I thought of China, of a holy mountain in the West of China,
full of legends and sacred trees and demon-haunted caves. It
is always enveloped in mountain mists; and in that white thick
air I heard the faint sound of bells, and the muffled footsteps
of innumerable pilgrims, and the reiterated mantra, _Nam-Mo,
O-mi-to-Fo_, which they murmur as they climb its slopes. High
up among its temples and monasteries marched processions of
monks, with intoned services, and many prostrations, and lighted
candles that glimmer through the fog. There in their solemn
shrines stood the statues of the Arahats, and there, seated
on his white elephant, loomed immense and dim, the image of
Amitabha, the Lord of the Western Heavens.

She said "Life is so complicated!" Climbing inaccessible cliffs
of rock and ice, I shut myself within a Tibetan monastery beyond
the Himalayan ramparts. I join with choirs of monks, intoning
their deep sonorous dirges and unintelligible prayers; I beat
drums, I clash cymbals, and blow at dawn from the Lamasery roofs
conches, and loud discordant trumpets. And wandering through
those vast and shadowy halls, as I tend the butter-lamps of the
golden Buddhas, and watch the storms that blow across the barren
mountains, I taste an imaginary bliss, and then pass on to other
scenes and incarnations along the endless road that leads me to
Nirvana.

"But I do wish you would tell me what you really think?"

I fled to Africa, into the depths of the dark Ashanti forest.
There, in its gloomiest recesses, where the soil is stained with
the blood of the negroes He has eaten, dwells that monstrous