On your entering a monastery the abbot does not rise, but, if accustomed to Europeans, he shakes hands, and calls for a mat for you to sit on, and three-cornered pillows to rest your back and elbows. After the usual compliments, and having partially satisfied his curiosity as to your purpose in visiting the country, where you have been, where you are going, and as to your age, he will very likely tell you his eyesight is much impaired, and more than hint that a present of a pair of spectacles would be acceptable. If in search of curiosities, you may then express your admiration of the row of images of Buddha standing on a raised stand against the wall in the background, and ask permission to examine them. Before the images you will see offerings of taper candles, flowers, and prayer-flags; and you will notice perhaps that the largest image is made of alabaster, in which case it has been carried all the way from the famous quarries at Moway, which are situated in the range of hills above Sagain in Upper Burmah. Standing about this image, or on a lower shelf, will be other images, some of wood or clay covered with gold-leaf, some of silver having a core of a hard resin, others of soapstone, and some of terra-cotta, the latter resembling Roman Catholic saints in their sculptured niches. If you wish to bargain for any one of these, the abbot will express himself shocked, and will say that he cannot part with it, as it has been offered to by the people. If you pull out some silver coins, and say that you much wish to have the one you have chosen, he will most likely begin to boggle his eyes, and will perhaps send his scholars off to play, under the pretence that they are a nuisance to you, and, as soon as their backs are turned, commence to haggle over the price like an old Jew. Even when you have come to terms with him, he will, to salve his conscience, exact a promise from you to treat the image with respect, for, if not, ill will happen to you as well as to himself.