Desert (this took place about six years after the arrival 25
in China); secondly, another, more durable, and more
commensurate to the scale of the calamity and to the
grandeur of this national Exodus, in the mighty columns
of granite and brass erected by the Emperor, Kien Long,
near the banks of the Ily. These columns stand upon 30
the very margin of the steppes, and they bear a short but
emphatic inscription[10] to the following effect:--

By the Will of God,
Here, upon the Brink of these Deserts,
Which from this point begin and stretch away,
Pathless, treeless, waterless,
For thousands of miles, and along the margins of many mighty Nations, 5
Rested from their labors and from great afflictions
Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall,
And by the favor of KIEN LONG, God's Lieutenant upon Earth,
The ancient Children of the Wilderness--the Torgote Tartars-- 10
Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar,
Wandering Sheep who had strayed away from the Celestial Empire
in the year 1616,
But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow,
Into the fold of their forgiving Shepherd. 15
Hallowed be the spot
and
Hallowed be the day--September 8, 1771!
Amen.


FOOTNOTES: