Francis Worcester Doughty

“ Maurice said musingly. “Lazy and indifferent as they appear, they are the most inveterate fanatics on earth. If it were a part of their religion to witness the sunrise from the top of this tower on this particular day, they would move heaven and earth to get here—they would crawl up step by step on their knees, if they could gain their end in no other way.”
“I saw enough of them in China, to understand pretty well what they are like,” I replied.
“Indeed you did not. The Chinese Buddhists are different. With them religion has little or no meaning. ”

“ Not but what Maurice tried to make life pleasant for me at Panompin.
He did everything that a man could do, and I honestly believe that by this time he had conceived as sincere an affection for me as it is possible for a young man to feel for a comparative stranger so much his senior.
Indeed, I believe that the trip to Angkor was arranged for my especial benefit, for it was I and not he who had expressed a desire to visit that wonderful city of the ancient Buddhists, which has lain buried in the dense forests of Cambodia for more years than man can count. ”

“ When at last I succeeded in pushing my way through the excited throng and found myself at the door of the American consulate, I discovered that I still held the little hand bag which had been dropped by the stranger and which I must have picked up, although I have no recollection of having done anything of the sort.
I was dazed—absolutely confounded.
What I had seen I had seen. In one moment that man with his peculiar face had stood before me; his eyes had looked into my eyes; he had spoke; he had pressed my hand; and in the next he had disappeared as completely as if he had never been. ”