A play had been held the previous night at the village in honour of two young men who had become acolytes at the monastery. The temple grounds were crowded with visitors from the neighbouring villages, and a great many offerings had been made to the monks. These were heaped up in the temple, and consisted of new yellow garments, three-cornered and oblong pillows, mats, rugs, water-jars, and tastily arranged bouquets of flowers. Some of the nosegays were built up round the stem of the fruit of a plantain into the form of a large cone. On visiting the temple to bargain with the abbot for two handsomely worked three-cornered pillows that my companions had set their hearts on, he told us that the receipts accruing to him from the play were over a hundred rupees. In conversation with the monks, Dr M‘Gilvary was told that it would most likely be countless ages before they would attain the much-wished-for state of Nirvana, and that one transgression at any time might relegate them to the lowest hell to begin again their melancholy pilgrimage. After hearing this I could not help thinking of the young men newly entered into the monastic order—who were sitting devoutly on the raised dais, telling their beads and muttering religious formulæ,—how hopeless their task seemed to be! a very labour of Sisyphus. Yet there they were, attired in new yellow robes, with a scarf of new red print calico crossing their breast and left shoulder, sitting each on a new mat, with a new betel-box and water-jar before him, trying to look solemn whilst enjoying what must have been the sweetest moments of their life, surrounded by numerous admirers, who seemed to envy them their vocation. Returning to breakfast at the temple, we were followed by an inquisitive but good-natured crowd of men, women, and children, who, after watching the boys dish up our meal, gazed at our mode of eating, and watched every morsel that we put into our mouths, wondering why we did not eat, like them, with our fingers, and had clean plates, and knives and forks, for every course. After breakfast I gave the children a treat of biscuits and jam, and distributed a few hanks of beads amongst them, whilst Dr M‘Gilvary preached to the people outside the temple. We then had the elephants loaded, and left for Muang Ngai, which was only a mile distant. Passing through the city, we camped for the night at two _salas_ outside the north gate.