My heart, also my stomach, which was starving, sank at the thought, but while I gazed doubtfully, a little coil of blue smoke sprang from a chimney, and never, I think, did I see a more joyful sight.  In the centre of the edifice was a large building, evidently the temple, but nearer to us I saw a small door, almost above which the smoke appeared.  To this door I went and knocked, calling aloud—­“Open! open, holy Lamas.  Strangers seek your charity.”  After awhile there was a sound of shuffling feet and the door creaked upon its hinges, revealing an old, old man, clad in tattered, yellow garments.

“Who is it?  Who is it?” he exclaimed, blinking at me through a pair of horn spectacles.  “Who comes to disturb our solitude, the solitude of the holy Lamas of the Mountains?”

“Travellers, Sacred One, who have had enough of solitude,” I answered in his own dialect, with which I was well acquainted.  “Travellers who are starving and who ask your charity, which,” I added, “by the Rule you cannot refuse.”

He stared at us through his horn spectacles, and, able to make nothing of our faces, let his glance fall to our garments which were as ragged as his own, and of much the same pattern.  Indeed, they were those of Thibetan monks, including a kind of quilted petticoat and an outer vestment not unlike an Eastern burnous.  We had adopted them because we had no others.  Also they protected us from the rigours of the climate and from remark, had there been any to remark upon them.

“Are you Lamas?” he asked doubtfully, “and if so, of what monastery?”

“Lamas sure enough,” I answered, “who belong to a monastery called the World, where, alas! one grows hungry.”

The reply seemed to please him, for he chuckled a little, then shook his head, saying—­“It is against our custom to admit strangers unless they be of our own faith, which I am sure you are not.”

“And much more is it against your Rule, holy Khubilghan,” for so these abbots are entitled, “to suffer strangers to starve”; and I quoted a well-known passage from the sayings of Buddha which fitted the point precisely.

“I perceive that you are instructed in the Books,” he exclaimed with wonder on his yellow, wrinkled face, “and to such we cannot refuse shelter.  Come in, brethren of the monastery called the World.  But stay, there is the yak, who also has claims upon our charity,” and, turning, he struck upon a gong or bell which hung within the door.

At the sound another man appeared, more wrinkled and to all appearance older than the first, who stared at us open-mouthed.

“Brother,” said the abbot, “shut that great mouth of yours lest an evil spirit should fly down it; take this poor yak and give it fodder with the other cattle.”

So we unstrapped our belongings from the back of the beast, and the old fellow whose grandiloquent title was “Master of the Herds,” led it away.

When it had gone, not too willingly—­for our faithful friend disliked parting from us and distrusted this new guide—­the abbot, who was named Kou-en, led us into the living room or rather the kitchen of the monastery, for it served both purposes.  Here we found the rest of the monks, about twelve in all, gathered round the fire of which we had seen the smoke, and engaged, one of them in preparing the morning meal, and the rest in warming themselves.