to take any European scholar anxious to go 

 to Thibet to Lhassa, and to bring him back again, — an offer which, in my 

 opinion, ought to have been accepted. I was there in 1S66, but the 

 Buddhists leave their traditions so vividly behind them that I should not be 

 surprised to find, even alter this lapse of time, that either the Abbot lived to 

 carry out his promise, or that it would still be carried out by his successor, 

 because he looked upon it as a sacred duty. I am not here to describe all the 

 peculiarities of " the worship '' adopted in that remarkable place ; but I may say 

 that there is not the least doubt that in the red cardinal's cap, in the genu- 

 flexions, in the peculiar soldier-like salute, and in many other things (they 

 differ much in their mode of adoration or admiration — which, perhaps, would 

 be the more correct word), the Buddhists of Thibet are more like Europeans 

 than any Asiatics I have seen elsewhere. In regard to their wonderful 

 pantomimic representations of the struggles between virtue and vices of 

 all kinds, the vices are shown as animals ; and doubtless these notions 

 are derived tiot only from their surroundings, but also from other sources. 

 With regard to annihilation, — there, again, we have to do with a complicated 

 view of human nature, affected by ethnic and other considerations. One 

 of the disciples at the monastery I have spoken of showed me, at a very 

 early period of the year, over some of the snow-covered passes, and I 

 entered into conversation with him. So long as he maintained his serenity of 

 mind, " nothing was far " and " nothing was near." Even Sakiamuni 

 (Buddha) was " nothing," but when I asked him, as he was carrying me 

 across a mountain stream and had just been very nearly taken oft" his legs, 

 whether that was nothing, he did not display his former readiness of answer. 

 In the end he turned out to be very much like other human beings when 

 he got rid of his difficulties, and, in spite of all his philosophy, he took 

 out his flute and played a tune, and showed himself to be a very jolly 



