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"There is a tradition," continues the intrepid monk, who travelled
through some of the wildest countries of the earth in the darkest ages
of its history, "that when Buddha came to North India, he came to this
country, and that he left a print of his foot, which is long or short
according to the ideas of the beholder." Although the learned Fa-hien
asserts that "it exists, and the same thing is true about it at the
present day," the various cavalry reconnaissances failed to discover it,
and we must regretfully conclude that it has also been obliterated by
the tides of time. Here too, says this Buddhistic Baedeker, is still to
be seen the rock on which "He dried his clothes; and the place where He
converted the wicked dragon (Naga)." "The rock is fourteen cubits high
and more than twenty broad, with one side of it smooth." This may well
be believed; but there are so many rocks of all dimensions that the
soldiers were unable to make certain which was the scene of the dragon's
repentance, and Buddha's desiccation.


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