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292 tone. The vibration in the air, as these wonderful noises broke upon it, filled the high woods with melody and the deep valleys with haunted strains as of spirit-music. After the midnight mass, when the echoes had died away, the delight of the moment was supreme. In utter weariness and most absolute contentment I stretched myself to slumber beneath the protecting draperies of the mosquito-curtains, within the vaulted spaciousness of my Hall of Entertainment.

Visitors to Chung-deung-sa were frequent during my stay, some attracted by the reported presence of a foreigner, others by their very genuine wish to sacrifice to the All-Blessed-One. Two Korean ladies of position arrived in the course of one morning to plead for the intercession of Buddha in their burden of domestic misery and unhappiness. Presenting the Korean equivalent for ten shillings to the funds of the monastery, they arranged with the Abbot for the celebration of a nocturnal mass in the Temple of the Great Heroes. During the afternoon the priests prepared the temple in which the celebration was to be held; elaborate screens of Korean pictorial design were carried into the temple from the cell of the Chief Abbot; large quantities of the finest rice were boiled. High, conical piles of sweetmeats and sacrificial cakes were placed in large copper dishes before the main altar, where the three figures of Buddha sat in their usual attitude of divine meditation. In front of each figure stood a carved, gilded tablet, twelve inches high, exactly opposite to which the food was placed, with bowls of burning incense at intervals between the dishes. Lighted candles, in long sticks, were placed at either end of the altar; above it, in the centre serving as a lamp and hanging from a long gilded chain,