This summary of the adventures of Sandara, at once explained to us how it was that upon all occasions he manifested such marked predilection for the men and things of China. The rules bequeathed by Tsong-Kaba interdicted to the Lamas the use of garlic, brandy, and tobacco; garlic being prohibited because it is unbecoming to present one’s self before the image of Buddha with bad breath, offensive in itself, and capable of infecting the perfume of the incense; brandy, because this fatal liquor disturbs the reason and excites the passions; and tobacco, because it engenders idleness, and absorbs precious hours that ought to be devoted to the study of prayers and of doctrine. Despite these prohibitions, so soundly based, the Lamas—such of them, at least, as sanctify themselves after the manner of Sandara—do not hesitate to smoke, to drink, and to season their oatmeal with garlic. All this, however, is done secretly, and without the knowledge of the police. In the Lamasery of Kounboum, Sandara was the patron and introducer of the Chinese hawkers who deal in these contraband articles, and aided them in the sale of their goods, for a small commission. A few days after the Feast of Flowers, we vigorously resumed our Thibetian studies under the direction of Sandara, who came every morning to work with us. We occupied ourselves in the translation of an abridgment of Sacred History from the creation to the preaching of the Apostles. We gave to this work the dialogue form; the two interlocutors being a Lama of Jehovah and a Lama of Buddha. Sandara fulfilled his functions altogether as a matter of business. The favourable tendencies which he at first manifested, when we were at Tang-Keou-Eul, his crossings, his admiration of the Christian doctrine, had been all a mere farce. Religious feelings had no hold upon his grasping, hardened heart. He had acquired, by his long abode among the Chinese, a sneering, cold-blooded, carping incredulity, which he seemed to delight in parading upon all occasions. In his estimation, all religions were so many devices invented by the wise for the more facile and effective despoilment of the witless. Virtue, with him, was a vain word, and the man of merit, he who made the most of his fellow men. Despite, however, these sceptical and impious opinions, Sandara could not prevent himself from feeling high admiration of the Christian doctrine. He was especially struck with the concatenation of the historical facts which he translated for us. He found in them a character of authenticity, of which the fables accumulated in the Buddhist books are wholly destitute; he admitted this, not unfrequently, but always in an unguarded moment, for his aim was to support in our presence his melancholy part of a free-thinker. When he was with the Lamas, he was more at his ease; and there he did not hesitate to declare that as to religious doctrine, we knew more about it than all the living Buddhas put together.