We
entered, trembling. We had no great certainty that we would ever get out
of it alive again.
The temple was a large, oblong hall, with a great figure of Buddha,
cross-legged, imperturbable, enthroned in a niche at its further end,
like the apse or recess in a church in Italy. Before it stood an altar.
The Buddha sat and smiled on us with his eternal smile. A complacent
deity, carved out of white stone, and gaudily painted; a yellow robe,
like the Lamas', dangled across his shoulders. The air seemed close with
incense and also with bad ventilation. The centre of the nave, if I may
so call it, was occupied by a huge wooden cylinder, a sort of overgrown
drum, painted in bright colours, with ornamental designs and Tibetan
letters. It was much taller than a man, some nine feet high, I should
say, and it revolved above and below on an iron spindle. Looking closer,
I saw it had a crank attached to it, with a string tied to the crank. A
solitary monk, absorbed in his devotions, was pulling this string as we
entered, and making the cylinder revolve with a jerk as he pulled it. At
each revolution, a bell above rang once. The monk seemed as if his whole
soul was bound up in the huge revolving drum and the bell worked by it.
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