We then went on to discuss Buddhism, and a pleasant old gentleman leaning on a stick was {180} brought up to instruct me in the doctrine of Buddhism. It was obvious from the jocose and pleasant way the matter was treated, that this was very different ground to the philosophy of Confucius. Then, though everybody was courteous, everybody was keenly and seriously interested, but Buddhism was regarded as a most amusing topic; I was assured that only a few women believed in it, and that none of those in the room gave it the slightest credence. They explained to me why the Dalai Lama came to Peking. Two of the disciples of Buddha had been reincarnated, and the greatest of those two was the Dalai Lama, but it was impossible to tell in which baby the reincarnation took place without coming to the Mongol Temple at Peking; then lots were cast and the matter was settled. I had my doubts whether the old gentleman was accurate, but clearly no one else in the room had the smallest acquaintance with the subject; they made a marked difference between the Buddhism of the Lama Temple at Peking and that of the Monastery at Hangchow, which they called Indian Buddhism, and said the district was often named Little India; but when I tried to discover how many sects of Buddhists there were in China, or what was the nature of their tenets, I could get no information from these gentlemen. His Excellency Tuan-Fang joined us at this moment and asked whether I could possibly read a Sanscrit manuscript that he had discovered, and {181} which, from the Chinese notes appended to it, he gathered referred to Buddhism. He also wished to discuss the origin of Chinese characters; he had a theory that they came from Egypt, and he showed many rubbings of hieroglyphics which he had had made from monuments in Egypt to prove his point. But I wanted to ask some questions about Taoism. I had tried to understand Taoism and had found it extremely difficult, and I thought these cultured literati could give me some assistance. I was soon undeceived. Nobody believed in Taoism, and they knew nothing of its doctrine or of its worship. They suggested that the Taoist priests were often to be found in a Buddhist temple, but one scholar said that that was only because the Taoist priest liked to make a little money by selling incense sticks.