The “old times” are just like the “modern times”; nothing is changed as to magical practices except that they have become still more esoteric and arcane, and that the caution of the adepts increases in proportion to the traveller’s curiosity. Hiouen‐ Thsang says of the inhabitants: “The men ... are fond of study, but pursue it with no ardour. _The science of magical formulæ has become a regular professional business with them._”(26) We will not contradict the venerable Chinese pilgrim on this point, and are willing to admit that in the seventh century _some_ people made “a professional business” of magic; so, also, do _some_ people now, but certainly not the true adepts. Moreover, in that century, Buddhism had hardly penetrated into Tibet, and its races were steeped in the sorceries of the Bhon,—the pre‐lamaïc religion. It is not Hiouen‐Thsang, the pious, courageous man who risked his life a hundred times to have the bliss of perceiving Buddha’s shadow in the cave of Peshawur, who would have accused the good lamas and monkish thaumaturgists of “making a professional business” of showing it to travellers. The injunction of Gautama, contained in his answer to King Prasenajit, his protector, who called on him to perform miracles, must have been ever‐present to the mind of Hiouen‐Thsang. “Great king,” said Gautama, “I do not teach the law to my pupils, telling them, ‘Go, ye saints, and before the eyes of the Brâhmans and householders perform, by means of your supernatural powers, miracles greater than any man can perform.’ I tell them when I teach them the law, ‘Live ye saints, _hiding your good works, and showing your sins_.’ ” Struck with the accounts of magical exhibitions witnessed and recorded by travellers of every age who had visited Tartary and Tibet, Colonel Yule comes to the conclusion that the natives must have had “at their command the whole encyclopædia of modern Spiritualists.” Duhalde mentions among their sorceries the art of producing by their invocations the figures of Laotseu(27) and their divinities _in the air_, and “_of making a pencil write answers to questions without anybody touching it_.”(28) The former invocations pertain to the religious mysteries of their sanctuaries; if done otherwise, or for the sake of _gain_, they are considered _sorcery_, necromancy, and strictly forbidden. The latter art, that of making a pencil write without contact, was known and practised in China and other countries before the Christian era. It is the A B C of magic in those countries.