Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/378

366 366 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. " One day, the Christian neophyte said to me, ' Father, will you come and have the pleasure of an excursion into the town ? ' ' Willingly,' answered I. He immediately sent for a boat, we entered it, and went to visit a great monastery of Bonzes. The Christian neophyte, having called one of these Bonzes, said to him, ' Do you see this Frank priest ? he comes from the regions where the sun sets, and he is now going to Khanbalik to pray for the life of the emperor. Show him some rarity of our country, in order that he may say, when he shall one day return into his own land, "I saw at Han-Tcheou-Fou, such or such a curious thing." : 4 1 will show him,' said the Bonze, ' the wonder of our monastery.' There were, in a corner of the apartment, several baskets filled with the fragments of the repast of the community. The Bonze took them, and, having opened a door, introduced us into a magnificent park, in the midst of which arose a hill planted with beautiful trees. We stopped at the foot of the hill ; the Bonze struck several times on a tam-tam, and at the sound we perceived a number of animals, of various species, hastening down towards us. The greater number re- sembled apes and cats ; there were, at least, three thou- sand of them : all these animals ranged themselves in order, and the old Buddhist priest distributed to them the fragments from the convent repast. When all had eaten according to their appetite, at the first stroke of the tam-tam they quietly began to climb up the side of the hill again, and disappeared into their dens. This sight was so strange that I could not help laughing heartily: at length I said to the old man, 'Tell me the meaning of what I have just seen.' 'You have just seen,' said he, ' the souls of illustrious men, whom we feed for the