plicity and imposture played considerable
part in all their ceremonies. The superior of a Lamasery said to us one
day: "When a person is ill, the recitation of prayers is proper, for
Buddha is the master of life and death; it is he who rules the
transmigration of beings. To take remedies is also fitting, for the
great virtue of medicinal herbs also comes to us from Buddha. That the
Evil One may possess a rich person is credible, but that, in order to
repel the Evil One, the way is to give him dress, and a horse, and what
not, this is a fiction invented by ignorant and deceiving Lamas, who
desire to accumulate wealth at the expense of their brothers."

The manner of interring the dead among the Tartars is not uniform. The
Lamas are only called in to assist at extremely grand funerals. Towards
the Great Wall, where the Mongols are mixed up with the Chinese, the
custom of the latter in this particular, as in others, has insensibly
prevailed. There the corpse is placed, after the Chinese fashion, in a
coffin, and the coffin in a grave. In the desert, among the true nomadic
tribes, the entire ceremony consists in conveying the dead to the tops of
hills or the bottoms of ravines, there to be devoured by the birds and
beasts of prey. It is really horrible to travellers through the deserts
of Tartary to see, as they constantly do, human remains, for which the
eagles and the wolves are contending.

The richer Tartars sometimes burn their dead with great solemnity. A
large furnace of earth is constructed in a pyramidical form. Just before
it is completed, the body is placed inside, standing, surrounded with
combustibles. The edifice is then completely covered in, with the
exception of a small hole at the bottom to admit fire, and another at the
top, to give egress to the smoke, and keep up a current of air. During
the combustion, the Lamas stir round the tomb and recite prayers. The
corpse being burnt, they demolish the furnace and remove the bones, which
they carry to the Grand Lama; he reduces them to a very fine powder, and
having added to them an equal quantity of meal, he kneads the whole with
care, and constructs, with his own hands, cakes of different sizes, which
he places one upon the other, in the form of a pyramid. When the bones
have been thus prepared by the Grand Lama, they are transported with
great pomp to a little tower built beforehand, in a place indicated by
the diviner.

They almost always giv