256 
TIBET. 
more vociferous clamour of crowded congregations, joined with a full 
choral band; left me no room to doubt, that I was close to the scene, 
of some of the most solemn and mysterious ceremonies of their reli¬ 
gion. 
I lost little time in endeavouring to ascertain the truth of my con¬ 
jectures ; but I trod upon tender ground. Any indication of extra¬ 
ordinary curiosity, even in the common affairs of life, was sufficient to 
raise, in an instant, an host of suspicions, against which, I should have 
been compelled eternally to combat; and religion, especially among 
a people so bigotted to its forms, was a subject to which I adverted, 
with still more scrupulous caution. 
From various inquiries, however, at length I collected, that the 
chapel in which the Gylongs met to offer up their daily prayers, was 
but a short distance from us. Their stated periods of devotion were 
the rising of the sun, noon, and sunset. Among two thousand five 
hundred Gylongs, appointed for the service of the monastery, the 
greater part were expected to be present on each occasion. On every 
third day, the morning was devoted to proclaiming aloud the attributes 
and praises of the Supreme Being; a service which was performed 
with a vehemence of vociferation perfectly astonishing, and, as I 
thought, altogether inconsistent with the decorum of a well regulated 
assembly. 
The object of this solemn meeting, as far as I could collect, was for 
every individual present to repeat, and enforce with all his powers of 
utterance, the praises of the Deity; and we need not wonder that 
from such a congregation, who had attained by long practice to a 
