vaguely, have glimpses of that former life of his? No man seems to be
quite without it, but of course it is clearer to some than others. Just
as we tell stories in the dusk of ghosts and second sight, so do they,
when the day's work is over, gossip of stories of second birth; only
that they believe in them far more than we do in ghosts.

A friend of mine put up for the night once at a monastery far away in
the forest near a small village. He was travelling with an escort of
mounted police, and there was no place else to sleep but in the
monastery. The monk was, as usual, hospitable, and put what he had, bare
house-room, at the officer's disposal, and he and his men settled down
for the night.

After dinner a fire was built on the ground, and the officer went and
sat by it and talked to the headman of the village and the monk. First
they talked of the dacoits and of crops, unfailing subjects of interest,
and gradually they drifted from one subject to another till the
Englishman remarked about the monastery, that it was a very large and
fine one for such a small secluded village to have built. The monastery
was of the best and straightest teak, and must, he thought, have taken a
very long time and a great deal of labour to build, for the teak must
have been brought from very far away; and in explanation he was told a
curious story.

It appeared that in the old days there used to be only a bamboo and
grass monastery there, such a monastery as most jungle villages have;
and the then monk was distressed at the smallness of his abode and the
little accommodation there was for his school--a monastery is always a
school. So one rainy season he planted with great care a number of teak
seedlings round about, and he watered them and cared for them. 'When
they are grown up,' he would say, 'these teak-trees shall provide
timber for a new and proper building; and I will myself return in
another life, and with those trees will I build a monastery more worthy
than this.' Teak-trees take a hundred years to reach a mature size, and
while the trees were still but saplings the monk died, and another monk
taught in his stead. And so it went on, and the years went by, and from
time to time new monasteries of bamboo were built and rebuilt, and the
teak-trees grew bigger and bigger. But the village grew smaller, for the
times were troubled, and the village was far away in the forest. So it
happened that at last the village found itself with