This last task is by no means a light or easy one. According to M. Huc (i. 202), a whole day scarcely suffices to perform the circumambulation when the monastic buildings and temples occupy an extensive area. People begin at daybreak, and the feat must be accomplished all at one time, without any break, or even a few moments’ pause for taking nourishment. Moreover, the measuring-process must be perfect; ‘the body must be extended to its whole length, and the forehead must touch the earth while the arms are stretched out in front and the hands joined.’ At each prostration a circle must be drawn on the ground with two rams’ horns held in the hands. ‘It is a sorrowful spectacle, and the unfortunate people often have their faces and clothes covered with dust and mud. The utmost severity of the weather does not present any obstacle to their courageous devotion. They continue their prostrations through rain, snow, and cold. Sometimes they go through the additional penance of carrying an enormous weight of books on their backs. You meet with men, women, and even children sinking under these excessive burdens. When they have finished their circumambulation, they are considered to have acquired the same merit as if they had recited all the prayers contained in the books they have carried.’ In point of fact they are generally far too ignorant to be able to read the books, and the carrying of them on their backs is taken as an adequate equivalent. The acquisition of merit by circumambulation is not an exclusively Hindū or Buddhist idea. The Holy House at Loretto near Ancona—believed to have been transported there from Bethlehem by angels—is circumambulated by pilgrims on their knees, but keeping the sacred object to the left. Indeed, we may fitly conclude the present Lecture by a comparison between the ritual of Tibetan Buddhism and that of Roman Catholicism—a comparison, too, drawn by the Roman Catholic Missionaries themselves: ‘The cross, the mitre, the dalmatica, the cope, which Grand Lāmas wear on their journeys, or when they are performing some ceremony out of the temple; the service with double choirs, the psalmody, the exorcisms, the censer for incense, suspended from five chains, and opened or closed at pleasure; the benedictions pronounced by the Lāmas by extending the right hand over the heads of the faithful; the chaplet, ecclesiastical celibacy, spiritual retirement, the worship of the saints, the fasts, the processions, the litanies, the holy water, all these are analogies between the Buddhists and ourselves’ (Huc, ii. 50). To these may be added sacred images, sacred pictures, sacred symbols, relics, lamps, and illuminations[157].