This table-land is covered with oak, aspen, and fir trees, and has a
rich undergrowth of grass and flowers. On a point of the cliff there
are two monuments. A third is about four hundred yards away. One is a
marble shaft on a granite pedestal; a second is entirely granite, and
the third partly granite and partly porphyry. The first and third bear
inscriptions in Chinese, Mongol, and Thibetan. One inscription
announces that the emperor Yuen founded the Monastery of Eternal
Repose, and the others record a prayer of the Thibetans. Archimandrate
Avvakum, a learned Russian, who deciphered the inscriptions, says the
Thibetan prayer _Om-mani-badme-khum_ is given in three languages.[C]

[Footnote C: Abbe Hue in his 'Recollections of a journey through
Thibet and Tartary,' says:--

"The Thibetans are eminently religious. There exists at Lassa a
touching custom which we are in some sort jealous of finding among
infidels. In the evening as soon as the light declines, the Thibetans,
men, women, and children, cease from all business and assemble in the
principal parts of the city and in the public squares. When the groups
are formed, every one sits down on the ground and begins slowly to
chant his prayers in an undertone, and this religious concert produces
an immense and solemn harmony throughout the city. The first time we
heard it we could not help making a sorrowful comparison between this
pagan town, where all prayed in common, with the cities of the
civilized world, where people would blush to make the sign of the
cross in public.

"The prayer chanted in these evening meetings varies according to the
season of the year; that which they recite to the rosary is always the