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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Saturday, 15 February 1902
Went to Dr. Tha Noo's house.
With A.M. [Allan Bennett] discussing A.P. and P. Fools dropped in incessantly to worship A.M.
At night reconstructed Book III of Orpheus' reply and wrote the Minos and devised Orpheus' reply, and two pages of it.
They managed to give me some sort of a shake-down, and I slept very pleasantly at the monastery. The next morning I went off to breakfast on board to say good-bye to the Captain, who had shewn me great kindness, and afterwards took my luggage and went to Dr. Moung Tha Nu, the Resident Medical Officer, who welcomed me heartily, and offered me hospitality during my stay in Akyab.
He was Allan's chief Dayaka; and very kindly and wisely did he provide for him. I walked back with Allan to the Temple and commenced discussing all sorts of things, but continuous conversation was quite impossible, for people of all sorts trooped in incessantly to pay their respects to the European Bhikku. They prostrated themselves at his feet and clung to him with reverence and affection. They brought him all sorts of presents. He was more like Pasha Bailey Ben than any other character in history.
"They brought him onions strung on ropes And cold boiled beef and telescopes,"
and at any rate gifts equally varied and not much more useful. The Doctor looked in in the afternoon and took me back with him to dinner. Allan was inclined to suffer with his old asthma, as it is the Buddhist custom (non sine causa) to go out of doors at six every morning, and it is very cold till some time after dawn. I wish sanctity was not so incompatible with sanity and sanitation!
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