e to the ashes of the Lamas a sepulture of this
description. You meet with a great number of these monumental towers on
the summits of the mountains, and in the neighbourhood of the Lamaseries;
and you may find them in countries whence the Mongols have been driven by
the Chinese. In other respects these countries scarcely retain any trace
of the Tartars: the Lamaseries, the pasturages, the shepherds, with their
tents and flocks, all have disappeared, to make room for new people, new
monuments, new customs. A few small towers raised over graves alone
remain there, as if to assert the rights of the ancient possessors of
these lands, and to protest against the invasion of the Kitat.

The most celebrated seat of Mongol burials is in the province of Chan-Si,
at the famous Lamasery of Five Towers (_Ou-Tay_). According to the
Tartars, the Lamasery of the Five Towers is the best place you can be
buried in. The ground in it is so holy, that those who are so fortunate
as to be interred there are certain of a happy transmigration thence.
The marvellous sanctity of this place is attributed to the presence of
Buddha, who for some centuries past has taken up his abode there in the
interior of a mountain. In 1842 the noble Tokoura, of whom we have
already had occasion to speak, conveying the bones of his father and
mother to the Five Towers, had the infinite happiness to behold there the
venerable Buddha. "Behind the great monastery," he told us, "there is a
very lofty mountain, which you must climb by creeping on your hands and
feet. Just towards the summit you come to a portico cut in the rock; you
lie down on the earth, and look through a small aperture not larger than
the bowl of a pipe. It is some time before you can distinguish anything,
but by degrees your eye gets used to the place, and you have the
happiness of beholding, at length, in the depths of the mountain, the
face of the ancient Buddha. He is seated cross-legged, doing nothing.
There are around him Lamas of all countries, who are continually paying
homage to him."

[Picture: Lamasery of the Five Towers]

Whatever you may think of Tokoura's narrative, it is certain that the
Tartars and the Thibetians have given themselves up to an inconceivable
degree of fanaticism, in reference to the Lamasery of the Five Towers.
You frequently meet, in the deserts of Tartary, Mongols, carrying on
their shoulders the bones of their parents, to the Five Tow