ce is the highest and purest. Every
century one hundred sages of China collect in a secret place on
the shores of the sea, where from its depths come out one hundred
eternally-living tortoises. On their shells the Chinese write all the
developments of the divine science of the century."

As I write I am involuntarily reminded of a tale of an old Chinese bonze
in the Temple of Heaven at Peking. He told me that tortoises live more
than three thousand years without food and air and that this is the
reason why all the columns of the blue Temple of Heaven were set on live
tortoises to preserve the wood from decay.

"Several times the Pontiffs of Lhasa and Urga have sent envoys to the
King of the World," said the Lama librarian, "but they could not find
him. Only a certain Tibetan leader after a battle with the Olets found
the cave with the inscription: 'This is the gate to Agharti.' From the
cave a fine appearing man came forth, presented him with a gold tablet
bearing the mysterious signs and said:

"'The King of the World will appear before all people when the time
shall have arrived for him to lead all the good people of the world
against all the bad; but this time has not yet come. The most evil among
mankind have not yet been born.

"Chiang Chun Baron Ungern sent the young Prince Pounzig to seek out the
King of the World but he returned with a letter from the Dalai Lama from
Lhasa. When the Baron sent him a second time, he did not come back."

CHAPTER XLIX

THE PROPHECY OF THE KING OF THE WORLD IN 1890

The Hutuktu of Narabanchi related the following to me, when I visited
him in his monastery in the beginning of 1921:

"When the King of the World appeared before the Lamas, favored of God,
in this monastery thirty years ago he made a prophecy for the coming
half century. It was as follows:

"'More and more the people will forget their souls and care about their
bodies. The greatest sin and corruption will reign on the earth. People
will become as ferocious animals, thirsting for the blood and death
of their brothers. The 'Crescent' will grow dim and its followers will
descend into beggary and ceaseless war. Its conquerors will be stricken
by the sun but will not progress upward and twice they will be visited
with the heaviest misfortune, which will end in insult before the eye of
the other peoples. The crowns of kings, great and small, will fall . . .
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. . . . Th