*** It is a leaf of the Latanier species of the palm-tree. 
     Hence the bonzes of Siam take the appellation of Talapoin. 
     The use of this screen is an exclusive privilege.

     **** The sectaries of Confucius are no less addicted to
     astrology than the bonzes.  It is indeed the malady of every
     eastern nation.

5 The Delai-La-Ma, or immense high priest of La, is the same person whom we find mentioned in our old books of travels, by the name of Prester John, from a corruption of the Persian word Djehan, which signifies the world, to which has been prefixed the French word prestre or pretre, priest.  Thus the priest world, and the god world are in the Persian idiom the same.

6 In a recent expedition the English have found certain idols of the Lamas filled in the inside with sacred pastils from the close stool of the high priest.  Mr. Hastings, and Colonel Pollier, who is now at Lausanne, are living witnesses of this fact, and undoubtedly worthy of credit.  It will be very extraordinary to observe, that this disgusting ceremony is connected with a profound philosophical system, to wit, that of the metempsychosis, admitted by the Lamas.  When the Tartars swallow, the sacred relics, which they are accustomed to do, they imitate the laws of the universe, the parts of which are incessantly absorbed and pass into the substance of each other.  It is upon the model of the serpent who devours his tail, and this serpent is Budd and the world.

After these, a crowd of other banners, which no man could number, came forward into sight; and the genius exclaimed: 

I should never finish the detail of all the systems of faith which divide these nations.  Here the hordes of Tartars adore, in the forms of beasts, birds, and insects, the good and evil Genii; who, under a principal, but indolent god, govern the universe.  In their idolatry they call to mind the ancient paganism of the West.  You observe the fantastical dress of the Chamans; who, under a robe of leather, hung round with bells and rattles, idols of iron, claws of birds, skins of snakes and heads of owls, invoke, with frantic cries and factitious convulsions, the dead to deceive the living.  There, the black tribes of Africa exhibit the same opinions in the worship of their fetiches.  See the inhabitant of Juida worship god in a great snake, which, unluckily, the swine delight to eat.* The Teleutean attires his god in a coat of several colors, like a Russian soldier.** The Kamchadale, observing that everything goes wrong in his frozen country, considers god as an old ill-natured man, smoking his pipe and hunting foxes and martins in his sledge.***