Will you take me into your company?’ ‘Bravo! bravo!’ cried everybody; ‘you shall be one of us.’ And so saying, each made me a low bow, which I returned by putting my tongue in my cheek, and scratching my ear, according to the Thibetian manner of saluting. At first, I took the matter as a joke; but by-and-by upon reflecting that I had no means left, I thought I might as well take the manager at his word, and accordingly I became a member of the corps.
“Next day I packed up my religious costume, and assumed a mundane suit. As my memory had been long disciplined by the study of prayers, I found little trouble in learning a part in a play, and in a few days I became quite a first-rate comedian. We gave representations, during upwards of a year, in all the towns and villages of Sse-Tchouen. The company then resolving to visit the province of Yun-Nan, I quitted them, because that expedition would have carried me too far from my native Three Vallies. After the feast of separation, accordingly I proceeded on my way to the paternal roof. The journey occupied nearly two years. At every place I came to, I stopped a few days and gave representations, practising as a merry-andrew, and making a comfortable thing enough of it, for one always gets more by performing on one’s own account. I entered my native village in grand style, mounted on a magnificent ass I had bought at Lan-Tcheou, and with twelve ounces of silver in my pocket. I gave a few representations to my countrymen, who were amazed at my skill; but I had soon to give up my new profession.
“One evening when the family were assembled to hear some of my Thibetian stories, my mother maintained profound silence and her face manifested utter grief; soon I observed the tears trickling down her cheeks. ‘Mother,’ asked I, ‘why do you weep? In my story was there anything to excite your tears?’ ‘Thy story,’ she replied, ‘produces upon me no impression whatever, agreeable or disagreeable; it strikes upon my ears, but makes no way to my heart. That which moves, that which afflicts me, is the thought that when thou left us, fourteen years ago, to visit the Land of Saints, thou wert clothed in the sacred habit of the Lamas, and that now thou art a layman and a buffoon.’ These words confounded me. After a moment’s silence I rose and cried emphatically: ‘It is written in the Holy Doctrine, that it is better to honour one’s father and mother than to serve the spirits of heaven and earth. Therefore, mother, say what you would have me do, and your son will reverentially obey you.’ ‘Throw aside those mundane clothes,’ said my mother, ‘cut off that tress of hair, and re-enter the family of the saints.’ I had nothing to say in reply, but prostrated myself
thrice on the ground, in token of submission. When a mother speaks, one must obey; filial piety is the basis of all good doctrine. In translating for you the ten great commandments of Jehovah, I remember that the fourth said: ‘Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother.’
“Next morning I resumed my Lama dress, and a few days after proceeded to Kounboum, where I am labouring to sanctify myself.”
These last words of Sandara the Bearded clearly merited to be received with a horse laugh, but we restrained ourselves by dint of biting our lips, for we had experienced that, notwithstanding his immense zeal for sanctification, our worthy tutor had not as yet attained any very great results in the matter of patience and mildness.
This summary of the adventures of Sandara, at once explained to us how it was that upon all occasions he manifested such marked predilection for the men and things of China. The rules bequeathed by Tsong-Kaba interdicted to the Lamas the use of garlic, brandy, and tobacco; garlic being prohibited because it is unbecoming to present one’s self before the image of Buddha with bad breath, offensive in itself, and capable of infecting the perfume of the incense; brandy, because this fatal liquor disturbs the reason and excites the passions; and tobacco, because it engenders idleness, and absorbs precious hours that ought to be devoted to the study of prayers and of doctrine. Despite these prohibitions, so soundly based, the Lamas—such of them, at least, as sanctify themselves after the manner of Sandara—do not hesitate to smoke, to drink, and to season their oatmeal with garlic. All this, however, is done secretly, and without the knowledge of the police. In the Lamasery of Kounboum, Sandara was the patron and introducer of the Chinese hawkers who deal in these contraband articles, and aided them in the sale of their goods, for a small commission.
A few days after the Feast of Flowers, we vigorously resumed our Thibetian studies under the direction of Sandara, who came every morning to work with us. We occupied ourselves in the translation of an abridgment of Sacred History from the creation to the preaching of the Apostles. We gave to this work the dialogue form; the two interlocutors being a Lama of Jehovah and a Lama of Buddha. Sandara fulfilled his functions altogether as a matter of business. The favourable tendencies which he at first manifested, when we were at Tang-Keou-Eul, his crossings, his admiration of the Christian doctrine, had been all a mere farce. Religious feelings had no hold upon his grasping, hardened heart. He had acquired, by his long abode among the Chinese, a sneering, cold-blooded, carping incredulity, which he seemed to delight in
parading upon all occasions. In his estimation, all religions were so many devices invented by the wise for the more facile and effective despoilment of the witless. Virtue, with him, was a vain word, and the man of merit, he who made the most of his fellow men.
Despite, however, these sceptical and impious opinions, Sandara could not prevent himself from feeling high admiration of the Christian doctrine. He was especially struck with the concatenation of the historical facts which he translated for us. He found in them a character of authenticity, of which the fables accumulated in the Buddhist books are wholly destitute; he admitted this, not unfrequently, but always in an unguarded moment, for his aim was to support in our presence his melancholy part of a free-thinker. When he was with the Lamas, he was more at his ease; and there he did not hesitate to declare that as to religious doctrine, we knew more about it than all the living Buddhas put together.