Note 11 — SECOND JOURNEY

This analogy of belief may be carried farther still, to the populations of Asia, which surround the great “Abode of Snow”—the Himalayas. It would be interesting to see in this similarity of religious worship a link between the Asiatic, the primitive man, and the American—the most recent, and the most unfortunate. Our province is simply to recount a fact to which the brothers Schlaginweit (“Exploration de la Haute Asie”) bear witness:

“It is in spite of himself, under the enticement of a great reward, that the superstitious Hindoo decides to accompany the traveller into the mountains, which he dreads less for the unknown dangers of the ascent than for the sacrilege he believes he is committing in approaching the holy asylum, the inviolable sanctuary of the gods he reveres; his trouble becomes extreme when he sees in the peak to be climbed not the mountain, but the god whose name it bears. Henceforth it is by sacrifice and prayer alone that he may appease the profoundly offended deity.”