These words struck like a thunderbolt upon the poor old man. After a moment of dull stupor he gave way to cries and groans. While yielding to this excess of grief his son arrived, bringing home from pasture a small herd of cattle. “My son,” cried the old man, “saddle thy horse on the instant, take thy sabre, and gallop off towards the West: thou wilt overtake a foreign Lama, whom thou must kill, for he has stolen from me my strap.” “How!” exclaimed the young man, terror-struck, “wouldst thou have me commit a murder? Wouldst thou, my father, whom all our tribes venerate for thy great sanctity, order me to kill a poor traveller, because he took from thy tent a strap of which he had, doubtless, need?” “Go, go, my son, hasten, I conjure thee,” cried the old man, throwing his arms about in despair; “go and immolate that stranger, unless thou wouldst have us all buried beneath the waves.” The young man, believing that his father laboured under a temporary fit of insanity, would not contradict him, lest he should exasperate him still more; he therefore mounted his horse and galloped after the Lama of the kingdom of Oui. He came up with him before the evening: “Holy personage,” said he, “pardon me, that I interrupt your progress; this morning you rested in our tent, and you took thence a strap, which my father is making a great outcry for; the fury of the old man is so excessive, that he has ordered me to put you to death; but it is no more permissible to execute the orders of a raving old man than it is to fulfil those of a child. Give me back the strap, and I will return to appease my father.” The Lama of the kingdom of Oui dismounted, took off the girth of his saddle, and gave it to the young man, saying, “Your father gave me this strap, but, since he regrets the gift, carry it back to him; old men are fanciful, but we must, nevertheless, respect them, and carefully avoid occasioning them any annoyance.” The Lama took off his own girdle, made a saddle-girth of it, and departed, the young man returning in all haste to his tent.