angles, and the hoarse bellowing of the great iron trumpets. It was not melody, it was not music; it was simply a tremendous instrumental uproar. It continued for about a minute, and then, as it suddenly ceased, the seventeen lamas began a peculiar, wild, rapid chant, in a deep, low monotone. The voices were exactly in accord, the time was perfect, and the end of every line or stanza was marked by the clashing of cymbals and the booming of the colossal drums. This chanting continued for three or four minutes, and then it was interrupted by another orchestral charivari which would have leveled the walls of Jericho without any supernatural intervention. I had never heard such an infernal tumult of sound. Chanting, interrupted at intervals by the helter-skelter playing of twenty or thirty different instruments, made up the "thanksgiving" temple service, which lasted about fifteen minutes. It was interesting, but it was quite long enough.
Mr. Frost and I then walked around the temple, accompanied by the Sheretúi and Khainúief. Behind the lattice-work screen there were three colossal idols in the conventional sitting posture of the Buddhists, and in front of each of them were lighted tapers of butter, porcelain bowls of rice, wheat, and millet, artificial paper flowers, fragrant burning pastils, and bronze bowls of consecrated water. Against the walls, all around this part of the temple, were bookcases with glass doors in which were thousands of the small figures known to the Christian world as "idols" and called by the Buriáts burkháns. I could not ascertain the reason for keeping so great a number of these figures in the lamasery, nor could I ascertain what purpose they served. They presented an almost infinite variety of types and faces; many of them were obviously symbolical, and all seemed to be representative in some way either of canonized mortals or of supernatural spirits, powers, or agencies. According to the information furnished me by Khainúief, these burkháns, or idols, occupy in the lamaistic system of
