OURGA TO KIAKHTA.
OURGA can scarcely be called a city in the true acceptance of the term.
Its Mongol name, “Ta Huren,” or “The Great Encampment,” better describes
the huge cluster of tents that compose the Mongolian capital, dwellings
precisely similar in shape and size to those in the desert, save that
here they are surrounded by rough wooden palisades, eight to ten feet in
height, as a protection against the thieves and marauders who in the
caravan season nightly infest the streets.
The population of Ourga, which is estimated at about 40,000, fluctuates
a good deal. This is owing in a great measure to the nomad disposition
of the inhabitants, who are here to-day and gone to-morrow, taking not
only their goods and chattels, but also their house with them. With the
exception of the Kootookta’s palace, an imposing edifice of Tibetan
architecture, all white, gold and vermilion, like an ornament off the
top of a twelfth-cake, there are but three brick houses in the place,
residences of Russian tea-merchants, of whom, when we passed, there were
seven residing in Ourga. These, with the half-dozen Europeans stationed
at the Consulate, mid-way between Ourga and Maimachin, formed the entire
European population of the capital of Mongolia.
Notwithstanding, Ourga is of no little importance as a trading centre,
for it is the only stage in the tea-carrying trade between China and
Russia, while it exports large quantities of hides, timber, and clothing
throughout Mongolia. Ourga is the Mecca of the Mongol, and the distances
travelled by the faithful for the privilege of gazing upon the features
of their living god, the Kootookta, are sometimes incredible.
Pilgrimages are made from Manchuria, nine hundred miles away, and a man
arrived, while we were there, from the borders of Tibet, having
accomplished the distance across the desert, a great part of it sandy
waste, alone and on foot. The journey from Ourga to Lassa (Tibet) is
made in great state by the Grand Lama of Mongolia on the death or
transmigration of a Kootookta, to procure another from the “Dalai Lama”
of Tibet. There are but two living deities in Mongol Buddhism. The Dalai
Lama of Lassa, and Kootookta of Ourga. It is for this that the Mongolian
capital is looked upon as the second sacred city of the world, Lassa,
the capital of Tibet, being the first.
The present Kootookta is about eighteen years of age, lives, like the
Emperor of China, a life of the strictest privacy, and is only exhibited
to the faithful by the Lamas or priests in charge on very rare
occasions. Though worshipped as a god, he is allowed no voice in the
government of the country, which is entrusted to two viceroys, a Mongol
prince and a Manchu Tartar from the court of Pekin. The latter keeps an
eye on the sacred youth, and sees that he does not meddle with state
affairs. Presumably also (as no Kootookta has ever been known to live
over the age of twenty) attends to other little matters when the proper
time comes.
We had left the caravan at nine o’clock. It was past ten when, passing
the Chinese town of Maimachin, the green roof and gilt balls and crosses
of the Russian Consulate came in sight, a handsome stone building, in a
spacious garden, just outside the tented city. The day was bright and
beautiful; as we galloped through the crisp clear air, our ponies’ feet
rattling along the sound and springy turf, our spirits rose at the
thought that our desert journey was really over, that the neck of the
voyage was (as we thought) broken. Ignorance, in this case, was indeed
bliss!
At a short distance, Ourga presents the appearance of some huge fair.
The white tents, blue and gold temples, and gaudy prayer-flags, gave us
at first sight a pleasing impression of the place, which was, however,
speedily dispelled on closer acquaintance with its dismal-looking
streets, deserted save by beggars and dogs, and the hideous customs
practised day and night by its strange population.
We soon reached the gates of the Russian Consulate, and I pulled the
heavy, clanging courtyard bell with a sense of relief, thinking that a
few minutes more would see us consoled for the discomforts of our thirty
days’ journey with a brandy-and-soda, or its Russian substitute in the
cool, shady reception-room, a glimpse of which we had caught while
riding past the front of the house. A stalwart Cossack answered our
summons. He was a rough, surly fellow. My knowledge of the Russian
language is limited, but I knew enough to understand that M. Shishmaroff
was away——that no one knew when he would return——and that he should have
the letter (which in despair I was holding out) when he did. With this
information, given with scant courtesy, the military janitor calmly
proceeded to shut the door in our faces. Luckily for us, however, the
arrival of a third party on the scene completely changed the aspect and
position of affairs, the new comer being no less than our sulky friend’s
wife, a burly, rosy-cheeked female of some forty summers, whose face it
did one good to see after the bilious, yellow-cheeked dames of China and
the Gobi. There was no mistaking this one——Russia——and Northern Russia
too, was written in every line of it. She was indeed a friend in need.
It was fortunate for us that the altercation at the gate had become loud
enough to attract her attention, causing her to desist from the
occupation she was engaged in, of washing her last-born at the pump, and
hasten down to the gate to see what was the matter. Whether our personal
appearance or the prospect of sundry kopeks did it, I know not, let us
hope the former. The fact remains that in less time than it takes me to
write it, she had hurled her lord and master on one side, flung wide
open the gates, and led our ponies in. She then signed to us to
dismount, and, taking us each by the hand, led us into a cottage
situated in the centre of the courtyard, and about fifty yards distant
from the Consulate.
The lady evidently, to use a vulgar term, wore the breeches, for the
partner of her joys and sorrows offered no resistance whatever when she
ordered him, after unsaddling and watering our ponies, to set off at
once with my card and the letter of introduction to where M. Shishmaroff
was staying on a shooting excursion some thirty versts off. The poor
wretch went like a lamb, and I must own it was with some satisfaction
that we saw our quondam enemy ride through the green gates and into the
blazing sun while we sat in the cool red-tiled cottage, comfortably
discussing a dish of ham and eggs and home-made bread, washed down by
copious libations of quass, and topped up by a bowl of rich thick cream,
which the good soul insisted on our drinking, whether we liked it or
not. Think of this, O dyspeptics, and ponder when I add that we felt no
ill effects. Such are the practical results of a month in the Gobi
desert on the human frame and digestion.
The long sunny day wore slowly away. As we knew some hours must elapse
before the sergeant could possibly return, Lancaster and I extended
ourselves on many chairs, and with a box of excellent cigarettes (the
sergeant’s) between us, settled down to a thoroughly lazy afternoon. The
sensation of absolute quiet and rest was little short of delicious after
the wear and tear we had been leading for nearly a month——days of dirt
and discomfort, nights of sleeplessness and misery. It was worth all the
hardship we had undergone to experience the sense of relief and rest
that long, still summer’s day in the Russian Consulate at Ourga. It was
hard to realize that one was still in the Chinese Empire. The clean
cottage, with its cool red-brick floor, bright copper saucepans, chintz
window-curtains, and flower-bedecked window-sills of to-day were such a
contrast to the grimy smoke-discoloured yourts, stuffy, vermin-infested
camel-carts of yesterday. I caught myself more than once wondering if
the past voyage was not all a dream, from which I had awoke in some
solitary wayside cottage in far-away England. The illusion was but
slowly dispelled when waking from a somewhat heavy nap (for which the
mixture of quass and cream was no doubt answerable), I found the
goodwife bustling about among her pots and pans, two curly-haired,
rosy-cheeked brats clinging to her skirts, and the kettle singing
merrily on the hob.
The sergeant returned about six o’clock with a note from M. Shishmaroff,
written in French, and begging us make ourselves at home in the
Consulate till his arrival on the morrow, an invitation we were not slow
to avail ourselves of. The caravan had by this time arrived, and we were
able, after a delicious bathe, to get a complete change of clothes, a
luxury we had not enjoyed for more than three weeks. We were one mass of
bug and flea-bites from head to foot, but a little ammonia soon set this
right. The portmanteaus, too, were swarming with camel-ticks, and the
next morning was mainly devoted to fumigating and trying to get rid of
these pests——no easy matter.
Though luxuriously furnished and fitted up with every modern appliance
and comfort, the house of the Russian Consul at Ourga is a plain-looking
stone building, with wings on either side, the one serving as a chapel,
the other as quarters for the half-dozen Cossacks forming the Guard. The
windows of the drawing-rooms looked on to a garden, spacious and well
laid out. Roses, geraniums, heliotrope, mignonette, and other flowers
grew in profusion along the borders of the neat gravel-paths, and round
the little green wooden kiosk, where after dinner Lancaster and I drank
our coffee and smoked cigarettes as we watched the sun set behind the
sacred hills, and the white city grow grey in the dusk. A more
picturesquely situated one can scarcely be imagined than Ourga, in the
midst of a fertile green plain watered by the blue waters of the Tola,
and surrounded by an amphitheatre of undulating wooded hills,
conspicuous among them being the “Sacred Mountain,” with its dark
fir-trees and little temples, where the buddhist hermits, tired of the
pomps and vanities of the world, retire to spend their last days
mortifying the flesh and turning prayer-wheels.
We went out before it grew quite dark, and had a look at the ponies.
Both were enjoying the sweet fresh grass, and seemed as contented with
their comfortable quarters outside as their masters were in. Little
Karra, as soon as he saw us, gave a shrill neigh of welcome, and bucked
away from us in a manner that speedily set my mind at rest on his
account; while the gluttonous Chow never desisted for a second from the
occupation that he was best fitted for, that of filling his inside. We
passed the European cemetery on the way back, eight or ten roughly made
graves, mere mounds of earth, with huge stones heaped on them to keep
away the dogs. The crevices between were riddled with holes where rats
had tried to get at the bodies. Only one grave boasted the smallest
attempt at adornment, a white wooden cross with black letters, bearing
the name and age of a young Russian girl who had died in Ourga a few
weeks back. I could not help wondering if the poor child ever realized,
during lifetime, that this lonely, neglected spot would ever be her last
resting-place. The graves looked weird and uncanny in the dusk, and one
was glad to leave the place and return to the Consulate; where, as we
entered, we heard in the courtyard, the sharp, shrill words of command
in Russian, as our friend the sergeant set the watch for the night. Even
in the cosy, well-lit drawing-room it was hard to shake off the
uncomfortable feeling of depression and undefined apprehension that
never quite left one in Ourga. Whether it be the climate or surroundings
of the place, I know not; but every European traveller who has visited
the Mongolian capital mentions having experienced the same sensation.
M. Shishmaroff arrived next day, a spare, wizened little man about sixty
years of age, clean-shaved, with long, wiry grey hair, and a complexion
the colour of a walnut. Colonel Petroff, the commander of the Guard, a
red-faced, burly Cossack officer, accompanied him. They had been away
for a three days’ fishing expedition, and their baskets were laden with
fine trout and “Tai-Ming” from the Tola. The latter is a species of
large pike, but, unlike it, is caught only in running streams. It is
delicious eating. Curiously enough, though this fish is caught
throughout Siberia to the very foot of the Oural mountains on the
Asiatic side, it is never found in European Russia.
Both our hosts gave us a true Russian welcome; and though the colonel
spoke but few words of French, we mutually managed to supply by signs
what we lacked in language. The Consul himself spoke French fluently.
Although he had held the post he now occupied for more than twenty
years, much of his early life had been spent in Central Asia, in the
service of the Russian Government. “But I never wish to leave Ourga,” he
said, when I one day casually remarked that the life must be rather a
dull one for a man of his talents and culture. “I am passionately fond
of my books. I enjoy the finest climate in the world. I am madly fond of
fishing, and get as much as I want of the finest sport in the world in
the Tola hard by. Above all, I am my own master, and as you English say,
‘Monarch of all I survey.’ What can a man wish for more?” And I could
not but admit there was some truth in his reasoning.
The Cossack colonel was a character. I verily believe he slept in his
uniform, spurs and all. His duties appeared light enough. It is not a
great tax on a man’s energy to command and drill six men, yet was he by
no means content with his lot. Often (after dinner) when the good old
Consul had exhausted his Central Asian anecdotes, and retired to his
books and fishing flies, our military friend would fling open his tunic,
and, throwing himself at full length on an easy chair, bewail his fate,
and curse the ill-luck that had ever brought him to Ourga. “What a
place! What pigs, these Mongols!” he would cry in execrable French, at
the same time pouring down draughts of fiery Vodka that would have made
any one but a Russian purple in the face. “Ah! mes amis! you are
fortunate, you go to Kiakhta! Beautiful Kiakhta! What fun! What gaiety!
What women! Ah! mon dieu! Would that I could accompany you!”
Occasionally, very late in the evening, he would pull out of his tunic
and kiss with much effusion a tawdrily-coloured miniature of a lady with
a countenance as of the rising sun, and what looked like two large black
holes for eyes. “I shall marry her some day,” he would say, gazing
pensively at the portrait, while his eyes filled with tears——and Vodka.
“Some day, my little Olga, you will be mine.” I never interrupted our
military friend’s rhapsodies, or inquired as to her stature, but,
judging from length of face and size of feature, Olga must have been
misshapen if she stood anything under six foot high in her stockings.
We rode through Ourga next day, and found it a dull, unpicturesque city.
There are no shops or stalls in the streets, none of the colour and
movement that make most Oriental places so picturesque. A more
melancholy, depressing place I have seldom seen; one sees nothing on all
sides but palisades about nine feet high, rough pine-tree stems, stuck
into the ground close together, and thickly plastered together with
clay. The dwellings of the inhabitants are almost entirely hidden by
these rough wooden walls. The thousands of brilliantly coloured
prayer-flags, covered with Mongolian and Tibetan characters, give a
spurious look of gaiety to the place, which is soon dispelled upon
looking around again at the silent, desolate-looking streets. The
latter, though unpaved, were clean and regularly laid out, debouching
frequently into open spaces of waste land, or squares. Erected in most
of the latter were a number of open sheds, with what looked like huge
wooden barrels inside them, but which we afterwards discovered were
prayer-wheels, hollow cylinders filled with prayers and petitions to
Buddha. We must have seen over a thousand of these scattered about
Ourga, for public use. They varied considerably in size, from those ten
to twelve feet high, great ponderous things that took three or four men
to turn them, to others not longer than a man’s hand, affixed to the
street corners. These wheels are never at rest, men and women pause, as
they hurry along the streets, to give a turn to each as they pass them,
and as one encounters one every twenty yards or so, the amount of
prayers turned out during the day in Ourga must be something enormous.
Prayer in Mongolia is all done by motive power, and we noticed
water-wheels and windmills thickly covered with sacred characters. None
of the people dreamt of passing one in the street without giving it a
turn. Some seemed to make up praying parties; for we once saw two women
and three men, grinding away at a big wheel near the Kootookta’s palace,
for at least half an hour without cessation. Some of the more devout
turned miniature wheels in the left hand, while they pushed round the
bigger ones with the right.
Thoughts of death and of a future state are the chief topics of
conversation in this weird city, and religious ceremonies and duties
form the chief occupation of the inhabitants, who go about their
business, in solemn silence and with long faces that contrast strangely
with the gaudy dresses and ornaments in which they are clad. A Mongol
may be as cheerful and boisterous as he pleases in the desert, but once
in the capital he must put on his best clothes, and observe a reserved,
silent manner in accordance with the solemn surroundings. Many of the
women were beautifully dressed and covered with handsome gold and silver
ornaments. They had in Ourga a curious way of dressing the hair, that we
had not seen in the desert. A head-dress of solid silver, studded with
coral and turquoise, fits flat, and closely to the head. From under this
their hair was brought out at right angles to the head in a solid band
about six or seven inches broad: This was kept stiff by a plentiful
application of mutton fat and other substances, and kept out by three
broad wooden bands. At the shoulders it was gathered up and allowed to
fall down in front of each shoulder in a single plait. Their painted
faces, flat noses, and beady black eyes, in conjunction with this
strange head-dress, gave them a most grotesque appearance, and utterly
spoilt any pretension to good looks they may have had, although with the
exception of Tsaira, I did not see a single good-looking woman or girl
throughout Mongolia. Ourga is said, notwithstanding, to be the most
immoral city, of its size, in the world.
Perhaps one of the most curious characteristics of Ourga is the silence
that reigns. There is here none of the hum or bustle usually found in a
place where some thousands of human beings are gathered together. No
sound, even at mid-day, breaks the solemn stillness but the eternal
creak of prayer-wheels and tolling of deep-toned gongs, save when a
discordant blast of horns announces the celebration of some ceremony at
the Kootookta’s Palace, or a tea-caravan jingles and rattles noisily
through the quiet streets and squares on its way to Siberia or China.
The chief products of Ourga appeared to be beggars and dogs. The latter
are exceptionally large and ferocious, so much so that Europeans always
ride when obliged to go into Ourga. On foot one stands a very fair
chance of being torn to pieces by the huge, savage brutes, who do not,
however, harm or take any notice of the natives. The beggars fairly
swarm——loathsome, abject wretches, many of them covered with sores, and
quite naked. Wet or dry, hot or cold, they live in the open, subsisting
on alms, or whatever offal they can pick up. We saw two or three lying
dead by the roadway. No one seemed to take any notice of the corpses
save dogs and vultures. Thousands of the latter perpetually hover over
Ourga, the largest I have ever seen, and as bold as brass. It is a
common thing to see people returning from market have their provisions
snatched out of their hands and carried off by the huge birds. I could
not believe this, till I saw it myself. No one harms them. The first
precept of Buddhism is “Thou shaft not kill,” and although this rule is
sometimes broken in the desert, an infringement of it in the city of the
Kootookta would meet with summary punishment.
The palace of the Kootookta and Lamasery or Buddhist monastery are the
only buildings of any size or importance in Ourga. We managed to get
permission, through M. Shishmaroff, from the Grand Lama of Mongolia to
visit the temple attached to the palace. We were very curious to see the
Kootookta himself, but one might as well have tried to gain admission to
the presence of the Emperor of China. He was moreover absent on a
pilgrimage to a mountain shrine, some hundred miles off, during our
stay.
The temple itself is a whitewashed, wooden building, with a pink and
blue striped dome, surmounted by a huge gilt ball. There are no windows.
It was some time on entering before we could make out the huge figure of
Buddha; for two guttering oil wicks only just made darkness visible. The
idol, which is of gilt bronze, and represented seated, is one of the
largest in the world. I could not ascertain its exact height, but we
measured one of the hands, and found it six feet long, while the rest of
the body is in the most perfect proportion. Surrounding it were five
life-sized wooden figures in Mongol dress, which startled one not a
little at first, they looked so like human beings in the dim light,
their faces and hands being made of wax and painted flesh colour. Ranged
round the walls from floor to roof were a thousand small gilt idols,
each in its own glass-covered niche, while from the dome hung some
twenty or thirty large silk prayer-flags beautifully worked with Tibetan
and Mongolian characters in gold. Some were fairly rotting with age. At
the right of the figure stood the Kootookta’s throne, a tawdry-looking
light green erection thickly covered with ill-painted flowers and
landscapes, like a shooting-gallery at a fair, which detracted not a
little from the beauty of the place. We could not see the face of this
huge figure, which was lost in the darkness high up in the dome, but M.
Shishmaroff told us it is of great beauty. Where this huge figure was
cast or how it ever got to Ourga, does not transpire. It is of enormous
antiquity, and was placed there long before the “White Barbarian” ever
set foot in these regions.
Two yellow-clad Lamas, with shaven heads and bare feet, came in as we
were leaving, to trim the lamps and collect the alms and offerings that
had been left at the feet of Buddha during the day. They seemed rude,
ill-conditioned fellows enough, and by no means pleased to see us, nor
did the rouble which Petroff gave them elicit anything but a sulky grunt
of thanks. “Canaille va!” said the Cossack, with a fierce twist of his
moustache, as we emerged into the open air, “we shall teach you a lesson
some day,” a remark that set me thinking. There is probably no race so
jealous of its religion and customs and so intolerant of a stranger’s
interference as the Mongols. It was with the utmost difficulty that I
managed to procure a small prayer-wheel about five inches long (although
there were probably thousands of such in Ourga), and then only through
the mediation of the Consul, to whom it was given, not sold to, by the
owner. Though there are five or six of these miniature wheels in every
tent, one never sees them exposed for sale, all being made in the Lama
monasteries. It was getting dusk as we mounted our ponies to return to
the Consulate. This seemed to be the favourite hour for prayer in Ourga,
for the thirty or more large prayer-wheels in front of the temple were
all in full swing, three or four men and women to each. The creaking and
grinding of the spindles was deafening, while the two sloping wooden
platforms in front of the palace, used for the purpose of public
worship, were covered with prostrate forms at evening prayer.
[Illustration: A STREET PRAYER-WHEEL AT OURGA.]
The palace, an imposing brick building of Tibetan architecture, stands
hard by the temple, with which it is connected by a covered way built to
screen the Kootookta from the vulgar gaze, when he goes to his devotions
or a council of Lamas. The residence of the human god is handsome,
though somewhat gaudy, its white façades being picked out with blue,
crimson, and gold. The approach is through two archways of Chinese
architecture, at thirty yards’ interval, richly carved and coloured
light green and vermilion. It is only in winter that the Kootookta lives
in the capital. In early spring he is taken in state by the Lamas to his
summer palace, about five miles away, on the banks of the clear,
swift-running Tola and under the very shadow of the sacred mountain.
Here the time is spent in prayer and meditation till the return of
autumn.
We rode past some tents pitched on the open space in front of the
palace, an encampment of pilgrims which had arrived in Ourga the week
before from Manchuria. One tent, that of their chief, was of green silk,
and richly ornamented with gold hangings inside and out. They seemed
cheery, good-tempered fellows, and gave us a pleasant “good night” as we
passed them, seated outside their tents discussing the evening meal
round their camp fires. Half a dozen camels and a couple of ponies
formed their caravan. They had taken more than three months to do the
journey, and were setting out again to return home the following day.
The day had been close, and a shower of rain towards sundown had made
the atmosphere steamy and depressing, as we rode slowly home through the
twilight to the Consulate. It was Petroff who first called my attention
to a faint sickly odour I had noticed on and off all the afternoon
during our peregrinations, a hot pungent smell as of decaying matter,
which I had detected in my bedroom at the Consulate the day before, and
which seemed to pursue one everywhere in and about Ourga. “You had
better light a cigarette,” said the colonel, offering me his case. “It
is always worse on these damp evenings.”
“Do you mean to say the Consul has not told you of our Golgotha,” he
continued, as soon as we were fairly alight, in reply to my innocent
query of how “it” was occasioned. “Why, it is the sight of the place.
There is just time before dinner; we will ride home that way.”
I was no longer surprised after my visit to “Golgotha,” as Colonel
Petroff facetiously termed the place where hundreds of corpses lay
rotting above ground, that the city of Ourga did not smell as sweet as
one could wish. My only surprise is, after visiting the spot in
question, that plague is not always raging in a city where the
inhabitants never dream of burying their dead, but carry them to a spot
not three hundred yards from the gates, and there let them slowly
decompose in the open air.
It would be impossible to imagine a more horrible spectacle than met our
eyes on arriving at Golgotha, an open space or cleft between two low
green hillocks just outside Ourga, a valley literally crammed with
corpses in every stage of decomposition, from the bleached bones of
skeletons that had lain there for years, to the disfigured, shapeless
masses of flesh that had been living beings but a few days or hours ago.
The moon shed a pale, unearthly light over the grinning skulls and grey,
upturned faces of the dead, some of whom lay stark and stiff just as
they had been left by their friends, others with their blue shrouds
ragged and torn, with disfigured faces and twisted limbs, lying in the
horribly grotesque positions in which the dogs or wolves had dragged
them. Near us was the body of a woman that had lain there but a few
hours, Petroff said, judging from the clean and untorn appearance of her
shroud. A little further off a number of huge dogs were fighting and
snarling over the remains of a child. Overhead great carrion birds were
flapping their huge black wings, occasionally swooping down, with a
hoarse croak, to bury beak and talon in some newly arrived corpse. The
very ground we trod was composed of human bones which crunched under our
ponies’ feet as we rode a short distance up the narrow, ghastly defile.
The stench was awful. I can never think of the place even now without a
shudder, and devoutly wish I had never seen it.
A Mongol when ill has but a poor chance of recovery in Ourga. He had far
better be alone and deserted in the plains than handed over to the
tender mercies of the Death Lamas. There is a house or shed in Ourga
near the Lamasery specially set apart for the dying, for it is
considered the worst possible luck for a Mongol to die in his own tent.
The dwelling, should this occur, is looked upon as accursed for
evermore, and its inmates shunned like lepers by their neighbours. Thus
it frequently happens that a poor wretch is bundled off without ceremony
to the “dying shed” long before there is any need for it. As the “Death
Lamas,” who receive him, do everything for the cure of his soul and
nothing for the good of his body, the invalid has a bad time of it. It
is not considered the proper thing to leave the “Death Chamber” alive,
and few do so, however slight their ailment when they are once admitted.
We tried hard, but were not allowed to enter the sacred precincts, nor
is any one who is not of the Buddhist faith and _in extremis_. The
outside world is therefore ignorant of the rites and ceremonies
practised therein by the Lamas, but the tortures suffered by the unhappy
patients is pretty apparent to any passer-by, judging from the groaning
and moaning that we heard issuing from this gruesome dwelling. When
dead, everything the patient possesses becomes the property of the Lamas
who have attended him. He is stripped naked, wrapped in a coarse blue
cotton shroud, and given up to his friends, who bear him away to
Golgotha, and there leave him to the mercy of the elements, dogs, and
vultures. Instances have been known of men and women recovering and
returning from the ghastly spot to their homes. The Mongol is, at any
rate, free from an evil which always more or less threatens us of
superior civilization——that of being buried alive.
I had not much appetite for dinner that evening, a meal we always
partook of strictly _à la Russe_, which means, literally speaking, any
amount of rich, greasy food, but no drink to wash it down with. However
thirsty one might be, wine, beer, and water were tabooed from the dinner
and breakfast table. Each guest had his small liqueur-glass, but no
tumblers, or wine-glasses. In front of the Consul stood a miniature
battery of Vodka, Kümmel, and brandy bottles, and on these he rang the
changes, replenishing our glasses with the contents of one or the other
till the close of the meal, when the hissing Samovar was brought in and
tea brewed. Our mouths by this time resembled a burning fiery furnace,
and one was glad of a draught of the cup that cheers, hot and
unrefreshing as it was. Sometimes “Koumiss,” or fermented mares’ milk,
was handed round, a drink of which the colonel and Consul partook
largely, but the violent attack of indigestion that half a glass brought
on deterred me from ever drinking the vile stuff, which tastes exactly
like butter-milk gone bad twice. It was not till bedtime that we were
really able to slake our thirst with a cool draught of our own whisky
and water from the bedroom decanter. This strange custom seemed to
prevail throughout Siberia. Thirst is a sensation apparently unknown to
Russians, and I never saw either the Consul or Petroff drink wine except
when once, after a more than usually late night, the latter opened a
bottle of champagne the following morning in our honour, and to drink to
his speedy union with the fair Olga.
We visited Maimachin the following day. Kiakhta and other frontier-towns
all have their Maimachins, a name derived from two Chinese words
signifying “Maima,” trade, and “Ching,” town, for it is here that the
Mongols purchase their stores, clothing, and provisions. Although
distant only a mile from the capital, there are probably no two places
in the world so utterly different in appearance and character as these.
Of the ten thousand inhabitants, eight thousand at least are Chinese,
merchants of various kinds, and _all men_. There is not a Chinese female
of any sort or kind in the place, for the latter are forbidden by the
laws of their country to accompany their husbands or male relatives into
Mongolia, or indeed to go anywhere north of the Great Wall of China. The
consequence of this is that many of the Maimachinites have intermarried
with Mongol women, a circumstance that debars them from ever again
entering the Chinese empire without special permission from the Court of
Pekin.
Maimachin is a neatly-built town enclosed in a brick-battlemented wall
about fifteen feet in height. The streets were, like those of all
Chinese cities, abominably dirty, but it presented for all that a very
favourable contrast to sad, sombre Ourga. The houses are of brick for
the most part, well-built, substantial dwellings with gardens and
courtyards, while on the outskirts of the city trees (planted by the
ever-industrious Chinaman) and carefully tended market and flower
gardens relieve the monotony of the dead green plain. A Chinaman much
resembles a Frenchman in one respect; put him into a swamp in
Mid-Africa, and he will make his immediate surroundings ornamental, or
at any rate as pretty as circumstances will allow.
The Temple of Confucius at Maimachin was a pleasant contrast to the
gaunt, whitewashed structure of Buddha at Ourga. Though much smaller in
dimensions, it was a model of symmetry and beauty, and embellished with
carvings and sculpture which it seemed a sin to have covered with the
eternal gold and vermilion so dear to every celestial’s heart. In front
was a little courtyard overhung with weeping willows and paved with
smooth grey tiles, round the edge of which ran broad beds of roses and
mignonette, while in the centre a fountain plashed lazily into a basin
of cool green water, covered with clusters of great white water lilies.
Hung around the roof of the temple were hundreds of small gilt bells
with sails attached to their clappers, which at the slightest breath of
air produced a sweet musical sound. It was a relief to sit in this
pretty cool retreat and forget for a while the dirty, dismal city with
its leprous population and unburied dead not two thousand yards off!
Moses and Co. had only contracted to bring us as far as Ourga, so we now
set about getting fresh camels for the journey to Kiakhta, a distance of
over two hundred miles. We were not anxious to prolong our stay in
Ourga. One walk through the city had more than satisfied our curiosity,
and the unsavoury whiffs that came in at our open windows whenever the
wind was blowing in from the direction of Golgotha, only made us the
more anxious to hasten our departure, notwithstanding the kind and
pressing invitation of our good-natured friend and guide, Petroff, to
stay a few days longer and have some trout-fishing, a sport I have never
been particularly fond of, though I believe it is to be had in
perfection in the waters of the Tola, judging from the large basketsful
M. Shishmaroff brought in almost daily.
We procured camels with less difficulty than I had anticipated, though
not without a good deal of haggling and discussion as to price with the
greasy old Mongol whose property they were. The old robber insisted on
payment beforehand, and insisted on its being made in _brick tea_, which
gave us an enormous amount of trouble and annoyance. We managed it at
last, with the aid of M. Shoolingin, a Russian tea-merchant, but the
calculation entailed a consumption of tea, Vodka, and cigarettes that
gave us a headache for two days afterwards! It took us nearly three
hours to convert our Kalgan bills into the requisite amount of the
awkward countersome material that passes current for coin in Ourga and
throughout Mongolia. The tea is of the coarsest kind. After being
submitted to a pressing and drying process, it is cut up into bricks of
25 cents, 50 cents, and $1 value. The latter are nearly two feet long.
The cost of the camels for our journey to Kiakhta was $35, so the old
Mongol had to call in two others to help him carry away his spoil, under
which he staggered away with a grin and a leer that made us doubt
whether he had not swindled us, which we afterwards discovered he had to
the amount of some $15. Bank-notes have lately been introduced by the
Russian tea-firms in Ourga, representing so many bricks of tea each.
These would do away with much of the difficulty attending the carting
about of the present heavy, clumsy currency, but the natives will have
nothing to do with them.
We left Ourga at 5 a.m. on the morning of the 3rd of August. Our caravan
was now considerably reduced in size, for it needed but four camels
(besides the two for the carts) to carry our few remaining stores. Early
as it was, the Consul and Petroff were at the gate to bid us good-bye.
The poor colonel looked very sad and down in the mouth. He was thinking,
no doubt, of Olga, for whom he gave me innumerable tender messages. As
they were confided verbally, and in Russian, it is perhaps as well that
I never made the acquaintance of the belle of “Beautiful Kiakhta.” She
would have been somewhat confused at my interpretation of her fiancé’s
messages, and might have taken his declarations of undying love and
devotion for my own. As the caravan moved slowly out of the gate on the
second stage of our weary journey, the guard gave us three hearty
cheers, and we drank a final Vodka with Petroff, arranging to meet, if
all went well, the following year in Petersburg, a place the gay,
light-hearted soldier seemed far more suited to than the dreary
desert-city in which we left him. Pleasing indeed was this our first
experience of Russian friendship and hospitality, nor had we ever cause
to alter our opinion. With all our vaunted hospitality, I doubt if even
the English are not behind the Russians in these two qualities, which I
have never seen so general as in Russia and Siberia.
A caravan of three hundred ox-carts laden with timber and furs passed
the gates as we were leaving, going in the contrary direction to
ourselves. They were bound for Dolonnor in Manchuria, a town, Petroff
told us, they would be entering about the same date as we should be
nearing the English Channel at Calais.
Our way lay straight through Ourga. I could not help wondering, as we
passed Golgotha for the last time, and noticed the thick white steam
rising from it, that the place is not one continual hotbed of cholera
and typhus. Yet it is not so. The clear, dry, rarified atmosphere and
hot sunshine in summer and severe frost and cold in winter do much to
mitigate the unhealthy vapours and stench that constantly hang over the
city. Ourga is as a matter of fact extremely healthy, and cholera is,
and always has been, unknown in the capital of Mongolia.
Both our camel-drivers being Lamas, they asked permission to halt for a
few minutes as we passed the Temple Gates, while a couple of
rascally-looking priests came out and blessed the caravan, an operation
which was witnessed with great interest by the bystanders, who abandoned
their occupation of wheel-turning and came up and leisurely examined the
inside of our carts, our clothes, boots, rifles, &c., with apparent
interest. The ceremony of blessing us consisted in throwing a couple of
gourds of arrack and some grains of millet over the leading and last
camel, a proceeding that is supposed to ensure a rapid and prosperous
journey. It was rather a failure in our case, for it took us exactly a
week to get to Kiakhta, a voyage usually accomplished with ease in three
days by the Russians at Ourga.
Three separate ranges of mountains lay between us and Kiakhta, one, the
“Bain Gol” pass, so steep as to necessitate the using of bullocks to
drag the huge unwieldy carts across, for the Mongolian camel has the
greatest objection to pulling weights up-hill, be it ever so slight a
gradient. Two broad and swift rivers, the “Kharra” and “Irul,” have also
to be crossed, the former forded, the latter by ferry. Shishmaroff
specially cautioned us not to attempt the passage of the Irul after
dark, for the stream is dangerous owing to sunken rocks, and the ferry
old and unsecure.
The going was very hard the first two days and the shaking in the carts
far worse than anything we had yet experienced. To compensate us for the
discomfort and fatigue, however, we passed through some of the loveliest
mountain scenery I have ever seen. Game was abundant the whole way,
hundreds of partridges (the sand-grouse is not met with here) and hares,
with an occasional shot at a golden pheasant with which the dense
forests abounded. We passed the second day a small pond or lake, alive
with duck and sheldrake. Stopping the caravan for a few moments, we
bagged a couple, and on the way back two couple of snipe from the marsh
surrounding the water. Though we had to wade waist deep for nearly a
quarter of a mile, it was worth the trouble. There must have been at
least thirty duck on the pond, which was barely twenty yards wide.
We had now nothing to complain of with regard to excess of energy and
activity on the part of our drivers. Our difficulty with the new Mongols
was not to get them to stop, but to go on. The leader, a fat, stumpy old
fellow, with eyes like an owl, slept calmly and peacefully on his
camel’s back throughout the day, only to awake at the midnight halt from
which hour, till we started again at six, he would devote himself to
gorging, smoking innumerable pipes, and saying, or rather singing, his
prayers, an operation that kept us awake the greater part of the night.
I verily believe we went quite double the distance we should have done,
owing to this old wretch’s sleepiness and idiotcy. Something was always
going wrong. Water running short, packs falling off, the caravan filing
quietly away in a direction totally different to that it should have
taken, while the old fellow partook of nature’s sweet restorer,
blissfully unconscious of our cries and threats. No amount of shouting
would wake him——indeed, nothing short of pulling him off his camel. At
such times he would look at one with an injured stare, shake himself
into his seat, and go off again, only to fall asleep a few hundred yards
further on, when the operation of pulling off had to be repeated. The
second driver was, luckily, a bright, intelligent boy of about twenty,
who saved things from going utterly to the bad. Had it not been for him,
we should even now be vainly endeavouring to reach the Russo-Chinese
frontier.
I do not think we got more than twelve hours’ sleep in all during the
journey from Ourga to Kiakhta, and this was the greatest discomfort with
which one had to contend. Even when, after an uninterrupted spell of
hard work for twelve hours, the caravan halted at midnight till
daybreak, sleep was often impossible from the very knowledge that in
five hours’ at most one would have to be on the tramp again. Besides the
hammering in of tent-pegs, chopping of firewood, and last, but not
least, the semi-musical prayers of our somnolent driver often lasted
till four or half past, and put sleep out of the question. A Mongol is
never so wakeful and active as at night, and if he is musically
inclined, always indulges this propensity in the darkness, when all
right-minded people are courting the drowsy god. Expostulating was
useless, as any one who has ever been brought in contact with this
strange race will understand.
We were now a good deal bothered by mosquitoes and sandflies, an
annoyance from which we had been free throughout Northern China, and the
desert proper. Now, however, these pests attacked us night and day in
myriads, and we suffered a good deal from their bites, which were
unusually severe and poisonous.
Our younger camel-driver carried a very original prayer-wheel, a sort of
miniature windmill let into the butt-end of his thick, heavy whip. When
set going and held against the wind, this ingenious contrivance would
spin away without cessation for hours together. He was a devout youth,
and it was a long time before I could induce him to part with it, but
love of filthy lucre finally overcame religious scruples, and I managed
to buy it of him on arrival at Kiakhta for a couple of roubles, under
the strictest injunctions not to tell the “Old Sheep,” as he
irreverently termed the sleepy Lama.
We reached the banks of the Kharra at nine o’clock on the morning of the
6th of August. This river is a tributary of the Khon River, which has
its source near the Kara Korum Mountains in central Mongolia, and after
winding its course of nearly 700 miles, flows into the great inland sea
of Lake Baikal, after watering the towns of Kiakhta and Selenginsk,
where, however, it is not navigable. There was no ferry, but we managed
to ford it pretty easily. The weather had been dry, and the stream,
which in time of flood is rapid and very dangerous, was never above our
girths the whole way across. The water was beautifully clear, with a
shingly bed, and we took the opportunity of filling the water-casks, not
without a good deal of opposition from the Mongols, notwithstanding that
the water had been filthy ever since leaving Ourga. This extraordinary
people seem to prefer drinking out of a stagnant pool or well, in which
a dead sheep or camel has been soaking for days, to filling the casks
out of a pure running stream. On the banks of the river were three
dirty, dilapidated yourts, empty, the first signs of a habitation we had
seen since leaving Ourga.
Lovely weather had favoured us till now; bright hot sunshine tempered
with a cool fresh breeze. But it was too good to last. About four
o’clock to-day, the bright blue sky became overcast, and half an hour
later, down came the rain, and continued steadily, and without
cessation, till 2 a.m. The roofs of our carts, warped and cracked by the
heat of the sun, leaked like sieves. But the weather, rough as it was,
did not in the least affect my driver’s somnolent propensities. I was
awoke that night, about eleven, out of a fitful doze, by a crash, to
find that we were crossing a steep, precipitous range of hills, and that
my cart was balancing itself on one wheel, on the edge of a precipice,
the bottom of which was invisible. I could pretty well gauge the height,
though, by the sound of a torrent dashing and foaming over some rocks at
least a hundred feet below. I was only just in time to catch hold of his
nose-string, and wrench the camel back into safety. In another moment
the whole caravan would have toppled over. It was the old story. The
Lama had been asleep. This last straw was too much, and in a fit of
ungovernable temper, I pulled the old wretch off his camel, and sent him
sprawling on his back on the stony pathway. But he took it perfectly
coolly, merely picking himself up without a word, and with the usual
stolid stare of mingled surprise and annoyance, calmly proceeded to
clamber up again. Five minutes more and he was as sound asleep as ever.
What could one do with such a creature, but give it up in despair! I
took the precaution, however, though it still poured with rain, of
walking till daylight.
A bright sunny morning made up for the discomforts of the night, and we
were able, while fires were being lit and tea prepared, to dry our
clothes and mattresses in the sun, which as early as eight o’clock was
too warm to be pleasant. The scenery throughout the day resembled one
enormous deer-park. Grassy slopes, as smooth as a billiard-table, and
every now and again large clumps of fir-trees, which grew so regularly,
they looked as if art and not nature had placed them there; while on the
horizon, green, undulating hills, covered with forests of dark
pine-trees, cut the bright blue sky-line. The track occasionally led
past clear broad sheets of water teeming with fish, occasionally through
belts of copse-wood, of silver birch and hazel, the ground one blaze of
hyacinths, wild roses, and pinks growing in the thick rich grass, with
clear, narrow brooklets running here and there through the thick
undergrowth. We saw a brace of pheasants in one of these woods, but too
far off to get a shot. About mid-day we halted for dinner under a clump
of fir-trees. The cattle grazing in the sunshine, the quiet stillness of
the place, broken only by the droning of insects, and voices of children
playing near some distant yourt, was intensely refreshing after our
night of misery. What would not these hundreds of miles of splendid
pasture be worth at home? No wonder the Mongols are a contented race
with such land as this, and no rent to pay!
Four o’clock the following morning saw us at the foot of the mountain,
to cross which we were to abandon the camels and take to oxen. Sylvia
was despatched in quest of the latter, but did not return with them till
nearly three o’clock the following afternoon. We thus had a delay of
nearly twenty-four hours, but were not altogether sorry, for the shaking
and jolting of the past two days made one glad of a rest. We encamped
close to a limestone mountain, about five hundred feet high, from the
summit of which a huge piece of rock, quite a hundred feet in height,
had become detached, and crumbling away as clean as if cut with a knife,
had fallen on to the caravan-track immediately below. It was six o’clock
by the time we had got the bullocks in and commenced the ascent of the
pass, which, gradual at first, became very difficult long before we
reached the summit. One bullock was harnessed to the shafts, the other
to the axle of the wheel, but so severe was the strain the ropes
continually broke on the way up. The cart and pack camels were in
readiness to take us on when we reached the other side. Though a
distance of only five miles from where we encamped, they took nearly
eight hours to do the journey.
The way lay at first through a narrow ravine thickly grown with pine and
silver birch. Through the centre ran a clear running brook, plashing
over limestone rocks and boulders, and almost hidden by ferns and wild
flowers. Above us towered the almost perpendicular wall of rock that
must be conquered before nightfall, if we wished to avoid camping out
all night on some rocky ledge——not a pleasing prospect——for it was
already bitterly cold out of the rays of the sun. I noticed here,
growing in great luxuriance, a bright _yellow_ poppy——a colour in which
I had always imagined that flower was unknown. This part of the mountain
also swarmed with enormous hares. We must have seen some thirty or
forty, and could easily have bagged half a dozen, but Moses would not
hear of it, or of our delaying the caravan for a moment to get out our
guns. As the ascent was getting harder every moment, we did not argue
the matter.
I think that was quite the worst bit of mountain work we did the whole
journey. Every moment I thought the bullocks would give in, or the carts
go to pieces. The boulders they had to get over, holes and watercourses
to get out of, would have seemed incredible to any one unacquainted with
Mongolian travel. On foot it was bad enough, and we were glad we had
sent on the ponies, for it would have been impossible to climb and lead
them as well. Every ten minutes or so a halt was made for a quarter of
an hour. Thus we toiled on, till half-past eight o’clock, when we found
ourselves on the summit, after four hours of as hard, physical work as I
ever experienced.
The moon had now risen, which made the view from the summit very
picturesque. Round us on every side stretched away chains of lofty
mountains, their limestone peaks gleaming white in the moonlight, while
a grey, flaky mist half hid the deep gorges of pine and fir-trees at our
feet. A bright light shining out of the darkness in the distance showed
where our camels awaited us on the plain——twelve hundred feet below. We
rested for an hour, to give the bullocks breathing-time, and then
commenced the descent. It was a weird scene. A Chinese lantern just
sufficed to make darkness visible, and show that we had halted by the
side of a huge cairn, about twenty feet high, formed of stones, bits of
stick, mutton bones, and strewn here and there with bits of red, yellow,
and white cloth covered with Tibetan and Mongol characters. As we left
the spot, our Mongols, unable to find a stone, each picked up a branch
of fir, and placed it reverently on the heap. These are looked on as
offerings to the “God of travellers,” who protects the faithful from
peril while on a journey. We reached the camels again at ten o’clock.
One tael did not seem exorbitant for the hiring of six bullocks, and the
services of three extra Mongols, for that was the sum Jee Boo told me he
paid them, and they seemed quite satisfied. Probably the greater part of
that found its way into our trusty interpreter’s pockets.
Our road was now clear to Kiakhta, and there were no further
difficulties to be got over, excepting the Irul river——a broad, swift
stream, the crossing of which is dangerous at certain seasons. Jee Boo,
ever a Job’s comforter, told us that the natives reported heavy rains,
and if such was the case, we should certainly have a tough job of it.
But he had so often cried “Wolf,” we paid no heed to his statement.
We travelled on all night, halting at nine the next morning for tea and
biscuits. Part of the work was very fatiguing, as we had to cross
several miles of country thickly covered with huge mole-hills, over
which the carts jolted terribly, for there was no beaten track. The
shaking at last became so unbearable that we left the carts at 4 a.m.,
tired as we were, and walked till the morning halt. We passed, just
after sunrise, a large wooden building, a monastery of Tibetan
architecture, its white façades gaudy with blue and red stripes and a
gilt cupola. As we passed, two or three Lamas came out and blessed the
caravan in the usual manner, an operation which necessitated a stoppage
of half an hour.
Nearly the whole of this day’s work was through deep, drifting sand——in
many places over the axles. At mid-day there was not a blade of grass or
vegetation to be seen. This part of the country was, in fact, far more
like one’s idea of what a desert should be than anything we had come
through in Gobi. In the midst of this sandy waste (about fifteen miles
in length), we came to a green valley or oasis, fresh and beautiful. The
descent to it (for it lay in a hollow whence not a particle of sand was
visible) was about fifty feet deep. Grass grew luxuriantly here, and a
clear brook of running water springing from Heaven knows where, ran the
whole length of the defile into a small lake or pond at the end——a dark,
shady pool fringed with willows, and covered with white, broad-leaved
water-lilies. Wild flowers of all kinds covered the roadway, among them
the forget-me-not and marguerites of a delicate mauve colour. Although
the sun had been hot and scorching out on the sand, the air struck like
a cold bath the moment we entered this fertile valley, but so damp was
the atmosphere, that our clothes were wringing wet when we emerged at
the other end. The mosquitoes and sandflies, too, were the largest and
most venomous I have ever seen or felt, and our faces and hands so
inflamed that we had to stop the caravan and bathe them with ammonia,
which, however, did little good, for we got no sleep for twenty-four
hours after. The bites took days to heal. Game of all sorts, duck, teal,
and widgeon appeared to abound in this “sleepy hollow,” and we managed
to bag a duck, which made a welcome addition to the usual menu of
preserved meat and sardines.
The morning of the 8th August broke dull and lowering, and about mid-day
a thin rain commenced falling, which by degrees increased to a steady
downpour at 4 a.m. We were to reach the Irul river at about sunset, and,
if possible, cross before dark, but felt, if Jee Boo’s prediction were
true, that we should indeed have our work cut out. The woolly, grey
clouds and leaden sky gave but little promise of a break in the weather.
Our only prayer was that the wind might not rise, but in this we were
also disappointed, for by the time we had reached the banks of the
river, or rather the margin, for it had overflowed for a considerable
distance, the sky was as black as ink, the rain coming down in sheets,
and the wind blowing in violent gusts that threatened every moment to
blow the carts clean over. To think of crossing that night would have
been madness. To say nothing of the fact that another caravan was
waiting to be ferried over before us, the ferryman would not answer for
the strength of the rope holding out against the current and gale
combined. Still, if the Gospodins liked, and did not mind risking it,
the head man (who was a Bouriatte, and spoke Russian well,) would do
what he could to get them over. The Gospodins, however, strongly
objected to risking it, and determined to make themselves as comfortable
as circumstances and the last half-bottle of whisky would permit, till
morning.
I thoroughly enjoyed that night’s rest. Whether it was the consciousness
that we had a really quiet night before us (I had given orders not to be
“called” till nine), or the hot whisky and water, I know not, but I had
not enjoyed such a night’s rest since leaving Pekin. I only woke once
during the night, woke to hear the rain still pattering on the roof, and
to find myself lying in the usual pool of water, while the wind still
howled mournfully round the carts. The sight of the river dashing by in
a sheet of white foam was not reassuring, but did not interfere with my
slumbers, for rolling myself in sheepskins, I slept away peacefully till
past nine o’clock the next morning, when Jee Boo opened the door to let
in a bright flood of sunshine and the welcome news that the rain had
ceased.
The stream was still swollen from the incessant rain; but the caravan
that had encamped next us had crossed at daylight in safety, with the
exception of the loss of one bullock. Our camels were taken to a ford
about a mile up stream, and we preferred accompanying them to trusting
ourselves to the rickety old boat and frayed, rotten-looking rope, for
the new one had not yet arrived. The ferry itself did not look capable
of carrying half a dozen men, much less a heavy, clumsy camel-cart.
Arrived at the ford, however, the spectacle of the leading camel
suddenly disappearing from view in a deep hole made us change our minds
and return to the boat. The first cart had just been got in, and we
leapt on board just as they were shoving off into the stream.
Little more than half way across, a huge snag or tree-trunk got
entangled with the rope and impeded our passage. I thought it quite time
to say my prayers, for, had the cart tilted over, we must have followed
it. It was a trying moment. The deafening roar of the torrent, pale,
scared faces of the Mongols, as they rushed to and fro screaming and
yelling to each other, but doing nothing to lessen the strain on the
rope, which, stretched to its utmost, threatened to snap every moment.
At last one of the men, wiser and pluckier than the rest, rushed to the
bows, and with a superhuman effort dislodged the heavy mass, and sent it
tumbling away down-stream, and we forged slowly ahead again, with a sigh
of relief, for I fully expected our last hour had come.
We walked up to the ford again while the other carts were being got
over. About fifty or sixty bullocks belonging to a tea-caravan were
being driven across by men and women who were pelting them with stones
until they leapt into the torrent, to emerge half dead and prostrate
from fright and exhaustion about two hundred yards lower down. Many of
the caravan people were women, some young and good-looking, though their
costumes were more scanty than elegant. One, a pretty, bright-eyed girl
of about sixteen, took a violent fancy to my brown boots, and it was
only with the greatest difficulty I could prevent her from cutting them
off my feet. The caravan, laden with furs from Irkoutsk, was bound for
Pekin, and would probably be returning four months later with tea to
Kiakhta.
We left the Irul at mid-day. Travelling was now easier, and the jolting
scarcely perceptible on the hard, gravelly track that leads from the
banks of this river right into the town of Kiakhta. Although the country
is uncultivated, the scenery we passed through would have compared
favourably with the lovelier parts of Switzerland and the Tyrol. Green
fertile plains surrounded by chains of undulating fir-clad hills,
occasional belts of forest with flowers and ferns in profusion, bubbling
waterfalls splashing down the hill sides, through the moss-grown,
ivy-clad boulders, then through vast plains of pasture again——such was
the scenery we passed through the day before reaching Kiakhta. There
grew, also, throughout this region (I saw it nowhere else) a
long-stalked, star-shaped, violet flower, with a strong scent of
heliotrope. The air was full of the scent for miles around, and one
could see great violet patches of it on the green plain, stretching away
at intervals to the horizon on every side. I doubt if there is a country
in the world where wild flowers grow so luxuriantly as in parts of
Mongolia.
The succeeding day (August 10th) we got into a sandy region again, with
intervals of grass plain. Some of the drifts being of great depth, the
camels had a bad time of it, and suffered severely from the heat. Poor
little Karra could scarcely stagger along, and had Kiakhta been a couple
of days further, I doubt if he would ever have reached Siberia.
Lancaster’s cart seemed under a curse; for to-day, the driver being, as
usual, asleep, the near wheel ran up a high sand-hillock and upset the
whole machine, Lancaster being asleep inside at the time. It was luckily
deep sand, or it must have been a nasty fall. It was fortunate, too, our
journey was over, for the camel, falling under the shaft, had split it
clean in two. I firmly believe the Mongol would have been sent to his
fathers, had a revolver been handy, and I had the greatest difficulty in
preventing my friend from going for him with the broken shaft.
About four o’clock a glittering speck on the horizon attracted our
attention, which an hour later proved to be the spire of Kiakhta
Cathedral. By six o’clock we were full in sight of the town of
Maimachin, the Chinese settlement, its pagodas and quaint architecture
standing out in striking contrast to the Russian cathedral, with its
golden dome, the European stone-built houses, and regular streets and
squares of Kiakhta. Skirting the wooden walls surrounding Maimachin, we
find ourselves on a broad, level piece of ground about six hundred yards
broad, with, on the right hand, a guard-house and high wooden gates,
surmounted by the Imperial Eagle, while to our left the Chinese flag,
hoisted on to a long red pole, floats in front of the governor of
Maimachin’s residence. We are standing on neutral ground, and in another
minute have passed the Cossack, who from the depths of a black and white
sentry-box, eyes the caravan with a stolid, indifferent expression, but,
curious to relate, does not ask for our passports. The first stage of
our journey is over. We are in the Russian Empire.
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