Besides these five hermits, who always dwelt in the rocks above, there were, below, several Lamas who had charge of the unoccupied houses of the Lamasery. These by no means, like the former, looked at life in its refined and mystical aspect; they were, on the contrary, absorbed in the realities of this world; they were, in fact, herdsmen. In the great house where we were installed, there were two big Lamas who poetically passed their time in herding some twenty cattle, in milking the cows, making butter and cheese, and looking after the juvenile calves. These bucolics seemed little to heed contemplation or prayer: they sent forth, indeed, frequent invocations to Tsong-Kaba, but this was always on account of their beasts, because their cows mutinied and would not be milked, or because the calves capered out of bounds over the valley. Our arrival afforded them a little diversion from the monotony of pastoral life. They often paid us a visit in our chamber, and always passed in review the volumes of our small travelling library, with that timid and respectful curiosity which simple and illiterate persons ever manifest towards the productions of the intellect. When they found us writing, they forgot cows, and calves, and milk, and cheese, and butter, and would stand for hours together motionless, their eyes fixed upon our crow-quill as it ran over the paper, and left impressed there characters, the delicacy and novelty of which were matters of ecstatic amazement to these simple creatures. The little Lamasery of Tchogortan pleased us beyond our hopes. We never once regretted Kounboum any more than the prisoner regrets his dungeon after he has attained liberty. The reason was that we, too, felt ourselves emancipated. We were no longer under the ferule of Sandara the Bearded, of that hard and pitiless taskmaster, who, while giving us lessons of Thibetian, seemed to have undertaken also to discipline us in patience and humility. The desire to attain knowledge had made us submit to his ill-treatment, but our departure from Kounboum afforded a joyful opportunity of throwing off this leech which had, for five whole months, obstinately remained stuck to our existence. Besides, the success we had already achieved in the study of the Thibetian tongue, exempted us from the future necessity of having a master at our shoulder; we were quite strong enough now to walk alone and unaided. Our hours of labour were employed in revising and analysing our dialogues, and in translating a small Thibetian work, entitled, the “Forty-two Points of Instruction, delivered by Buddha.” We possessed a magnificent edition of this work, in four languages, Thibetian, Mongol, Mantchou, and Chinese; so that, thus aided, we had no occasion to recur to the learning of the Lamas. When the Thibetian version presented any difficulty, all we had to do, in order to remove it, was to consult the three other versions, with which we were familiarly acquainted.