When the Grand Lama had made his circuit, he returned to his sanctuary, a proceeding which was adopted by all the spectators as a signal for abandoning themselves without reserve to transports of the most frantic joy. They sang themselves out of breath, they danced themselves out of breath, they pushed one another about, they shouted and bawled loud enough to frighten the desert itself, they seemed all at once to have become a collection of lunatics. As, with all this disorder, there was risk of the illuminations and the butter works being overturned, Lamas armed with great lighted torches were stationed, at intervals, to stay the waves of the immense mass that rolled to and fro like a sea beaten by the tempest. We could not long endure the pressure, and the Kitat-Lama, perceiving the oppression under which we laboured, invited us to return home. We adopted the proposition all the more readily, that the night was far advanced, and we felt the need of repose. Next morning, when the sun rose, not a trace remained of the Feast of Flowers. All had disappeared; the bas-reliefs bad been demolished, and the immense collection of butter had been thrown down a ravine to feed the crows withal. These grand works, on which so much pains, so much time, we may also say, so much genius had been expended, had served merely as a spectacle for a single evening. Every year they make new flowers, and every year upon a new plan. With the flowers disappeared also the pilgrims. Already, at daybreak, you saw them slowly ascending the tortuous paths of the mountain, returning to their homes in the desert sorrowfully and silently; for the heart of man can endure so little of joy in this world that the day succeeding a festival is generally full of bitterness and melancholy. [Picture: Chapter Tailpiece] [Picture: The Great Wall of China] CHAPTER II. Marvellous birth of Tsong-Kaba—His preparation for the Apostleship—He departs for the West—His interview with the Grand Lama of Thibet—He reforms the Lamanesque worship—Numerous analogies between the Catholic religion and reformed Buddhism—Origin of these analogies—Tree of the Ten Thousand Images—Lamanesque Teaching—Faculty of Prayer—Government of the Lamasery of Kounboum—Offerings of the Pilgrims—Industry of the Lamas—The adventures of Sandara the Bearded—Favourable disposition of the Lamas towards Christianity—Singular practice for the relief of Travellers—Nocturnal Prayers—Departure for the Lamasery of Tchogortan.