“He that does not believe in others finds that they do not believe in
him”
--_Chinese proverb_
Our very first ride took us right into--what any Mongol other than a
lama would, I am sure, describe as--the heart of Urga. At the foot of
the hill upon which the holy city, K’urun, stands is the centre of
activity in Mongolia’s capital--the horse and camel market. All day
and every day the bartering goes on, and it is here perhaps that you
may study with the greatest advantage the salient characteristics of
the race. The Chinese, I believe, invariably score off the Mongols
in business transactions, but not so in connection with horses. The
Mongol is born, bred, gets drunk, and dies in the saddle, and, like
many others with a knowledge of horse flesh, he would cheat his own
grandmother over a deal of this nature--except for the fact that the
old lady would probably be one too many for him.
In a dusty expanse, fringed on either side with small Chinese shops
crowned with low curved roofs, painted poles, and swinging signs with
gold characters carved large on them, stand the ponies in their
hundreds, and the supply would seem to be well-nigh inexhaustible.
Generally speaking, the animals are small and unattractive looking, and
it would certainly require the “seeing eye” to make a selection from
this mass of unkempt little beasts who, until they are mounted, show
not the least suggestion of the spirit that is in them. The camels are
few and far between, and I have never seen anything approaching a fine
beast on sale here. One has to penetrate into the compounds of the
camel owners in order to buy the best, I think, for usually it is but
the indifferent and unwanted that find their way into the open market.
Urga, the Da Huraz (the first monastery) or Bogda Lama en Hurae (the
encampment of the supreme lama) as it is severally described by the
Mongols themselves (Urga being probably a Russian corruption), Urga,
the religious centre as well as the capital of Mongolia, may be split
up into three distinct and separate divisions, the market-place serving
as a link between two of them, the holy city and the Russian quarter.
The former, in shape resembling a gigantic dust mound and in appearance
a piece of crazy patchwork, is covered with a perfect rabbit warren of
compounds, in most of which felt yourts take the place of buildings. By
circuitous paths between the high palisades which cut one compound off
from another, one reaches as one nears the top the so-called University
buildings, “the Gando,” from which at certain hours of the day lamas
in their thousands may be seen pouring forth.
Crowning the hill is the great white temple, newly erected and barely
finished when I saw it. In walking round a temple, either in or
outside, foreigners should remember that sacred objects should always
be kept on the right hand as a mark of respect. Inside the temple is
one of the largest Buddhas in the world; an immense brazen figure
with four arms rising nearly one hundred feet out of the centre of
the symbolic lotus flower. This was presented by Bogdo, the ruler,
spiritual and temporal, of Mongolia--a thank-offering for restored
eyesight (which I heard is now as bad as ever) at a cost of 1,500,000
roubles. Facing the idol, and in direct violation of all Buddhistic
principles which ordain the celibacy of its priesthood, two thrones,
equal in every respect and draped in royal canary-coloured silk
damask, are placed for the lama pontiff and--his consort. This really
beautiful temple, with its mass of gilding and harmonious decoration,
forms a perpetual testimony to the inability of the Mongols to go far
independently of Chinese assistance, for one does not contemplate as a
likely event in the near future the building and decoration by Russian
workmen of what they would regard as pagan edifices. This Mongolian
building, with all its Tibetan ornamentation and detail, was erected
entirely by Chinese hands, the brass for the Buddha being brought
across the desert from Dolo N’or. In no sense do politics come
within the sphere of my observations, but having seen a certain amount
of Chinese, Russians, and Mongols in juxtaposition, there appears to
me to be but little doubt as to which two nations form natural allies.
The Mongols, beyond breeding ponies and cattle, making the felt of
their yourts and engaging in a certain amount of transport business, do
practically nothing, make practically nothing, for themselves. Their
very clothes and ornaments are of Chinese manufacture, and certainly it
is the Chinese who are alone responsible for anything that is beautiful
in Urga.
[Illustration: THE GREAT WHITE TEMPLE, URGA]
[Illustration: THE HORSE AND CAMEL MARKET, URGA]
I, as other travellers in Mongolia have done, found it very difficult
to buy any characteristically and exclusively Mongolian objects, and
was therefore delighted to discover, not many days before my departure,
that a Mongol auction was in progress immediately outside the great
temple. I went boldly in amongst the crowd and made bids for various
things belonging, so far as I could make out, to departed lamas. The
articles on sale were in the main clothes, altogether too dirty to
handle, but with a few interesting little objects connected with the
temple services among the rubbish, of which two, a priest’s bell and a
small brass drumstick, passed into my possession. A fine milk-jug in
white metal with thick raised repoussé bands became mine at the price
of five roubles. Instead of an aperture, the top was covered in and
holes pierced through the metal to allow the milk to be poured into the
jug. Thus, there was not the faintest chance of its ever being properly
washed out, which, seeing the use to which it was to be put, seemed a
drawback.
A very decorative pail, of copper and brass, much worn, and certainly
without great expectation of life before it from an utilitarian point
of view, greatly excited my envy, and I made a bid for it--two roubles.
A Mongol promptly offered a few kopecks more, and my price finally rose
to three roubles or six shillings. No one outbidding me, so far as I
could see, I was fully under the impression that the pail was now my
property; but not so. In company with the auctioneer and three or four
others, I went the round of the neighbouring yourts to find out whether
or no anyone else wanted it and would give more. The man, however, whom
the auctioneer thought might care to make a higher bid was not at home,
and after hanging about for fully a couple of hours I came away without
my pail, and learned once more that hurry is a word unknown in the
East. There is apparently no time limit for bids at a Mongol auction,
and a transaction frequently takes several days to complete.
The Russian quarter is adjacent to the holy city and separated
therefrom, as I have said, by the horse market and the Chinese shops.
It boasts of some half a dozen general stores, at which tinned foods,
boots, and materials for clothes can be purchased at ridiculously
inflated prices; there is also a restaurant of a most depressing
description, as well as a chemist’s shop. It may well be imagined that,
the majority of the Chinese traders having been driven forth during
the rebellion in 1912 on the one hand, and the virtual suppression of
Chinese goods by a grinding taxation on the other, Russian retail trade
in Urga is in a flourishing condition.
The Mongols are now to all intents and purposes forced very largely
into dealing with Russian stores, and when one is told that 40 to 50
per cent is regarded as a reasonable profit, one can only wonder how
long it will be before the natives realise that they have exchanged
the frying pan for a remarkably fierce fire. But it is to be trusted
that this condition of affairs will right itself again in time. Russian
enterprise--should it develop--will probably fail through lack of
labour. Their own command of labour in these regions is practically
_nil_, and the cost of imported energy would be likely to spell failure
to anyone engaging in business. On the other hand, the Mongols never
have worked and it is highly improbable that they ever will. Mongol
requirements are simple, but such as they are it is clear that they
need the Chinese to supply them.
This Russian quarter forms the least attractive division of Urga. The
houses are small, squalid, and untidy; their inhabitants possess
apparently not the faintest knowledge of sanitation. What must be the
civilising effect, of which one hears, of the Russian influence upon
the Mongols, it is not difficult to foretell. The Chinese may be dirty,
are extremely dirty in some respects, no doubt, but at least they do
not appear to lose their sense of the artistic for all their defects
in this direction, and under normal conditions even in the poorest
quarters of their cities, a certain “esprit,” a “joie de vivre,” is
seldom absent. It is exceedingly difficult to arrive at anything
representing even an approximate estimate of the number of Russians
in Urga. Of civilians, perhaps 1000 forms a liberal estimate, but all
enquiries as regards the military strength are politely but firmly
repulsed. The people in the Russian quarter, in the shops, restaurant,
and on the streets, are a surly looking lot. Their suspicious character
is plainly painted upon their uncouth faces, and every one with whose
business in life they are not entirely “au fait,” they regard as a spy
of some sort. Throughout our stay in Urga it was significant that we
rode nowhere but that we met the same Buriat soldier ostentatiously
uninterested in our existence.
Urga must have presented a gayer appearance under Chinese rule, when
the great untidy stretch of waste land reaching almost from West
Urga into Mai-mai’ch’eng, waste land formerly bordered with Chinese
shops and houses, would have had a far more cheery atmosphere than
it possesses nowadays. Now the few Mongol yamens stand isolated and
unsupported, and the merry “va-et-vient” of commercial prosperity
is no more. At night it is said to be rash to venture across it
unaccompanied, and indeed on more than one occasion we encountered a
Cossack riding full pelt across the stony expanse, brandishing his
naked revolver in his right hand. But latterly there appears to have
been a somewhat arbitrary planning out and dividing up of the main part
of Urga by the Russians, and an expanse which must be of dimensions
approaching something like two miles long by three-quarters of a mile
wide in the very heart of Urga, and in the centre of which the Russian
consulate happens to stand, is to be doled out in concessions to
Russians and to Russians only. To the north of this desolate scene are
sundry temples, and outside them stand a number of brightly painted
little sheds containing the well-known Tibetan prayer wheels. Sexagonal
in form, and with the characters representing “Om Mani Padme Hum”
painted in red letters upon the panels, these prayer cylinders turn on
a central pin, and anyone giving a hefty swing to them as he passes
says his prayers with a minimum of trouble for a maximum of result. The
Mongols, both lamas and laity, use the wheels devoutly, and one’s ears
grow accustomed to the light creaking sound long before one realises
whence it comes.
The Russian consulate, in the midst of a heterogeneous collection
of barracks, officers’ quarters, and outbuildings, is a pleasant
house enough, English in style and furnished, the Russian diplomatic
agent told me, to resemble an English country house inside as far as
possible. Of modest dimensions, it stands back from the road in an
untidy compound, over the gates of which the Imperial standard looms
large and menacing. The present agent is a man of marked ability, and
speaks, I believe, no less than eight modern languages with a fluency
equal to his native tongue. He has obviously succeeded in bringing the
Mongol authorities to heel in a surprising degree as was evidenced not
long ago when he insisted that the Hut’ukt’u, the ruler of all the
Mongols, supported by some of the chief men of his country, should toe
the line in person and make profound apology at the consulate for some
slight that had been shown to the Russian flag. Whether or no this was
a well-calculated action has yet to be proved. But that the Mongols
are making a desperate effort not to be swallowed up exclusively and
irrevocably by Russia is strongly suggested by their recently expressed
desire to the other powers that the latter should be represented
by consuls in Urga “in order to conclude treaties of commerce and
friendship”. It is moreover rumoured that the Mongolian Government has
recently issued an order forbidding the Chinese to sell any land in
Mongolia to Russians. The only other house of any size or importance
is the hideous red-brick erection which forms the headquarters of
the Mongolore Company, which represents an important concession of
gold-mining rights granted to the Russians prior to the declaration of
independence.
[Illustration: A BEAUTIFUL TEMPLE AT MAI-MAI’CH’ENG]
[Illustration: A MONGOL PRINCESS IN HER OFFICIAL ROBES, ACCOMPANIED BY
HER TWO LADIES]
In so far as the structural picturesque is concerned, this is
undoubtedly now centred in and confined to the Chinese quarter,
Mai-mai’ch’eng, where fine gateways and a very beautiful little temple
remain as evidence of the prosperity enjoyed under Chinese rule. Now
the entire place, which is surrounded by a strong stockade of fourteen
or fifteen feet high, which, in a country where stone is so rare and
labour so expensive, takes the place of the usual encompassing wall,
is almost entirely deserted, and one may walk from end to end without
encountering half a dozen people. The courtyard and temple far surpass
in decoration and cleanliness anything that I saw in China. The mural
paintings illustrate Chinese fables and are exceptionally well carried
out and preserved. They have evidently been most carefully cherished
by the guild of Shansi merchants, the Shih Erh Chia, of whom it is the
headquarters. The Mongols use the temple as much as the Chinese do,
and I watched a Mongol princess in her official robes, accompanied by
her two ladies, most devoutly performing her prostrations one day. She
allowed me afterwards to take two or three photographs of her, but it
was difficult to persuade her into sufficient light to make a very
satisfactory picture.
Immediately outside the north gate of Mai-mai’ch’eng is the Chinese
cemetery, where hundreds of unburied coffins are piled awaiting, I
gathered, the far distant day when they might be carried back to be
interred in Chinese soil. The poorer Chinese, for whom there was never
such happy prospect, are buried in alien earth behind the Russian
consulate--a series of little mounds like magnified molehills being all
that remains to indicate the fact.