On the occasion of my visiting Dārjīling in 1884, I was desirous of judging for myself of the method of using these remarkable instruments of religion. I therefore, soon after my arrival, walked to a Buddhist temple near the town. There I found several large barrel-like cylinders set up close together in a row at the entrance, so that no one might pass in without giving them at least one twirl, or by a rapid sweep of his hand might set them all twirling at once. Inside the entrance-portico a shrivelled and exceptionally hideous old woman was seated on the ground. In her left hand she held a small portable prayer-cylinder, which she kept in perpetual revolution. In her right hand was a cord connected with a huge barrel-like cylinder, which with some exertion she made to rotate on its axis by help of a crank, while she kept muttering _Om maṇi pamme Hūm_ (so she pronounced it) with amazing rapidity. In this way she completed at least sixty oral repetitions every minute, without reckoning the infinite number of rotatory repetitions accomplished simultaneously by her two hands. And all this was done with an appearance of apathy and mental vacuity in her withered face, which was so distressing and melancholy to behold, that the spectacle will never be effaced from my memory. In truth the venerable dame seemed to be sublimely unconscious that any effort of thought or concentration of either mind or heart was needed to make prayer of any value at all. And the men of Tibet are quite as much slaves to this superstition as the women. A friend of mine when staying at Dārjīling had some conversation on serious subjects with an apparently sensible native, and observed with surprise that all the while he was engaged in talking with the Buddhist, the latter continued diligently whirling a prayer-cylinder with great velocity. My friend, being unacquainted with Tibetan customs, came away from his colloquy under the impression that Buddhists regard Christians as dangerous lunatics possessed with evil spirits, which require specially active measures in the way of exorcism. It did not occur to him that the Buddhist was merely intent on redeeming every instant of time for the purpose of storing up merit by prayer. And the hold which this extraordinary superstition has upon the population is still more forcibly impressed on the traveller who penetrates into the regions beyond Dārjīling. He may there see immense prayer-cylinders set up like mills, and kept in incessant revolution, not by the will or hand of man, but by the blind, unconscious force of wind and water. It is even said that great mechanical ingenuity is displayed by the monks in some parts of Tibet, their inventive powers being stimulated by a burning desire to economize time and labour in the production of prayer-merit by machinery.