man had one. The country through which my route lay is of very curious
formation. If you can imagine a section of your own west country viewed
through a giant magnifying glass, you have some sort of picture of the
territory in which I found myself.

"Gigantic rocks stand up like monstrous tors, or towers, sometimes
offering sheer precipices of many hundreds of feet in height. On
those sides of these giant tors, however, which are less precipitous,
miniature forests are sometimes found, and absolutely impassable
jungles.

"Bordering an independent state, this territory is not at all well
known, but I had secured as a guide a man named Vadi--or that was the
name he gave me whom I knew to be a high-caste Brahmin of good family.
He had been with me for some time, and I thought I could trust
him. Therefore, once clear of British territory, I took him into my
confidence respecting the real object of my journey.

"This was not primarily to scale a peak of the Himalayas, nor even to
visit Khatmandu, but to endeavour to obtain a glimpse of the Temple of
Fire!

"That has excited your curiosity, gentlemen. I don't suppose any one
here has ever heard of the Temple of Fire.

"By some it is regarded as a sort of native legend but it is more than a
legend. It is a fact. For seven years I have known it to be a fact, but
my tongue has been tied. Listen. Even down in Bombay, the coming of the
next great Master is awaited by certain of the natives; and for more
than ten years now it has been whispered from end to end of India that
he was about to proclaim himself, that disciples moved secretly among
the people of every province, and that the unknown teacher in person
awaited his hour in a secret temple up near the Tibetan frontier.

"A golden key opens many doors, gentlemen, and at the time of which I am
speaking I had obtained more information respecting this secret religion
or cult than any other member of the white races had ever collected,
or so I thought at the time. I had definite evidence to show that the
existence of this man, or demi-god--for by some he was said to possess
superhuman powers--was no myth, but an actual fact.

"The collecting of this data was extremely perilous, and one of my
informants, with whom I had come in contact while passing through the
central provinces, died mysteriously the night before I left Nagpur. I
wondered very much on my way north why I was not molested, for I did not
fail to see that the