[Picture: Queen of Mourguevan]
with brushwood. The chief of the caravan ordered a halt, and the camels
formed, as each came up, a circle, in the centre of which was drawn up a
close carriage upon four wheels. 'Sok! sok!' cried the camel drivers,
and at the word, and as with one motion, the entire circle of intelligent
animals knelt. While numerous tents, taken from their backs, were set
up, as it were, by enchantment, two mandarins, decorated with the blue
button, approached the carriages, opened the door, and handed out a
Tartar lady, covered with a long silk robe. She was the Queen of the
Khalkhas repairing in pilgrimage to the famous Lamasery of the Five
Towers, in the province of _Chan-Si_. When she saw us, she saluted us
with the ordinary form of raising both her hands: "Sirs Lamas," she said,
"is this place auspicious for an encampment?" "Royal Pilgrim of
Mourguevan," we replied, "you may light your fires here in all security.
For ourselves, we must proceed on our way, for the sun was already high
when we folded our tent." And so saying, we took our leave of the
Tartars of Mourguevan.

Our minds were deeply excited upon beholding this queen and her numerous
suite performing this long pilgrimage through the desert: no danger, no
distance, no expense, no privation deters the Mongols from their
prosecution. The Mongols are, indeed, an essentially religious people;
with them the future life is everything; the things of this world
nothing. They live in the world as though they were not of it; they
cultivate no lands, they build no houses; they regard themselves as
foreigners travelling through life; and this feeling, deep and universal,
developes itself in the practical form of incessant journeys.

The taste for pilgrimages which, at all periods of the world's history,
has manifested itself in religious people, is a thing worthy of earnest
attention. The worship of the true God led the Jews, several times a
year, to Jerusalem. In profane antiquity, those who took any heed to
religious belief at all repaired to Egypt, in order to be initiated in
the mysteries of Osiris, and to seek lessons of wisdom from his priests.
It was to travellers that the mysterious sphynx of Mount Phicaeus
proposed the profound enigma of which OEdipus discovered the solution.
In the middle ages, the spirit of pilgrimage held predominant sway in
Europe, and the Christians of that epoch were full of fervour for this
species of devotio