The lama draws now with his quick hand, trained to the Tibetan script of the Urga monastery-school, sketches of his temple, _Zoulzacha Soumé_, of his people’s summer tent of cloth, and winter hut of felt. He writes out the Mongol numerals, and explains the cycles of years, in answer to questions regarding the New-Year festival. He describes the puzzling element-and-animal system, by which the _chére mari_, or earth horse, is 1907, the _chére khoni_, or earth ram, is 1908, and so on through a sixty-year epoch. He quotes Mongol proverbs come down from old priests and rulers: “One may buy slaves, but not brothers,” and, in the spirit of Macchiavelli, “You can govern a State by truth as well as you can catch a hare with an ox-cart.” Now it is nearing moonrise. From his rolled purse the priest draws a small slip of paper ruled into a half-inch checker pattern, in every square of which there is a symbolic group of letters. The lama consults this. Then he brings from the chest beneath the altar a long narrow box in which are strips of faded paper thick as parchment. On these in red and black are traced quaint characters, written, as is our script, from left to right. The priest selects a dozen of his long sheets and puts them carefully on his couch. He touches the box to his forehead and restores it to its place. Then he turns and speaks to the interpreter. “The lama must make ready for the night of the New Year,” you are told; and as you look, off comes the red sash and yellow robe. The young priest stands up in his vivid blue jacket and walks to the entrance of the _gir_. From a cupboard he takes a towel, and from the fireplace, ashes. Pouring warm tea into a wooden bowl, he scrubs hands and face with the vigor of an athlete after a run. Then back to the cupboard he goes, and off comes the blue jacket for a clean new silken one. A rich yellow robe is donned. A bright silver knife is slung upon a new red sash which girdles his waist; and smart and erect as an officer of the Guards, the lama steps over, prostrates himself before his deities, then goes out into the night to his temple service. “Creeds are many, but God is one,” murmurs Alexsimevich.