s the river Toula,
which, rising in the Barka mountains, runs from east to west through the
pastures of the Lamasery, and then entering Siberia, falls into Lake
Baikal.

The Lamasery stands on the northern bank of the river, on the slope of a
mountain. The various temples inhabited by the Guison-Tamba, and other
Grand Lamas, are distinguishable from the rest of the structure by their
elevation and their gilded roofs. Thirty thousand Lamas dwell in the
Lamasery itself, or in smaller Lamaseries erected about it. The plain
adjoining it is always covered with the tents of the pilgrims who resort
hither from all parts to worship Buddha. Here you find the U-Pi-Ta-Dze,
or "Fish-skin Tartars," encamped beside the Torgot Tartars from the
summits of the sacred mountains (Bokte-Oula), the Thibetians and the
Peboum of the Himalaya, with their long-haired oxen, mingling with the
Mantchous from the banks of the Songari and Amor. There is an incessant
movement of tents set up and taken down, and of pilgrims coming and going
on horses, camels, oxen, mules, or waggons, and on foot.

Viewed from the distance, the white cells of the Lamas, built in
horizontal lines one above the other on the sides of the mountain, seem
the steps of a grand altar, of which the tabernacle is the temple of the
Guison-Tamba. In the depths of that sanctuary, all resplendent with gold
and bright colouring, the Lama-King, The Holy, as he is called, _par
excellence_, receives the homage of the faithful, ever prostrate, in
succession, before him. There is not a Khalkha Tartar who does not glory
in the title of the _Holy One's Disciple_. Wherever you meet a man from
the district of the Great Kouren, and ask him who he is, his proud reply
is always this: _Koure Bokte-Ain Chabi_, (I am a disciple of the Holy
Kouren.)

Half-a-league front the Lamasery, on the banks of the Toula, is a
commercial station of Chinese. Their wooden or mud huts are fortified by
a circle of high palisades to keep out the pilgrims, who, despite their
devotion, are extremely given to thieving when ever the opportunity
occurs. A watch and some ingots of silver, stolen during the night from
M. Gabet, left us no doubt as to the want of probity in the Holy One's
disciples.

A good deal of trade is carried on here, Chinese and Russian goods
changing hands to a very large extent. The payments of the former are
invariably made in tea-bricks. Whether the article sold be a house, a
hor