Next morning, before daybreak, he went off, accompanied by several colleagues, full, like himself, of devotion for poor travellers. They carried with them a tent, a boiler, and some provisions. All the morning the wind blew a hurricane; when, towards noon, this subsided, the sky became dark and heavy, and the snow fell in thick flakes. We awaited, with anxious impatience, the return of the Stutterer. The poor wretch returned in the evening, quite worn out with cold and fatigue. We invited him to rest for awhile in our tent, and we gave him some tea with milk, and some rolls fried in butter. “It has been a dreadful day,” said he. “Yes, the wind blew here with great violence.” “I’ll venture to affirm it was nothing here to what we found it on the top of the mountain: the tent, the boiler—everything we had with us was carried away by a regular whirlwind, and we were obliged to throw ourselves flat on the ground in order to save ourselves from being carried away too.” “It’s a sad pity you’ve lost your tent and boiler.” “It is, indeed, a misfortune. However, it must be admitted that the weather was very favourable for conveying horses to the travellers. When we saw that it was going to snow, we threw them all up into the air at once, and the wind whisked them off to the four quarters of the world. If we had waited any longer, the snow would have wetted them, and they would have stuck on the sides of the mountain.” Altogether this excellent young man was not dissatisfied with his day’s work. The twenty-fifth of each moon is the day devoted to the transmission of horses to poor travellers. The practice is not a general rule; but is left to the devotion of individuals. The twenty-eighth of the moon is set apart for another species of religious exercise, in which all the Lamas are required to participate. On the twenty-seventh the Stammerer gave us notice of the ceremony in these words: “To-morrow night we shall, perhaps, prevent your sleeping, for we shall have to celebrate our nocturnal prayers.” We paid no special attention to this intimation, conceiving that it simply meant that in the course of the night, the Lamas would recite prayers in their cells, as they not unfrequently did. We accordingly retired to rest at our usual hour, and fell asleep.