CHAPTER XVI

IN MYSTERIOUS TIBET

A fairly broad road led out from Sharkhe through the mountains and on

the fifth day of our two weeks’ march to the south from the monastery

we emerged into the great bowl of the mountains in whose center lay the

large lake of Koko Nor. If Finland deserves the ordinary title of the

“Land of Ten Thousand Lakes,” the dominion of Koko Nor may certainly

with justice be called the “Country of a Million Lakes.” We skirted

this lake on the west between it and Doulan Kitt, zigzagging between the

numerous swamps, lakes and small rivers, deep and miry. The water was

not here covered with ice and only on the tops of the mountains did we

feel the cold winds sharply. We rarely met the natives of the country

and only with greatest difficulty did our Kalmuck learn the course of

the road from the occasional shepherds we passed. From the eastern shore

of the Lake of Tassoun we worked round to a monastery on the further

side, where we stopped for a short rest. Besides ourselves there was

also another group of guests in the holy place. These were Tibetans.

Their behavior was very impertinent and they refused to speak with us.

They were all armed, chiefly with the Russian military rifles and were

draped with crossed bandoliers of cartridges with two or three pistols

stowed beneath belts with more cartridges sticking out. They examined

us very sharply and we readily realized that they were estimating our

martial strength. After they had left on that same day I ordered our

Kalmuck to inquire from the High Priest of the temple exactly who they

were. For a long time the monk gave evasive answers but when I showed

him the ring of Hutuktu Narabanchi and presented him with a large yellow

hatyk, he became more communicative.

“Those are bad people,” he explained. “Have a care of them.”

However, he was not willing to give their names, explaining his refusal

by citing the Law of Buddhist lands against pronouncing the name of

one’s father, teacher or chief. Afterwards I found out that in North

Tibet there exists the same custom as in North China. Here and there

bands of hunghutze wander about. They appear at the headquarters of the

leading trading firms and at the monasteries, claim tribute and after

their collections become the protectors of the district. Probably this

Tibetan monastery had in this band just such protectors.

When we continued our trip, we frequently noticed single horsemen far

away or on the horizon, apparently studying our movements with care. All

our attempts to approach them and enter into conversation with them were

entirely unsuccessful. On their speedy little horses they disappeared

like shadows. As we reached the steep and difficult Pass on the Hamshan

and were preparing to spend the night there, suddenly far up on a ridge

above us appeared about forty horsemen with entirely white mounts and

without formal introduction or warning spattered us with a hail of

bullets. Two of our officers fell with a cry. One had been instantly

killed while the other lived some few minutes. I did not allow my men

to shoot but instead I raised a white flag and started forward with

the Kalmuck for a parley. At first they fired two shots at us but then

ceased firing and sent down a group of riders from the ridge toward

us. We began the parley. The Tibetans explained that Hamshan is a holy

mountain and that here one must not spend the night, advising us to

proceed farther where we could consider ourselves in safety. They

inquired from us whence we came and whither we were going, stated in

answer to our information about the purpose of our journey that they

knew the Bolsheviki and considered them the liberators of the people of

Asia from the yoke of the white race. I certainly did not want to begin

a political quarrel with them and so turned back to our companions.

Riding down the slope toward our camp, I waited momentarily for a shot

in the back but the Tibetan hunghutze did not shoot.

We moved forward, leaving among the stones the bodies of two of our

companions as sad tribute to the difficulties and dangers of our

journey. We rode all night, with our exhausted horses constantly

stopping and some lying down under us, but we forced them ever onward.

At last, when the sun was at its zenith, we finally halted. Without

unsaddling our horses, we gave them an opportunity to lie down for a

little rest. Before us lay a broad, swampy plain, where was evidently

the sources of the river Ma-chu. Not far beyond lay the Lake of Aroung

Nor. We made our fire of cattle dung and began boiling water for our

tea. Again without any warning the bullets came raining in from all

sides. Immediately we took cover behind convenient rocks and waited

developments. The firing became faster and closer, the raiders appeared

on the whole circle round us and the bullets came ever in increasing

numbers. We had fallen into a trap and had no hope but to perish. We

realized this clearly. I tried anew to begin the parley; but when I

stood up with my white flag, the answer was only a thicker rain of

bullets and unfortunately one of these, ricocheting off a rock, struck

me in the left leg and lodged there. At the same moment another one of

our company was killed. We had no other choice and were forced to begin

fighting. The struggle continued for about two hours. Besides myself

three others received slight wounds. We resisted as long as we could.

The hunghutze approached and our situation became desperate.

“There’s no choice,” said one of my associates, a very expert Colonel.

“We must mount and ride for it . . . anywhere.”

“Anywhere. . . .” It was a terrible word! We consulted for but an

instant. It was apparent that with this band of cut-throats behind us

the farther we went into Tibet, the less chance we had of saving our

lives.

We decided to return to Mongolia. But how? That we did not know. And

thus we began our retreat. Firing all the time, we trotted our horses

as fast as we could toward the north. One after another three of my

companions fell. There lay my Tartar with a bullet through his neck.

After him two young and fine stalwart officers were carried from their

saddles with cries of death, while their scared horses broke out across

the plain in wild fear, perfect pictures of our distraught selves. This

emboldened the Tibetans, who became more and more audacious. A bullet

struck the buckle on the ankle strap of my right foot and carried it,

with a piece of leather and cloth, into my leg just above the ankle.

My old and much tried friend, the agronome, cried out as he grasped his

shoulder and then I saw him wiping and bandaging as best as he could his

bleeding forehead. A second afterward our Kalmuck was hit twice right

through the palm of the same hand, so that it was entirely shattered.

Just at this moment fifteen of the hunghutze rushed against us in a

charge.

“Shoot at them with volley fire!” commanded our Colonel.

Six robber bodies lay on the turf, while two others of the gang were

unhorsed and ran scampering as fast as they could after their retreating

fellows. Several minutes later the fire of our antagonists ceased and

they raised a white flag. Two riders came forward toward us. In the

parley it developed that their chief had been wounded through the chest

and they came to ask us to “render first aid.” At once I saw a ray

of hope. I took my box of medicines and my groaning, cursing, wounded

Kalmuck to interpret for me.

“Give that devil some cyanide of potassium,” urged my companions.

But I devised another scheme.

We were led to the wounded chief. There he lay on the saddle cloths

among the rocks, represented to us to be a Tibetan but I at once

recognized him from his cast of countenance to be a Sart or Turcoman,

probably from the southern part of Turkestan. He looked at me with

a begging and frightened gaze. Examining him, I found the bullet had

passed through his chest from left to right, that he had lost much blood

and was very weak. Conscientiously I did all that I could for him. In

the first place I tried on my own tongue all the medicines to be used on

him, even the iodoform, in order to demonstrate that there was no

poison among them. I cauterized the wound with iodine, sprinkled it with

iodoform and applied the bandages. I ordered that the wounded man be not

touched nor moved and that he be left right where he lay. Then I taught

a Tibetan how the dressing must be changed and left with him medicated

cotton, bandages and a little iodoform. To the patient, in whom the

fever was already developing, I gave a big dose of aspirin and left

several tablets of quinine with them. Afterwards, addressing myself to

the bystanders through my Kalmuck, I said very solemnly:

“The wound is very dangerous but I gave to your Chief very strong

medicine and hope that he will recover. One condition, however,

is necessary: the bad demons which have rushed to his side for his

unwarranted attack upon us innocent travelers will instantly kill him,

if another shot is let off against us. You must not even keep a single

cartridge in your rifles.”

With these words I ordered the Kalmuck to empty his rifle and I, at

the same time, took all the cartridges out of my Mauser. The Tibetans

instantly and very servilely followed my example.

“Remember that I told you: ‘Eleven days and eleven nights do not move

from this place and do not charge your rifles.’ Otherwise the demon of

death will snatch off your Chief and will pursue you!”--and with these

words I solemnly drew forth and raised above their heads the ring of

Hutuktu Narabanchi.

I returned to my companions and calmed them. I told them we were safe

against further attack from the robbers and that we must only guess the

way to reach Mongolia. Our horses were so exhausted and thin that on

their bones we could have hung our overcoats. We spent two days here,

during which time I frequently visited my patient. It also gave us

opportunity to bandage our own fortunately light wounds and to secure

a little rest; though unfortunately I had nothing but a jackknife

with which to dig the bullet out of my left calf and the shoemaker’s

accessories from my right ankle. Inquiring from the brigands about the

caravan roads, we soon made our way out to one of the main routes and

had the good fortune to meet there the caravan of the young Mongol

Prince Pounzig, who was on a holy mission carrying a message from

the Living Buddha in Urga to the Dalai Lama in Lhasa. He helped us to

purchase horses, camels and food.

With all our arms and supplies spent in barter during the journey for

the purchase of transport and food, we returned stripped and broken to

the Narabanchi Monastery, where we were welcomed by the Hutuktu.

“I knew you would come back,” said he. “The divinations revealed it all

to me.”

With six of our little band left behind us in Tibet to pay the eternal

toll of our dash for the south we returned but twelve to the Monastery

and waited there two weeks to re-adjust ourselves and learn how events

would again set us afloat on this turbulent sea to steer for any port

that Destiny might indicate. The officers enlisted in the detachment

which was then being formed in Mongolia to fight against the destroyers

of their native land, the Bolsheviki. My original companion and I

prepared to continue our journey over Mongolian plains with whatever

further adventures and dangers might come in the struggle to escape to a

place of safety.

And now, with the scenes of that trying march so vividly recalled, I

would dedicate these chapters to my gigantic, old and ruggedly tried

friend, the agronome, to my Russian fellow-travelers, and especially, to

the sacred memory of those of our companions whose bodies lie cradled

in the sleep among the mountains of Tibet--Colonel Ostrovsky, Captains

Zuboff and Turoff, Lieutenant Pisarjevsky, Cossack Vernigora and

Tartar Mahomed Spirin. Also here I express my deep thanks for help and

friendship to the Prince of Soldjak, Hereditary Noyon Ta Lama and to

the Kampo Gelong of Narabanchi Monastery, the honorable Jelyb Djamsrap

Hutuktu.

Part II

THE LAND OF DEMONS

CHAPTER XVII

MYSTERIOUS MONGOLIA

In the heart of Asia lies the enormous, mysterious and rich country of

Mongolia. From somewhere on the snowy slopes of the Tian Shan and from

the hot sands of Western Zungaria to the timbered ridges of the Sayan

and to the Great Wall of China it stretches over a huge portion of

Central Asia. The cradle of peoples, histories and legends; the native

land of bloody conquerors, who have left here their capitals covered

by the sand of the Gobi, their mysterious rings and their ancient nomad

laws; the states of monks and evil devils, the country of wandering

tribes administered by the descendants of Jenghiz Khan and Kublai

Khan--Khans and Princes of the Junior lines: that is Mongolia.

Mysterious country of the cults of Rama, Sakkia-Mouni, Djonkapa and

Paspa, cults guarded by the very person of the living Buddha--Buddha

incarnated in the third dignitary of the Lamaite religion--Bogdo Gheghen

in Ta Kure or Urga; the land of mysterious doctors, prophets, sorcerers,

fortune-tellers and witches; the land of the sign of the swastika; the

land which has not forgotten the thoughts of the long deceased great

potentates of Asia and of half of Europe: that is Mongolia.

The land of nude mountains, of plains burned by the sun and killed by

the cold, of ill cattle and ill people; the nest of pests, anthrax

and smallpox; the land of boiling hot springs and of mountain passes

inhabited by demons; of sacred lakes swarming with fish; of wolves, rare

species of deer and mountain goats, marmots in millions, wild horses,

wild donkeys and wild camels that have never known the bridle, ferocious

dogs and rapacious birds of prey which devour the dead bodies cast out

on the plains by the people: that is Mongolia.

The land whose disappearing primitive people gaze upon the bones of

their forefathers whitening in the sands and dust of their plains; where

are dying out the people who formerly conquered China, Siam, Northern

India and Russia and broke their chests against the iron lances of

the Polish knights, defending then all the Christian world against the

invasion of wild and wandering Asia: that is Mongolia.

The land swelling with natural riches, producing nothing, in need of

everything, destitute and suffering from the world’s cataclysm: that is

Mongolia.

In this land, by order of Fate, after my unsuccessful attempt to reach

the Indian Ocean through Tibet, I spent half a year in the struggle to

live and to escape. My old and faithful friend and I were compelled,

willy-nilly, to participate in the exceedingly important and dangerous

events transpiring in Mongolia in the year of grace 1921. Thanks to

this, I came to know the calm, good and honest Mongolian people; I

read their souls, saw their sufferings and hopes; I witnessed the whole

horror of their oppression and fear before the face of Mystery, there

where Mystery pervades all life. I watched the rivers during the severe

cold break with a rumbling roar their chains of ice; saw lakes cast up

on their shores the bones of human beings; heard unknown wild voices

in the mountain ravines; made out the fires over miry swamps of the

will-o’-the-wisps; witnessed burning lakes; gazed upward to mountains

whose peaks could not be scaled; came across great balls of writhing

snakes in the ditches in winter; met with streams which are eternally

frozen, rocks like petrified caravans of camels, horsemen and carts; and

over all saw the barren mountains whose folds looked like the mantle of

Satan, which the glow of the evening sun drenched with blood.

“Look up there!” cried an old shepherd, pointing to the slope of the

cursed Zagastai. “That is no mountain. It is HE who lies in his red

mantle and awaits the day when he will rise again to begin the fight

with the good spirits.”

And as he spoke I recalled the mystic picture of the noted painter

Vroubel. The same nude mountains with the violet and purple robes of

Satan, whose face is half covered by an approaching grey cloud. Mongolia

is a terrible land of mystery and demons. Therefore it is no wonder that

here every violation of the ancient order of life of the wandering nomad

tribes is transformed into streams of red blood and horror, ministering

to the demonic pleasure of Satan couched on the bare mountains and robed

in the grey cloak of dejection and sadness, or in the purple mantle of

war and vengeance.

After returning from the district of Koko Nor to Mongolia and resting a

few days at the Narabanchi Monastery, we went to live in Uliassutai, the

capital of Western Outer Mongolia. It is the last purely Mongolian town

to the west. In Mongolia there are but three purely Mongolian towns,

Urga, Uliassutai and Ulankom. The fourth town, Kobdo, has an essentially

Chinese character, being the center of Chinese administration in this

district inhabited by the wandering tribes only nominally recognizing

the influence of either Peking or Urga. In Uliassutai and Ulankom,

besides the unlawful Chinese commissioners and troops, there were

stationed Mongolian governors or “Saits,” appointed by the decree of the

Living Buddha.

When we arrived in that town, we were at once in the sea of political

passions. The Mongols were protesting in great agitation against the

Chinese policy in their country; the Chinese raged and demanded from the

Mongolians the payment of taxes for the full period since the autonomy

of Mongolia had been forcibly extracted from Peking; Russian colonists

who had years before settled near the town and in the vicinity of the

great monasteries or among the wandering tribes had separated into

factions and were fighting against one another; from Urga came the

news of the struggle for the maintenance of the independence of Outer

Mongolia, led by the Russian General, Baron Ungern von Sternberg;

Russian officers and refugees congregated in detachments, against which

the Chinese authorities protested but which the Mongols welcomed; the

Bolsheviki, worried by the formation of White detachments in Mongolia,

sent their troops to the borders of Mongolia; from Irkutsk and Chita

to Uliassutai and Urga envoys were running from the Bolsheviki to the

Chinese commissioners with various proposals of all kinds; the Chinese

authorities in Mongolia were gradually entering into secret relations

with the Bolsheviki and in Kiakhta and Ulankom delivered to them the

Russian refugees, thus violating recognized international law; in

Urga the Bolsheviki set up a Russian communistic municipality; Russian

Consuls were inactive; Red troops in the region of Kosogol and the

valley of the Selenga had encounters with Anti-Bolshevik officers; the

Chinese authorities established garrisons in the Mongolian towns

and sent punitive expeditions into the country; and, to complete the

confusion, the Chinese troops carried out house-to-house searches,

during which they plundered and stole.

Into what an atmosphere we had fallen after our hard and dangerous trip

along the Yenisei, through Urianhai, Mongolia, the lands of the Turguts,

Kansu and Koko Nor!

“Do you know,” said my old friend to me, “I prefer strangling Partisans

and fighting with the hunghutze to listening to news and more anxious

news!”

He was right; for the worst of it was that in this bustle and whirl of

facts, rumours and gossip the Reds could approach troubled Uliassutai

and take everyone with their bare hands. We should very willingly have

left this town of uncertainties but we had no place to go. In the north

were the hostile Partisans and Red troops; to the south we had already

lost our companions and not a little of our own blood; to the west raged

the Chinese administrators and detachments; and to the east a war had

broken out, the news of which, in spite of the attempts of the Chinese

authorities at secrecy, had filtered through and had testified to

the seriousness of the situation in this part of Outer Mongolia.

Consequently we had no choice but to remain in Uliassutai. Here also

were living several Polish soldiers who had escaped from the prison

camps in Russia, two Polish families and two American firms, all in

the same plight as ourselves. We joined together and made our own

intelligence department, very carefully watching the evolution of

events. We succeeded in forming good connections with the Chinese

commissioner and with the Mongolian Sait, which greatly helped us in our

orientation.

What was behind all these events in Mongolia? The very clever Mongol

Sait of Uliassutai gave me the following explanation.

“According to the agreements between Mongolia, China and Russia of

October 21, 1912, of October 23, 1913, and of June 7, 1915, Outer

Mongolia was accorded independence and the Moral Head of our ‘Yellow

Faith,’ His Holiness the Living Buddha, became the Suzerain of the

Mongolian people of Khalkha or Outer Mongolia with the title of ‘Bogdo

Djebtsung Damba Hutuktu Khan.’ While Russia was still strong and

carefully watched her policy in Asia, the Government of Peking kept the

treaty; but, when, at the beginning of the war with Germany, Russia was

compelled to withdraw her troops from Siberia, Peking began to claim the

return of its lost rights in Mongolia. It was because of this that the

first two treaties of 1912 and 1913 were supplemented by the convention

of 1915. However, in 1916, when all the forces of Russia were

pre-occupied in the unsuccessful war and afterwards when the first

Russian revolution broke out in February, 1917, overthrowing the

Romanoff Dynasty, the Chinese Government openly retook Mongolia. They

changed all the Mongolian ministers and Saits, replacing them with

individuals friendly to China; arrested many Mongolian autonomists and

sent them to prison in Peking; set up their administration in Urga and

other Mongol towns; actually removed His Holiness Bogdo Khan from the

affairs of administration; made him only a machine for signing Chinese

decrees; and at last introduced into Mongolia their troops. From that

moment there developed an energetic flow of Chinese merchants and

coolies into Mongolia. The Chinese began to demand the payment of taxes

and dues from 1912. The Mongolian population were rapidly stripped of

their wealth and now in the vicinities of our towns and monasteries you

can see whole settlements of beggar Mongols living in dugouts. All our

Mongol arsenals and treasuries were requisitioned. All monasteries

were forced to pay taxes; all Mongols working for the liberty of their

country were persecuted; through bribery with Chinese silver, orders and

titles the Chinese secured a following among the poorer Mongol Princes.

It is easy to understand how the governing class, His Holiness, Khans,

Princes, and high Lamas, as well as the ruined and oppressed people,

remembering that the Mongol rulers had once held Peking and China in

their hands and under their reign had given her the first place in

Asia, were definitely hostile to the Chinese administrators acting thus.

Insurrection was, however, impossible. We had no arms. All our leaders

were under surveillance and every movement by them toward an armed

resistance would have ended in the same prison at Peking where eighty

of our Nobles, Princes and Lamas died from hunger and torture after a

previous struggle for the liberty of Mongolia. Some abnormally strong

shock was necessary to drive the people into action. This was given by

the Chinese administrators, General Cheng Yi and General Chu Chi-hsiang.

They announced that His Holiness Bogdo Khan was under arrest in his

own palace, and they recalled to his attention the former decree of

the Peking Government--held by the Mongols to be unwarranted and

illegal--that His Holiness was the last Living Buddha. This was enough.

Immediately secret relations were made between the people and their

Living God, and plans were at once elaborated for the liberation of His

Holiness and for the struggle for liberty and freedom of our people. We

were helped by the great Prince of the Buriats, Djam Bolon, who began

parleys with General Ungern, then engaged in fighting the Bolsheviki

in Transbaikalia, and invited him to enter Mongolia and help in the war

against the Chinese. Then our struggle for liberty began.”

Thus the Sait of Uliassutai explained the situation to me. Afterwards

I heard that Baron Ungern, who had agreed to fight for the liberty

of Mongolia, directed that the mobilization of the Mongolians in the

northern districts be forwarded at once and promised to enter Mongolia

with his own small detachment, moving along the River Kerulen.

Afterwards he took up relations with the other Russian detachment of

Colonel Kazagrandi and, together with the mobilized Mongolian riders,

began the attack on Urga. Twice he was defeated but on the third of

February, 1921, he succeeded in capturing the town and replaced the

Living Buddha on the throne of the Khans.

At the end of March, however, these events were still unknown in

Uliassutai. We knew neither of the fall of Urga nor of the destruction

of the Chinese army of nearly 15,000 in the battles of Maimachen on the

shore of the Tola and on the roads between Urga and Ude. The Chinese

carefully concealed the truth by preventing anybody from passing

westward from Urga. However, rumours existed and troubled all. The

atmosphere became more and more tense, while the relations between the

Chinese on the one side and the Mongolians and Russians on the other

became more and more strained. At this time the Chinese Commissioner

in Uliassutai was Wang Tsao-tsun and his advisor, Fu Hsiang, both very

young and inexperienced men. The Chinese authorities had dismissed the

Uliassutai Sait, the prominent Mongolian patriot, Prince Chultun

Beyle, and had appointed a Lama Prince friendly to China, the former

Vice-Minister of War in Urga. Oppression increased. The searching of

Russian officers’ and colonists’ houses and quarters commenced, open

relations with the Bolsheviki followed and arrest and beatings became

common. The Russian officers formed a secret detachment of sixty men

so that they could defend themselves. However, in this detachment

disagreements soon sprang up between Lieutenant-Colonel M. M. Michailoff

and some of his officers. It was evident that in the decisive moment the

detachment must separate into factions.

We foreigners in council decided to make a thorough reconnaissance in

order to know whether there was danger of Red troops arriving. My old

companion and I agreed to do this scouting. Prince Chultun Beyle gave

us a very good guide--an old Mongol named Tzeren, who spoke and read

Russian perfectly. He was a very interesting personage, holding the

position of interpreter with the Mongolian authorities and sometimes

with the Chinese Commissioner. Shortly before he had been sent as

a special envoy to Peking with very important despatches and this

incomparable horseman had made the journey between Uliassutai and

Peking, that is 1,800 miles, in nine days, incredible as it may seem. He

prepared himself for the journey by binding all his abdomen and chest,

legs, arms and neck with strong cotton bandages to protect himself from

the wracks and strains of such a period in the saddle. In his cap he

bore three eagle feathers as a token that he had received orders to fly

like a bird. Armed with a special document called a tzara, which gave

him the right to receive at all post stations the best horses, one

to ride and one fully saddled to lead as a change, together with two

oulatchen or guards to accompany him and bring back the horses from the

next station or ourton, he made the distance of from fifteen to thirty

miles between stations at full gallop, stopping only long enough to have

the horses and guards changed before he was off again. Ahead of him rode

one oulatchen with the best horses to enable him to announce and prepare

in advance the complement of steeds at the next station. Each oulatchen

had three horses in all, so that he could swing from one that had given

out and release him to graze until his return to pick him up and lead or

ride him back home. At every third ourton, without leaving his saddle,

he received a cup of hot green tea with salt and continued his race

southward. After seventeen or eighteen hours of such riding he stopped

at the ourton for the night or what was left of it, devoured a leg of

boiled mutton and slept. Thus he ate once a day and five times a day had

tea; and so he traveled for nine days!

With this servant we moved out one cold winter morning in the direction

of Kobdo, just over three hundred miles, because from there we had

received the disquieting rumours that the Red troops had entered

Ulankom and that the Chinese authorities had handed over to them all the

Europeans in the town. We crossed the River Dzaphin on the ice. It is a

terrible stream. Its bed is full of quicksands, which in summer suck

in numbers of camels, horses and men. We entered a long, winding valley

among the mountains covered with deep snow and here and there with

groves of the black wood of the larch. About halfway to Kobdo we came

across the yurta of a shepherd on the shore of the small Lake of Baga

Nor, where evening and a strong wind whirling gusts of snow in our faces

easily persuaded us to stop. By the yurta stood a splendid bay horse

with a saddle richly ornamerited with silver and coral. As we turned

in from the road, two Mongols left the yurta very hastily; one of them

jumped into the saddle and quickly disappeared in the plain behind the

snowy hillocks. We clearly made out the flashing folds of his yellow

robe under the great outer coat and saw his large knife sheathed in a

green leather scabbard and handled with horn and ivory. The other man

was the host of the yurta, the shepherd of a local prince, Novontziran.

He gave signs of great pleasure at seeing us and receiving us in his

yurta.

“Who was the rider on the bay horse?” we asked.

He dropped his eyes and was silent.

“Tell us,” we insisted. “If you do not wish to speak his name, it means

that you are dealing with a bad character.”

“No! No!” he remonstrated, flourishing his hands. “He is a good, great

man; but the law does not permit me to speak his name.”

We at once understood that the man was either the chief of the shepherd

or some high Lama. Consequently we did not further insist and began

making our sleeping arrangements. Our host set three legs of mutton to

boil for us, skillfully cutting out the bones with his heavy knife. We

chatted and learned that no one had seen Red troops around this region

but in Kobdo and in Ulankom the Chinese soldiers were oppressing the

population, and were beating to death with the bamboo Mongol men who

were defending their women against the ravages of these Chinese troops.

Some of the Mongols had retreated to the mountains to join detachments

under the command of Kaigordoff, an Altai Tartar officer who was

supplying them with weapons.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE MYSTERIOUS LAMA AVENGER

We rested soundly in the yurta after the two days of travel which had

brought us one hundred seventy miles through the snow and sharp cold.

Round the evening meal of juicy mutton we were talking freely and

carelessly when suddenly we heard a low, hoarse voice:

“Sayn--Good evening!”

We turned around from the brazier to the door and saw a medium height,

very heavy set Mongol in deerskin overcoat and cap with side flaps and

the long, wide tying strings of the same material. Under his girdle

lay the same large knife in the green sheath which we had seen on the

departing horseman.

“Amoursayn,” we answered.

He quickly untied his girdle and laid aside his overcoat. He stood

before us in a wonderful gown of silk, yellow as beaten gold and girt

with a brilliant blue sash. His cleanly shaven face, short hair, red

coral rosary on the left hand and his yellow garment proved clearly that

before us stood some high Lama Priest,--with a big Colt under his blue

sash!

I turned to my host and Tzeren and read in their faces fear and

veneration. The stranger came over to the brazier and sat down.

“Let’s speak Russian,” he said and took a bit of meat.

The conversation began. The stranger began to find fault with the

Government of the Living Buddha in Urga.

“There they liberate Mongolia, capture Urga, defeat the Chinese army and

here in the west they give us no news of it. We are without action here

while the Chinese kill our people and steal from them. I think that

Bogdo Khan might send us envoys. How is it the Chinese can send their

envoys from Urga and Kiakhta to Kobdo, asking for assistance, and the

Mongol Government cannot do it? Why?”

“Will the Chinese send help to Urga?” I asked.

Our guest laughed hoarsely and said: “I caught all the envoys, took away

their letters and then sent them back . . . into the ground.”

He laughed again and glanced around peculiarly with his blazing eyes.

Only then did I notice that his cheekbones and eyes had lines strange to

the Mongols of Central Asia. He looked more like a Tartar or a Kirghiz.

We were silent and smoked our pipes.

“How soon will the detachment of Chahars leave Uliassutai?” he asked.

We answered that we had not heard about them. Our guest explained

that from Inner Mongolia the Chinese authorities had sent out a strong

detachment, mobilized from among the most warlike tribe of Chahars,

which wander about the region just outside the Great Wall. Its chief was

a notorious hunghutze leader promoted by the Chinese Government to the

rank of captain on promising that he would bring under subjugation to

the Chinese authorities all the tribes of the districts of Kobdo and

Urianhai. When he learned whither we were going and for what purpose,

he said he could give us the most accurate news and relieve us from the

necessity of going farther.

“Besides that, it is very dangerous,” he said, “because Kobdo will be

massacred and burned. I know this positively.”

When he heard of our unsuccessful attempt to pass through Tibet, he

became attentive and very sympathetic in his bearing toward us and, with

evident feeling of regret, expressed himself strongly:

“Only I could have helped you in this enterprise, but not the Narabanchi

Hutuktu. With my laissez-passer you could have gone anywhere in Tibet. I

am Tushegoun Lama.”

Tushegoun Lama! How many extraordinary tales I had heard about him.

He is a Russian Kalmuck, who because of his propaganda work for the

independence of the Kalmuck people made the acquaintance of many Russian

prisons under the Czar and, for the same cause, added to his list under

the Bolsheviki. He escaped to Mongolia and at once attained to great

influence among the Mongols. It was no wonder, for he was a close friend

and pupil of the Dalai Lama in Potala (Lhasa), was the most learned

among the Lamites, a famous thaumaturgist and doctor. He occupied an

almost independent position in his relationship with the Living Buddha

and achieved to the leadership of all the old wandering tribes of

Western Mongolia and Zungaria, even extending his political domination

over the Mongolian tribes of Turkestan. His influence was irresistible,

based as it was on his great control of mysterious science, as he

expressed it; but I was also told that it has its foundation largely

in the panicky fear which he could produce in the Mongols. Everyone who

disobeyed his orders perished. Such an one never knew the day or the

hour when, in his yurta or beside his galloping horse on the plains, the

strange and powerful friend of the Dalai Lama would appear. The stroke

of a knife, a bullet or strong fingers strangling the neck like a vise

accomplished the justice of the plans of this miracle worker.

Without the walls of the yurta the wind whistled and roared and drove

the frozen snow sharply against the stretched felt. Through the roar of

the wind came the sound of many voices in mingled shouting, wailing

and laughter. I felt that in such surroundings it were not difficult to

dumbfound a wandering nomad with miracles, because Nature herself had

prepared the setting for it. This thought had scarcely time to flash

through my mind before Tushegoun Lama suddenly raised his head, looked

sharply at me and said:

“There is very much unknown in Nature and the skill of using the unknown

produces the miracle; but the power is given to few. I want to prove it

to you and you may tell me afterwards whether you have seen it before or

not.”

He stood up, pushed back the sleeves of his yellow garment, seized his

knife and strode across to the shepherd.

“Michik, stand up!” he ordered.

When the shepherd had risen, the Lama quickly unbuttoned his coat

and bared the man’s chest. I could not yet understand what was his

intention, when suddenly the Tushegoun with all his force struck his

knife into the chest of the shepherd. The Mongol fell all covered with

blood, a splash of which I noticed on the yellow silk of the Lama’s

coat.

“What have you done?” I exclaimed.

“Sh! Be still,” he whispered turning to me his now quite blanched face.

With a few strokes of the knife he opened the chest of the Mongol and

I saw the man’s lungs softly breathing and the distinct palpitations of

the heart. The Lama touched these organs with his fingers but no more

blood appeared to flow and the face of the shepherd was quite calm.

He was lying with his eyes closed and appeared to be in deep and quiet

sleep. As the Lama began to open his abdomen, I shut my eyes in fear and

horror; and, when I opened them a little while later, I was still more

dumbfounded at seeing the shepherd with his coat still open and his

breast normal, quietly sleeping on his side and Tushegoun Lama sitting

peacefully by the brazier, smoking his pipe and looking into the fire in

deep thought.

“It is wonderful!” I confessed. “I have never seen anything like it!”

“About what are you speaking?” asked the Kalmuck.

“About your demonstration or ‘miracle,’ as you call it,” I answered.

“I never said anything like that,” refuted the Kalmuck, with coldness in

his voice.

“Did you see it?” I asked of my companion.

“What?” he queried in a dozing voice.

I realized that I had become the victim of the hypnotic power of

Tushegoun Lama; but I preferred this to seeing an innocent Mongolian

die, for I had not believed that Tushegoun Lama, after slashing open the

bodies of his victims, could repair them again so readily.

The following day we took leave of our hosts. We decided to return,

inasmuch as our mission was accomplished; and Tushegoun Lama explained

to us that he would “move through space.” He wandered over all Mongolia,

lived both in the single, simple yurta of the shepherd and hunter and in

the splendid tents of the princes and tribal chiefs, surrounded by deep

veneration and panic-fear, enticing and cementing to him rich and poor

alike with his miracles and prophecies. When bidding us adieu, the

Kalmuck sorcerer slyly smiled and said:

“Do not give any information about me to the Chinese authorities.”

Afterwards he added: “What happened to you yesterday evening was

a futile demonstration. You Europeans will not recognize that we

dark-minded nomads possess the powers of mysterious science. If you

could only see the miracles and power of the Most Holy Tashi Lama, when

at his command the lamps and candles before the ancient statue of Buddha

light themselves and when the ikons of the gods begin to speak and

prophesy! But there exists a more powerful and more holy man. . .”

“Is it the King of the World in Agharti?” I interrupted.

He stared and glanced at me in amazement.

“Have you heard about him?” he asked, as his brows knit in thought.

After a few seconds he raised his narrow eyes and said: “Only one man

knows his holy name; only one man now living was ever in Agharti. That

is I. This is the reason why the Most Holy Dalai Lama has honored me and

why the Living Buddha in Urga fears me. But in vain, for I shall never

sit on the Holy Throne of the highest priest in Lhasa nor reach that

which has come down from Jenghiz Khan to the Head of our yellow Faith. I

am no monk. I am a warrior and avenger.”

He jumped smartly into the saddle, whipped his horse and whirled away,

flinging out as he left the common Mongolian phrase of adieu: “Sayn!

Sayn-bayna!”

On the way back Tzeren related to us the hundreds of legends surrounding

Tushegoun Lama. One tale especially remained in my mind. It was in 1911

or 1912 when the Mongols by armed force tried to attain their liberty in

a struggle with the Chinese. The general Chinese headquarters in Western

Mongolia was Kobdo, where they had about ten thousand soldiers under the

command of their best officers. The command to capture Kobdo was sent

to Hun Baldon, a simple shepherd who had distinguished himself in fights

with the Chinese and received from the Living Buddha the title of Prince

of Hun. Ferocious, absolutely without fear and possessing gigantic

strength, Baldon had several times led to the attack his poorly armed

Mongols but each time had been forced to retreat after losing many of

his men under the machine-gun fire. Unexpectedly Tushegoun Lama arrived.

He collected all the soldiers and then said to them:

“You must not fear death and must not retreat. You are fighting and

dying for Mongolia, for which the gods have appointed a great destiny.

See what the fate of Mongolia will be!”

He made a great sweeping gesture with his hand and all the soldiers saw

the country round about set with rich yurtas and pastures covered

with great herds of horses and cattle. On the plains appeared numerous

horsemen on richly saddled steeds. The women were gowned in the finest

of silk with massive silver rings in their ears and precious ornaments

in their elaborate head dresses. Chinese merchants led an endless

caravan of merchandise up to distinguished looking Mongol Saits,

surrounded by the gaily dressed tzirik or soldiers and proudly

negotiating with the merchants for their wares.

Shortly the vision disappeared and Tushegoun began to speak.

“Do not fear death! It is a release from our labor on earth and the path

to the state of constant blessings. Look to the East! Do you see your

brothers and friends who have fallen in battle?”

“We see, we see!” the Mongol warriors exclaimed in astonishment, as they

all looked upon a great group of dwellings which might have been yurtas

or the arches of temples flushed with a warm and kindly light. Red and

yellow silk were interwoven in bright bands that covered the walls and

floor, everywhere the gilding on pillars and walls gleamed brightly;

on the great red altar burned the thin sacrificial candles in gold

candelabra, beside the massive silver vessels filled with milk and nuts;

on soft pillows about the floor sat the Mongols who had fallen in the

previous attack on Kobdo. Before them stood low, lacquered tables laden

with many dishes of steaming, succulent flesh of the lamb and the kid,

with high jugs of wine and tea, with plates of borsuk, a kind of sweet,

rich cakes, with aromatic zatouran covered with sheep’s fat, with bricks

of dried cheese, with dates, raisins and nuts. These fallen soldiers

smoked golden pipes and chatted gaily.

This vision in turn also disappeared and before the gazing Mongols stood

only the mysterious Kalmuck with his hand upraised.

“To battle and return not without victory! I am with you in the fight.”

The attack began. The Mongols fought furiously, perished by the hundreds

but not before they had rushed into the heart of Kobdo. Then was

re-enacted the long forgotten picture of Tartar hordes destroying

European towns. Hun Baldon ordered carried over him a triangle of lances

with brilliant red streamers, a sign that he gave up the town to the

soldiers for three days. Murder and pillage began. All the Chinese met

their death there. The town was burned and the walls of the fortress

destroyed. Afterwards Hun Baldon came to Uliassutai and also destroyed

the Chinese fortress there. The ruins of it still stand with the broken

embattlements and towers, the useless gates and the remnants of the

burned official quarters and soldiers’ barracks.

CHAPTER XIX

WILD CHAHARS

After our return to Uliassutai we heard that disquieting news had been

received by the Mongol Sait from Muren Kure. The letter stated that Red

Troops were pressing Colonel Kazagrandi very hard in the region of Lake

Kosogol. The Sait feared the advance of the Red troops southward to

Uliassutai. Both the American firms liquidated their affairs and all

our friends were prepared for a quick exit, though they hesitated at

the thought of leaving the town, as they were afraid of meeting the

detachment of Chahars sent from the east. We decided to await the

arrival of this detachment, as their coming could change the whole

course of events. In a few days they came, two hundred warlike Chahar

brigands under the command of a former Chinese hunghutze. He was a tall,

skinny man with hands that reached almost to his knees, a face blackened

by wind and sun and mutilated with two long scars down over his forehead

and cheek, the making of one of which had also closed one of his

hawklike eyes, topped off with a shaggy coonskin cap--such was the

commander of the detachment of Chahars. A personage very dark and stern,

with whom a night meeting on a lonely street could not be considered a

pleasure by any bent of the imagination.

The detachment made camp within the destroyed fortress, near to the

single Chinese building that had not been razed and which was now

serving as headquarters for the Chinese Commissioner. On the very day of

their arrival the Chahars pillaged a Chinese dugun or trading house not

half a mile from the fortress and also offended the wife of the Chinese

Commissioner by calling her a “traitor.” The Chahars, like the Mongols,

were quite right in their stand, because the Chinese Commissioner Wang

Tsao-tsun had on his arrival in Uliassutai followed the Chinese custom

of demanding a Mongolian wife. The servile new Sait had given orders

that a beautiful and suitable Mongolian girl be found for him. One was

so run down and placed in his yamen, together with her big wrestling

Mongol brother who was to be a guard for the Commissioner but who

developed into the nurse for the little white Pekingese pug which the

official presented to his new wife.

Burglaries, squabbles and drunken orgies of the Chahars followed, so

that Wang Tsoa-tsun exerted all his efforts to hurry the detachment

westward to Kobdo and farther into Urianhai.

One cold morning the inhabitants of Uliassutai rose to witness a very

stern picture. Along the main street of the town the detachment was

passing. They were riding on small, shaggy ponies, three abreast; were

dressed in warm blue coats with sheepskin overcoats outside and crowned

with the regulation coonskin caps; armed from head to foot. They rode

with wild shouts and cheers, very greedily eyeing the Chinese shops and

the houses of the Russian colonists. At their head rode the one-eyed

hunghutze chief with three horsemen behind him in white overcoats,

who carried waving banners and blew what may have been meant for music

through great conch shells. One of the Chahars could not resist and so

jumped out of his saddle and made for a Chinese shop along the street.

Immediately the anxious cries of the Chinese merchants came from the

shop. The hunghutze swung round, noticed the horse at the door of the

shop and realized what was happening. Immediately he reined his horse

and made for the spot. With his raucous voice he called the Chahar out.

As he came, he struck him full in the face with his whip and with all

his strength. Blood flowed from the slashed cheek. But the Chahar was in

the saddle in a second without a murmur and galloped to his place in

the file. During this exit of the Chahars all the people were hidden

in their houses, anxiously peeping through cracks and corners of the

windows. But the Chahars passed peacefully out and only when they met a

caravan carrying Chinese wine about six miles from town did their

native tendency display itself again in pillaging and emptying several

containers. Somewhere in the vicinity of Hargana they were ambushed by

Tushegoun Lama and so treated that never again will the plains of Chahar

welcome the return of these warrior sons who were sent out to conquer

the Soyot descendants of the ancient Tuba.

The day the column left Uliassutai a heavy snow fell, so that the road

became impassable. The horses first were up to their knees, tired out

and stopped. Some Mongol horsemen reached Uliassutai the following day

after great hardship and exertion, having made only twenty-five miles in

forty-eight hours. Caravans were compelled to stop along the routes. The

Mongols would not consent even to attempt journeys with oxen and yaks

which made but ten or twelve miles a day. Only camels could be used but

there were too few and their drivers did not feel that they could make

the first railway station of Kuku-Hoto, which was about fourteen hundred

miles away. We were forced again to wait: for which? Death or salvation?

Only our own energy and force could save us. Consequently my friend

and I started out, supplied with a tent, stove and food, for a new

reconnaissance along the shore of Lake Kosogol, whence the Mongol Sait

expected the new invasion of Red troops.

CHAPTER XX

THE DEMON OF JAGISSTAI

Our small group consisting of four mounted and one pack camel moved

northward along the valley of the River Boyagol in the direction of the

Tarbagatai Mountains. The road was rocky and covered deep with snow. Our

camels walked very carefully, sniffing out the way as our guide shouted

the “Ok! Ok!” of the camel drivers to urge them on. We left behind us

the fortress and Chinese dugun, swung round the shoulder of a ridge

and, after fording several times an open stream, began the ascent of the

mountain. The scramble was hard and dangerous. Our camels picked their

way most cautiously, moving their ears constantly, as is their habit in

such stress. The trail zigzagged into mountain ravines, passed over the

tops of ridges, slipped back down again into shallower valleys but ever

made higher and higher altitudes. At one place under the grey clouds

that tipped the ridges we saw away up on the wide expanse of snow some

black spots.

“Those are the obo, the sacred signs and altars for the bad demons

watching this pass,” explained the guide. “This pass is called

Jagisstai. Many very old tales about it have been kept alive, ancient as

these mountains themselves.”

We encouraged him to tell us some of them.

The Mongol, rocking on his camel and looking carefully all around him,

began his tale.

“It was long ago, very long ago. . . . The grandson of the great Jenghiz

Khan sat on the throne of China and ruled all Asia. The Chinese killed

their Khan and wanted to exterminate all his family but a holy old Lama

slipped the wife and little son out of the palace and carried them off

on swift camels beyond the Great Wall, where they sank into our native

plains. The Chinese made a long search for the trails of our refugees

and at last found where they had gone. They despatched a strong

detachment on fleet horses to capture them. Sometimes the Chinese nearly

came up with the fleeing heir of our Khan but the Lama called down from

Heaven a deep snow, through which the camels could pass while the horses

were inextricably held. This Lama was from a distant monastery. We shall

pass this hospice of Jahantsi Kure. In order to reach it one must cross

over the Jagisstai. And it was just here the old Lama suddenly became

ill, rocked in his saddle and fell dead. Ta Sin Lo, the widow of the

Great Khan, burst into tears; but, seeing the Chinese riders galloping

there below across the valley, pressed on toward the pass. The camels

were tired, stopping every moment, nor did the woman know how to

stimulate and drive them on. The Chinese riders came nearer and nearer.

Already she heard their shouts of joy, as they felt within their grasp

the prize of the mandarins for the murder of the heir of the Great

Khan. The heads of the mother and the son would be brought to Peking and

exposed on the Ch’ien Men for the mockery and insults of the people. The

frightened mother lifted her little son toward heaven and exclaimed:

“‘Earth and Gods of Mongolia, behold the offspring of the man who has

glorified the name of the Mongols from one end of the world to the

other! Allow not this very flesh of Jenghiz Khan to perish!’

“At this moment she noticed a white mouse sitting on a rock nearby. It

jumped to her knees and said:

“‘I am sent to help you. Go on calmly and do not fear. The pursuers of

you and your son, to whom is destined a life of glory, have come to the

last bourne of their lives.’

“Ta Sin Lo did not see how one small mouse could hold in check three

hundred men. The mouse jumped back to the ground and again spoke:

“‘I am the demon of Tarbagatai, Jagasstai. I am mighty and beloved of

the Gods but, because you doubted the powers of the miracle-speaking

mouse, from this day the Jagasstai will be dangerous for the good and

bad alike.’

“The Khan’s widow and son were saved but Jagasstai has ever remained

merciless. During the journey over this pass one must always be on one’s

guard. The demon of the mountain is ever ready to lead the traveler to

destruction.”

All the tops of the ridges of the Tarbagatai are thickly dotted with the

obo of rocks and branches. In one place there was even erected a tower

of stones as an altar to propitiate the Gods for the doubts of Ta Sin

Lo. Evidently the demon expected us. When we began our ascent of the

main ridge, he blew into our faces with a sharp, cold wind, whistled and

roared and afterwards began casting over us whole blocks of snow torn

off the drifts above. We could not distinguish anything around us,

scarcely seeing the camel immediately in front. Suddenly I felt a

shock and looked about me. Nothing unusual was visible. I was seated

comfortably between two leather saddle bags filled with meat and bread

but . . . I could not see the head of my camel. He had disappeared. It

seemed that he had slipped and fallen to the bottom of a shallow ravine,

while the bags which were slung across his back without straps had

caught on a rock and stopped with myself there in the snow. This time

the demon of Jagasstai only played a joke but one that did not satisfy

him. He began to show more and more anger. With furious gusts of wind he

almost dragged us and our bags from the camels and nearly knocked over

our humped steeds, blinded us with frozen snow and prevented us from

breathing. Through long hours we dragged slowly on in the deep snow,

often falling over the edge of the rocks. At last we entered a small

valley where the wind whistled and roared with a thousand voices. It

had grown dark. The Mongol wandered around searching for the trail and

finally came back to us, flourishing his arms and saying:

“We have lost the road. We must spend the night here. It is very bad

because we shall have no wood for our stove and the cold will grow

worse.”

With great difficulties and with frozen hands we managed to set up our

tent in the wind, placing in it the now useless stove. We covered the

tent with snow, dug deep, long ditches in the drifts and forced our

camels to lie down in them by shouting the “Dzuk! Dzuk!” command to

kneel. Then we brought our packs into the tent.

My companion rebelled against the thought of spending a cold night with

a stove hard by.

“I am going out to look for firewood,” said he very decisively; and at

that took up the ax and started. He returned after an hour with a big

section of a telegraph pole.

“You, Jenghiz Khans,” said he, rubbing his frozen hands, “take your

axes and go up there to the left on the mountain and you will find the

telegraph poles that have been cut down. I made acquaintance with the

old Jagasstai and he showed me the poles.”

Just a little way from us the line of the Russian telegraphs passed,

that which had connected Irkutsk with Uliassutai before the days of the

Bolsheviki and which the Chinese had commanded the Mongols to cut

down and take the wire. These poles are now the salvation of travelers

crossing the pass. Thus we spent the night in a warm tent, supped

well from hot meat soup with vermicelli, all in the very center of the

dominion of the angered Jagasstai. Early the next morning we found

the road not more than two or three hundred paces from our tent and

continued our hard trip over the ridge of Tarbagatai. At the head of

the Adair River valley we noticed a flock of the Mongolian crows with

carmine beaks circling among the rocks. We approached the place and

discovered the recently fallen bodies of a horse and rider. What had

happened to them was difficult to guess. They lay close together; the

bridle was wound around the right wrist of the man; no trace of knife or

bullet was found. It was impossible to make out the features of the man.

His overcoat was Mongolian but his trousers and under jacket were not of

the Mongolian pattern. We asked ourselves what had happened to him.

Our Mongol bowed his head in anxiety and said in hushed but assured

tones: “It is the vengeance of Jagasstai. The rider did not make

sacrifice at the southern obo and the demon has strangled him and his

horse.”

At last Tarbagatai was behind us. Before us lay the valley of the Adair.

It was a narrow zigzagging plain following along the river bed between

close mountain ranges and covered with a rich grass. It was cut into two

parts by the road along which the prostrate telegraph poles now lay, as

the stumps of varying heights and long stretches of wire completed

the debris. This destruction of the telegraph line between Irkutsk and

Uliassutai was necessary and incident to the aggressive Chinese policy

in Mongolia.

Soon we began to meet large herds of sheep, which were digging through

the snow to the dry but very nutritious grass. In some places yaks and

oxen were seen on the high slopes of the mountains. Only once, however,

did we see a shepherd, for all of them, spying us first, had made off

to the mountains or hidden in the ravines. We did not even discover any

yurtas along the way. The Mongols had also concealed all their movable

homes in the folds of the mountains out of sight and away from the reach

of the strong winds. Nomads are very skilful in choosing the places

for their winter dwellings. I had often in winter visited the Mongolian

yurtas set in such sheltered places that, as I came off the windy

plains, I felt as though I were in a conservatory. Once we came up to

a big herd of sheep. But as we approached most of the herd gradually

withdrew, leaving one part that remained unmoved as the other worked

off across the plains. From this section soon about thirty of forty head

emerged and went scrambling and leaping right up the mountain side. I

took up my glasses and began to observe them. The part of the herd that

remained behind were common sheep; the large section that had drawn off

over the plain were Mongolian antelopes (gazella gutturosa); while

the few that had taken to the mountain were the big horned sheep (ovis

argali). All this company had been grazing together with the domestic

sheep on the plains of the Adair, which attracted them with its good

grass and clear water. In many places the river was not frozen and in

some places I saw great clouds of steam over the surface of the open

water. In the meantime some of the antelopes and the mountain sheep

began looking at us.

“Now they will soon begin to cross our trail,” laughed the Mongol; “very

funny beasts. Sometimes the antelopes course for miles in their endeavor

to outrun and cross in front of our horses and then, when they have done

so, go loping quietly off.”

I had already seen this strategy of the antelopes and I decided to make

use of it for the purpose of the hunt. We organized our chase in the

following manner. We let one Mongol with the pack camel proceed as

we had been traveling and the other three of us spread out like a fan

headed toward the herd on the right of our true course. The herd stopped

and looked about puzzled, for their etiquette required that they should

cross the path of all four of these riders at once. Confusion began.

They counted about three thousand heads. All this army began to run

from one side to another but without forming any distinct groups. Whole

squadrons of them ran before us and then, noticing another rider, came

coursing back and made anew the same manoeuvre. One group of about fifty

head rushed in two rows toward my point. When they were about a hundred

and fifty paces away I shouted and fired. They stopped at once and began

to whirl round in one spot, running into one another and even jumping

over one another. Their panic cost them dear, for I had time to shoot

four times to bring down two beautiful heads. My friend was even more

fortunate than I, for he shot only once into the herd as it rushed past

him in parallel lines and dropped two with the same bullet.

Meanwhile the argali had gone farther up the mountainside and taken

stand there in a row like so many soldiers, turning to gaze at us. Even

at this distance I could clearly distinguish their muscular bodies

with their majestic heads and stalwart horns. Picking up our prey, we

overtook the Mongol who had gone on ahead and continued our way. In many

places we came across the carcasses of sheep with necks torn and the

flesh of the sides eaten off.

“It is the work of wolves,” said the Mongol. “They are always hereabout

in large numbers.”

We came across several more herds of antelope, which ran along quietly

enough until they had made a comfortable distance ahead of us and then

with tremendous leaps and bounds crossed our bows like the proverbial

chicken on the road. Then, after a couple of hundred paces at this

speed, they stopped and began to graze quite calmly. Once I turned my

camel back and the whole herd immediately took up the challenge again,

coursed along parallel with me until they had made sufficient distance

for their ideas of safety and then once more rushed across the road

ahead of me as though it were paved with red hot stones, only to assume

their previous calmness and graze back on the same side of the trail

from which our column had first started them. On another occasion I did

this three times with a particular herd and laughed long and heartily at

their stupid customs.

We passed a very unpleasant night in this valley. We stopped on the

shore of the frozen stream in a spot where we found shelter from the

wind under the lee of a high shore. In our stove we did have a fire and

in our kettle boiling water. Also our tent was warm and cozy. We were

quietly resting with pleasant thoughts of supper to soothe us, when

suddenly a howling and laughter as though from some inferno burst upon

us from just outside the tent, while from the other side of the valley

came the long and doleful howls in answer.

“Wolves,” calmly explained the Mongol, who took my revolver and went out

of the tent. He did not return for some time but at last we heard a shot

and shortly after he entered.

“I scared them a little,” said he. “They had congregated on the shore of

the Adair around the body of a camel.”

“And they have not touched our camels?” we asked.

“We shall make a bonfire behind our tent; then they will not bother us.”

After our supper we turned in but I lay awake for a long time listening

to the crackle of the wood in the fire, the deep sighing breaths of the

camels and the distant howling of the packs of wolves; but finally, even

with all these noises, fell asleep. How long I had been asleep I did not

know when suddenly I was awakened by a strong blow in the side. I was

lying at the very edge of the tent and someone from outside had, without

the least ceremony, pushed strongly against me. I thought it was one of

the camels chewing the felt of the tent. I took my Mauser and struck the

wall. A sharp scream was followed by the sound of quick running over the

pebbles. In the morning we discovered the tracks of wolves approaching

our tent from the side opposite to the fire and followed them to where

they had begun to dig under the tent wall; but evidently one of the

would-be robbers was forced to retreat with a bruise on his head from

the handle of the Mauser.

Wolves and eagles are the servants of Jagasstai, the Mongol very

seriously instructed us. However, this does not prevent the Mongols from

hunting them. Once in the camp of Prince Baysei I witnessed such a hunt.

The Mongol horsemen on the best of his steeds overtook the wolves on the

open plain and killed them with heavy bamboo sticks or tashur. A Russian

veterinary surgeon taught the Mongols to poison wolves with strychnine

but the Mongols soon abandoned this method because of its danger to

the dogs, the faithful friends and allies of the nomad. They do not,

however, touch the eagles and hawks but even feed them. When the Mongols

are slaughtering animals they often cast bits of meat up into the air

for the hawks and eagles to catch in flight, just as we throw a bit of

meat to a dog. Eagles and hawks fight and drive away the magpies and

crows, which are very dangerous for cattle and horses, because they

scratch and peck at the smallest wound or abrasion on the backs of the

animals until they make them into uncurable areas which they continue to

harass.

CHAPTER XXI

THE NEST OF DEATH

Our camels were trudging to a slow but steady measure on toward the

north. We were making twenty-five to thirty miles a day as we approached

a small monastery that lay to the left of our route. It was in the

form of a square of large buildings surrounded by a high fence of

thick poles. Each side had an opening in the middle leading to the four

entrances of the temple in the center of the square. The temple was

built with the red lacquered columns and the Chinese style roofs and

dominated the surrounding low dwellings of the Lamas. On the opposite

side of the road lay what appeared to be a Chinese fortress but which

was in reality a trading compound or dugun, which the Chinese always

build in the form of a fortress with double walls a few feet apart,

within which they place their houses and shops and usually have twenty

or thirty traders fully armed for any emergency. In case of need these

duguns can be used as blockhouses and are capable of withstanding long

sieges. Between the dugun and the monastery and nearer to the road I

made out the camp of some nomads. Their horses and cattle were nowhere

to be seen. Evidently the Mongols had stopped here for some time and

had left their cattle in the mountains. Over several yurtas waved

multi-colored triangular flags, a sign of the presence of disease. Near

some yurtas high poles were stuck into the ground with Mongol caps at

their tops, which indicated that the host of the yurta had died. The

packs of dogs wandering over the plain showed that the dead bodies lay

somewhere near, either in the ravines or along the banks of the river.

As we approached the camp, we heard from a distance the frantic beating

of drums, the mournful sounds of the flute and shrill, mad shouting.

Our Mongol went forward to investigate for us and reported that several

Mongolian families had come here to the monastery to seek aid from the

Hutuktu Jahansti who was famed for his miracles of healing. The people

were stricken with leprosy and black smallpox and had come from long

distances only to find that the Hutuktu was not at the monastery but had

gone to the Living Buddha in Urga. Consequently they had been forced to

invite the witch doctors. The people were dying one after another. Just

the day before they had cast on the plain the twenty-seventh man.

Meanwhile, as we talked, the witch doctor came out of one of the yurtas.

He was an old man with a cataract on one eye and with a face deeply

scarred by smallpox. He was dressed in tatters with various colored bits

of cloth hanging down from his waist. He carried a drum and a flute. We

could see froth on his blue lips and madness in his eyes. Suddenly he

began to whirl round and dance with a thousand prancings of his long

legs and writhings of his arms and shoulders, still beating the drum and

playing the flute or crying and raging at intervals, ever accelerating

his movements until at last with pallid face and bloodshot eyes he fell

on the snow, where he continued to writhe and give out his incoherent

cries. In this manner the doctor treated his patients, frightening with

his madness the bad devils that carry disease. Another witch doctor gave

his patients dirty, muddy water, which I learned was the water from the

bath of the very person of the Living Buddha who had washed in it his

“divine” body born from the sacred flower of the lotus.

“Om! Om!” both witches continuously screamed.

While the doctors fought with the devils, the ill people were left to

themselves. They lay in high fever under the heaps of sheepskins and

overcoats, were delirious, raved and threw themselves about. By the

braziers squatted adults and children who were still well, indifferently

chatting, drinking tea and smoking. In all the yurtas I saw the

diseased and the dead and such misery and physical horrors as cannot be

described.

And I thought: “Oh, Great Jenghiz Khan! Why did you with your keen

understanding of the whole situation of Asia and Europe, you who devoted

all your life to the glory of the name of the Mongols, why did you not

give to your own people, who preserve their old morality, honesty and

peaceful customs, the enlightenment that would have saved them from such

death? Your bones in the mausoleum at Karakorum being destroyed by

the centuries that pass over them must cry out against the rapid

disappearance of your formerly great people, who were feared by half the

civilized world!”

Such thoughts filled my brain when I saw this camp of the dead tomorrow

and when I heard the groans, shoutings and raving of dying men,

women and children. Somewhere in the distance the dogs were howling

mournfully, and monotonously the drum of the tired witch rolled.

“Forward!” I could not witness longer this dark horror, which I had

no means or force to eradicate. We quickly passed on from the ominous

place. Nor could we shake the thought that some horrible invisible

spirit was following us from this scene of terror. “The devils of

disease?” “The pictures of horror and misery?” “The souls of men

who have been sacrificed on the altar of darkness of Mongolia?” An

inexplicable fear penetrated into our consciousness from whose grasp

we could not release ourselves. Only when we had turned from the road,

passed over a timbered ridge into a bowl in the mountains from which we

could see neither Jahantsi Kure, the dugun nor the squirming grave of

dying Mongols could we breathe freely again.

Presently we discovered a large lake. It was Tisingol. Near the shore

stood a large Russian house, the telegraph station between Kosogol and

Uliassutai.

CHAPTER XXII

AMONG THE MURDERERS

As we approached the telegraph station, we were met by a blonde young

man who was in charge of the office, Kanine by name. With some little

confusion he offered us a place in his house for the night. When we

entered the room, a tall, lanky man rose from the table and indecisively

walked toward us, looking very attentively at us the while.

“Guests . . .” explained Kanine. “They are going to Khathyl. Private

persons, strangers, foreigners . . .”

“A-h,” drawled the stranger in a quiet, comprehending tone.

While we were untying our girdles and with difficulty getting out of our

great Mongolian coats, the tall man was animatedly whispering something

to our host. As we approached the table to sit down and rest, I

overheard him say: “We are forced to postpone it,” and saw Kanine simply

nod in answer.

Several other people were seated at the table, among them the assistant

of Kanine, a tall blonde man with a white face, who talked like a

Gatling gun about everything imaginable. He was half crazy and his

semi-madness expressed itself when any loud talking, shouting or sudden

sharp report led him to repeat the words of the one to whom he was

talking at the time or to relate in a mechanical, hurried manner stories

of what was happening around him just at this particular juncture. The

wife of Kanine, a pale, young, exhausted-looking woman with frightened

eyes and a face distorted by fear, was also there and near her a young

girl of fifteen with cropped hair and dressed like a man, as well as

the two small sons of Kanine. We made acquaintance with all of them.

The tall stranger called himself Gorokoff, a Russian colonist from

Samgaltai, and presented the short-haired girl as his sister. Kanine’s

wife looked at us with plainly discernible fear and said nothing,

evidently displeased over our being there. However, we had no choice and

consequently began drinking tea and eating our bread and cold meat.

Kanine told us that ever since the telegraph line had been destroyed all

his family and relatives had felt very keenly the poverty and hardship

that naturally followed. The Bolsheviki did not send him any salary from

Irkutsk, so that he was compelled to shift for himself as best he

could. They cut and cured hay for sale to the Russian colonists,

handled private messages and merchandise from Khathyl to Uliassutai and

Samgaltai, bought and sold cattle, hunted and in this manner managed to

exist. Gorokoff announced that his commercial affairs compelled him

to go to Khathyl and that he and his sister would be glad to join

our caravan. He had a most unprepossessing, angry-looking face with

colorless eyes that always avoided those of the person with whom he was

speaking. During the conversation we asked Kanine if there were Russian

colonists near by, to which he answered with knitted brow and a look of

disgust on his face:

“There is one rich old man, Bobroff, who lives a verst away from our

station; but I would not advise you to visit him. He is a miserly,

inhospitable old fellow who does not like guests.”

During these words of her husband Madame Kanine dropped her eyes and

contracted her shoulders in something resembling a shudder. Gorokoff and

his sister smoked along indifferently. I very clearly remarked all this

as well as the hostile tone of Kanine, the confusion of his wife and

the artificial indifference of Gorokoff; and I determined to see the

old colonist given such a bad name by Kanine. In Uliassutai I knew

two Bobroffs. I said to Kanine that I had been asked to hand a letter

personally to Bobroff and, after finishing my tea, put on my overcoat

and went out.

The house of Bobroff stood in a deep sink in the mountains, surrounded

by a high fence over which the low roofs of the houses could be seen. A

light shone through the window. I knocked at the gate. A furious barking

of dogs answered me and through the cracks of the fence I made out four

huge black Mongol dogs, showing their teeth and growling as they rushed

toward the gate. Inside the court someone opened the door and called

out: “Who is there?”

I answered that I was traveling through from Uliassutai. The dogs were

first caught and chained and I was then admitted by a man who looked me

over very carefully and inquiringly from head to foot. A revolver handle

stuck out of his pocket. Satisfied with his observations and learning

that I knew his relatives, he warmly welcomed me to the house and

presented me to his wife, a dignified old woman, and to his beautiful

little adopted daughter, a girl of five years. She had been found on

the plain beside the dead body of her mother exhausted in her attempt to

escape from the Bolsheviki in Siberia.

Bobroff told me that the Russian detachment of Kazagrandi had succeeded

in driving the Red troops away from the Kosogol and that we could

consequently continue our trip to Khathyl without danger.

“Why did you not stop with me instead of with those brigands?” asked the

old fellow.

I began to question him and received some very important news. It

seemed that Kanine was a Bolshevik, the agent of the Irkutsk Soviet, and

stationed here for purposes of observation. However, now he was rendered

harmless, because the road between him and Irkutsk was interrupted.

Still from Biisk in the Altai country had just come a very important

commissar.

“Gorokoff?” I asked.

“That’s what he calls himself,” replied the old fellow; “but I am also

from Biisk and I know everyone there. His real name is Pouzikoff and the

short-haired girl with him is his mistress. He is the commissar of the

‘Cheka’ and she is the agent of this establishment. Last August the two

of them shot with their revolvers seventy bound officers from Kolchak’s

army. Villainous, cowardly murderers! Now they have come here for a

reconnaissance. They wanted to stay in my house but I knew them too well

and refused them place.”

“And you do not fear him?” I asked, remembering the different words and

glances of these people as they sat at the table in the station.

“No,” answered the old man. “I know how to defend myself and my family

and I have a protector too--my son, such a shot, a rider and a fighter

as does not exist in all Mongolia. I am very sorry that you will not

make the acquaintance of my boy. He has gone off to the herds and will

return only tomorrow evening.”

We took most cordial leave of each other and I promised to stop with him

on my return.

“Well, what yarns did Bobroff tell you about us?” was the question with

which Kanine and Gorokoff met me when I came back to the station.

“Nothing about you,” I answered, “because he did not even want to speak

with me when he found out that I was staying in your house. What is the

trouble between you?” I asked of them, expressing complete astonishment

on my face.

“It is an old score,” growled Gorokoff.

“A malicious old churl,” Kanine added in agreement, the while the

frightened, suffering-laden eyes of his wife again gave expression

to terrifying horror, as if she momentarily expected a deadly blow.

Gorokoff began to pack his luggage in preparation for the journey with

us the following morning. We prepared our simple beds in an adjoining

room and went to sleep. I whispered to my friend to keep his revolver

handy for anything that might happen but he only smiled as he dragged

his revolver and his ax from his coat to place them under his pillow.

“This people at the outset seemed to me very suspicious,” he whispered.

“They are cooking up something crooked. Tomorrow I shall ride behind

this Gorokoff and shall prepare for him a very faithful one of my

bullets, a little dum-dum.”

The Mongols spent the night under their tent in the open court beside

their camels, because they wanted to be near to feed them. About seven

o’clock we started. My friend took up his post as rear guard to our

caravan, keeping all the time behind Gorokoff, who with his sister, both

armed from tip to toe, rode splendid mounts.

“How have you kept your horses in such fine condition coming all the way

from Samgaltai?” I inquired as I looked over their fine beasts.

When he answered that these belonged to his host, I realized that Kanine

was not so poor as he made out; for any rich Mongol would have given him

in exchange for one of these lovely animals enough sheep to have kept

his household in mutton for a whole year.

Soon we came to a large swamp surrounded by dense brush, where I was

much astonished by seeing literally hundreds of white kuropatka or

partridges. Out of the water rose a flock of duck with a mad rush as

we hove in sight. Winter, cold driving wind, snow and wild ducks! The

Mongol explained it to me thus:

“This swamp always remains warm and never freezes. The wild ducks live

here the year round and the kuropatka too, finding fresh food in the

soft warm earth.”

As I was speaking with the Mongol I noticed over the swamp a tongue of

reddish-yellow flame. It flashed and disappeared at once but later, on

the farther edge, two further tongues ran upward. I realized that here

was the real will-o’-the-wisp surrounded by so many thousands of legends

and explained so simply by chemistry as merely a flash of methane or

swamp gas generated by the putrefying of vegetable matter in the warm

damp earth.

“Here dwell the demons of Adair, who are in perpetual war with those of

Muren,” explained the Mongol.

“Indeed,” I thought, “if in prosaic Europe in our days the inhabitants

of our villages believe these flames to be some wild sorcery, then

surely in the land of mystery they must be at least the evidences of war

between the demons of two neighboring rivers!”

After passing this swamp we made out far ahead of us a large monastery.

Though this was some half mile off the road, the Gorokoffs said they

would ride over to it to make some purchases in the Chinese shops there.

They quickly rode away, promising to overtake us shortly, but we did not

see them again for a while. They slipped away without leaving any trail

but we met them later in very unexpected circumstances of fatal portent

for them. On our part we were highly satisfied that we were rid of

them so soon and, after they were gone, I imparted to my friend the

information gleaned from Bobroff the evening before.

CHAPTER XXIII

ON A VOLCANO

The following evening we arrived at Khathyl, a small Russian settlement

of ten scattered houses in the valley of the Egingol or Yaga, which here

takes its waters from the Kosogol half a mile above the village. The

Kosogol is a huge Alpine lake, deep and cold, eighty-five miles in

length and from ten to thirty in width. On the western shore live the

Darkhat Soyots, who call it Hubsugul, the Mongols, Kosogol. Both the

Soyots and Mongols consider this a terrible and sacred lake. It is very

easy to understand this prejudice because the lake lies in a region of

present volcanic activity, where in the summer on perfectly calm sunny

days it sometimes lashes itself into great waves that are dangerous not

only to the native fishing boats but also to the large Russian passenger

steamers that ply on the lake. In winter also it sometimes entirely

breaks up its covering of ice and gives off great clouds of steam.

Evidently the bottom of the lake is sporadically pierced by discharging

hot springs or, perhaps, by streams of lava. Evidence of some great

underground convulsion like this is afforded by the mass of killed fish

which at times dams the outlet river in its shallow places. The lake is

exceedingly rich in fish, chiefly varieties of trout and salmon, and

is famous for its wonderful “white fish,” which was previously sent all

over Siberia and even down into Manchuria so far as Moukden. It is fat

and remarkably tender and produces fine caviar. Another variety in

the lake is the white khayrus or trout, which in the migration season,

contrary to the customs of most fish, goes down stream into the Yaga,

where it sometimes fills the river from bank to bank with swarms of

backs breaking the surface of the water. However, this fish is not

caught, because it is infested with worms and is unfit for food. Even

cats and dogs will not touch it. This is a very interesting phemonenon

and was being investigated and studied by Professor Dorogostaisky of the

University at Irkutsk when the coming of the Bolsheviki interrupted his

work.

In Khathyl we found a panic. The Russian detachment of Colonel

Kazagrandi, after having twice defeated the Bolsheviki and well on its

march against Irkutsk, was suddenly rendered impotent and scattered

through internal strife among the officers. The Bolsheviki took

advantage of this situation, increased their forces to one thousand men

and began a forward movement to recover what they had lost, while the

remnants of Colonel Kazagrandi’s detachment were retreating on Khathyl,

where he determined to make his last stand against the Reds. The

inhabitants were loading their movable property with their families into

carts and scurrying away from the town, leaving all their cattle and

horses to whomsoever should have the power to seize and hold them.

One party intended to hide in the dense larch forest and the mountain

ravines not far away, while another party made southward for Muren Kure

and Uliassutai. The morning following our arrival the Mongol official

received word that the Red troops had outflanked Colonel Kazagrandi’s

men and were approaching Khathyl. The Mongol loaded his documents and

his servants on eleven camels and left his yamen. Our Mongol guides,

without ever saying a word to us, secretly slipped off with him and left

us without camels. Our situation thus became desperate. We hastened to

the colonists who had not yet got away to bargain with them for camels,

but they had previously, in anticipation of trouble, sent their herds

to distant Mongols and so could do nothing to help us. Then we betook

ourselves to Dr. V. G. Gay, a veterinarian living in the town, famous

throughout Mongolia for his battle against rinderpest. He lived here

with his family and after being forced to give up his government work

became a cattle dealer. He was a most interesting person, clever and

energetic, and the one who had been appointed under the Czarist regime

to purchase all the meat supplies from Mongolia for the Russian Army on

the German Front. He organized a huge enterprise in Mongolia but when

the Bolsheviki seized power in 1917 he transferred his allegiance and

began to work with them. Then in May, 1918, when the Kolchak forces

drove the Bolsheviki out of Siberia, he was arrested and taken for

trial. However, he was released because he was looked upon as the single

individual to organize this big Mongolian enterprise and he handed

to Admiral Kolchak all the supplies of meat and the silver formerly

received from the Soviet commissars. At this time Gay had been serving

as the chief organizer and supplier of the forces of Kazagrandi.

When we went to him, he at once suggested that we take the only thing

left, some poor, broken-down horses which would be able to carry us the

sixty miles to Muren Kure, where we could secure camels to return to

Uliassutai. However, even these were being kept some distance from the

town so that we should have to spend the night there, the night in which

the Red troops were expected to arrive. Also we were much astonished to

see that Gay was remaining there with his family right up to the time of

the expected arrival of the Reds. The only others in the town were a few

Cossacks, who had been ordered to stay behind to watch the movements of

the Red troops. The night came. My friend and I were prepared either

to fight or, in the last event, to commit suicide. We stayed in a small

house near the Yaga, where some workmen were living who could not, and

did not feel it necessary to, leave. They went up on a hill from which

they could scan the whole country up to the range from behind which the

Red detachment must appear. From this vantage point in the forest one of

the workmen came running in and cried out:

“Woe, woe to us! The Reds have arrived. A horseman is galloping fast

through the forest road. I called to him but he did not answer me. It

was dark but I knew the horse was a strange one.”

“Do not babble so,” said another of the workmen. “Some Mongol rode by

and you jumped to the conclusion that he was a Red.”

“No, it was not a Mongol,” he replied. “The horse was shod. I heard the

sound of iron shoes on the road. Woe to us!”

“Well,” said my friend, “it seems that this is our finish. It is a silly

way for it all to end.”

He was right. Just then there was a knock at our door but it was that

of the Mongol bringing us three horses for our escape. Immediately we

saddled them, packed the third beast with our tent and food and rode off

at once to take leave of Gay.

In his house we found the whole war council. Two or three colonists and

several Cossacks had galloped from the mountains and announced that the

Red detachment was approaching Khathyl but would remain for the night

in the forest, where they were building campfires. In fact, through

the house windows we could see the glare of the fires. It seemed very

strange that the enemy should await the morning there in the forest when

they were right on the village they wished to capture.

An armed Cossack entered the room and announced that two armed men from

the detachment were approaching. All the men in the room pricked up

their ears. Outside were heard the horses’ hoofs followed by men’s

voices and a knock at the door.

“Come in,” said Gay.

Two young men entered, their moustaches and beards white and their

cheeks blazing red from the cold. They were dressed in the common

Siberian overcoat with the big Astrakhan caps, but they had no weapons.

Questions began. It developed that it was a detachment of White peasants

from the Irkutsk and Yakutsk districts who had been fighting with the

Bolsheviki. They had been defeated somewhere in the vicinity of Irkutsk

and were now trying to make a junction with Kazagrandi. The leader of

this band was a socialist, Captain Vassilieff, who had suffered much

under the Czar because of his tenets.

Our troubles had vanished but we decided to start immediately to Muren

Kure, as we had gathered our information and were in a hurry to make

our report. We started. On the road we overtook three Cossacks who were

going out to bring back the colonists who were fleeing to the south. We

joined them and, dismounting, we all led our horses over the ice. The

Yaga was mad. The subterranean forces produced underneath the ice great

heaving waves which with a swirling roar threw up and tore loose great

sections of ice, breaking them into small blocks and sucking them under

the unbroken downstream field. Cracks ran like snakes over the surface

in different directions. One of the Cossacks fell into one of these

but we had just time to save him. He was forced by his ducking in such

extreme cold to turn back to Khathyl. Our horses slipped about and fell

several times. Men and animals felt the presence of death which hovered

over them and momentarily threatened them with destruction. At last we

made the farther bank and continued southward down the valley, glad to

have left the geological and figurative volcanoes behind us. Ten miles

farther on we came up with the first party of refugees. They had spread

a big tent and made a fire inside, filling it with warmth and smoke.

Their camp was made beside the establishment of a large Chinese trading

house, where the owners refused to let the colonists come into their

amply spacious buildings, even though there were children, women and

invalids among the refugees. We spent but half an hour here. The road

as we continued was easy, save in places where the snow lay deep. We

crossed the fairly high divide between the Egingol and Muren. Near the

pass one very unexpected event occurred to us. We crossed the mouth of

a fairly wide valley whose upper end was covered with a dense wood. Near

this wood we noticed two horsemen, evidently watching us. Their manner

of sitting in their saddles and the character of their horses told us

that they were not Mongols. We began shouting and waving to them; but

they did not answer. Out of the wood emerged a third and stopped to

look at us. We decided to interview them and, whipping up our horses,

galloped toward them. When we were about one thousand yards from them,

they slipped from their saddles and opened on us with a running fire.

Fortunately we rode a little apart and thus made a poor target for them.

We jumped off our horses, dropped prone on the ground and prepared to

fight. However, we did not fire because we thought it might be a mistake

on their part, thinking that we were Reds. They shortly made off. Their

shots from the European rifles had given us further proof that they were

not Mongols. We waited until they had disappeared into the woods and

then went forward to investigate their tracks, which we found were those

of shod horses, clearly corroborating the earlier evidence that they

were not Mongols. Who could they have been? We never found out; yet what

a different relationship they might have borne to our lives, had their

shots been true!

After we had passed over the divide, we met the Russian colonist D. A.

Teternikoff from Muren Kure, who invited us to stay in his house and

promised to secure camels for us from the Lamas. The cold was intense

and heightened by a piercing wind. During the day we froze to the bone

but at night thawed and warmed up nicely by our tent stove. After two

days we entered the valley of Muren and from afar made out the square

of the Kure with its Chinese roofs and large red temples. Nearby was

a second square, the Chinese and Russian settlement. Two hours more

brought us to the house of our hospitable companion and his attractive

young wife who feasted us with a wonderful luncheon of tasty dishes. We

spent five days at Muren waiting for the camels to be engaged. During

this time many refugees arrived from Khathyl because Colonel Kazagrandi

was gradually falling back upon the town. Among others there were two

Colonels, Plavako and Maklakoff, who had caused the disruption of the

Kazagrandi force. No sooner had the refugees appeared in Muren Kure

than the Mongolian officials announced that the Chinese authorities had

ordered them to drive out all Russian refugees.

“Where can we go now in winter with women and children and no homes of

our own?” asked the distraught refugees.

“That is of no moment to us,” answered the Mongolian officials. “The

Chinese authorities are angry and have ordered us to drive you away. We

cannot help you at all.”

The refugees had to leave Muren Kure and so erected their tents in the

open not far away. Plavako and Maklakoff bought horses and started out

for Van Kure. Long afterwards I learned that both had been killed by the

Chinese along the road.

We secured three camels and started out with a large group of Chinese

merchants and Russian refugees to make Uliassutai, preserving

the warmest recollections of our courteous hosts, T. V. and D. A.

Teternikoff. For the trip we had to pay for our camels the very high

price of 33 lan of the silver bullion which had been supplied us by an

American firm in Uliassutai, the equivalent roughly of 2.7 pounds of the

white metal.

CHAPTER XXIV

A BLOODY CHASTISEMENT

Before long we struck the road which we had travelled coming north and

saw again the kindly rows of chopped down telegraph poles which had once

so warmly protected us. Over the timbered hillocks north of the valley

of Tisingol we wended just as it was growing dark. We decided to stay

in Bobroff’s house and our companions thought to seek the hospitality of

Kanine in the telegraph station. At the station gate we found a soldier

with a rifle, who questioned us as to who we were and whence we had come

and, being apparently satisfied, whistled out a young officer from the

house.

“Lieutenant Ivanoff,” he introduced himself. “I am staying here with my

detachment of White Partisans.”

He had come from near Irkutsk with his following of ten men and had

formed a connection with Lieutenant-Colonel Michailoff at Uliassutai,

who commanded him to take possession of this blockhouse.

“Enter, please,” he said hospitably.

I explained to him that I wanted to stay with Bobroff, whereat he made a

despairing gesture with his hand and said:

“Don’t trouble yourself. The Bobroffs are killed and their house

burned.”

I could not keep back a cry of horror.

The Lieutenant continued: “Kanine and the Pouzikoffs killed them,

pillaged the place and afterwards burned the house with their dead

bodies in it. Do you want to see it?”

My friend and I went with the Lieutenant and looked over the ominous

site. Blackened uprights stood among charred beams and planks while

crockery and iron pots and pans were scattered all around. A little

to one side under some felt lay the remains of the four unfortunate

individuals. The Lieutenant first spoke:

“I reported the case to Uliassutai and received word back that the

relatives of the deceased would come with two officers, who would

investigate the affair. That is why I cannot bury the bodies.”

“How did it happen?” we asked, oppressed by the sad picture.

“It was like this,” he began. “I was approaching Tisingol at night with

my ten soldiers. Fearing that there might be Reds here, we sneaked up

to the station and looked into the windows. We saw Pouzikoff, Kanine

and the short-haired girl, looking over and dividing clothes and

other things and weighing lumps of silver. I did not at once grasp the

significance of all this; but, feeling the need for continued caution,

ordered one of my soldiers to climb the fence and open the gate. We

rushed into the court. The first to run from the house was Kanine’s

wife, who threw up her hands and shrieked in fear: ‘I knew that

misfortune would come of all this!’ and then fainted. One of the men ran

out of a side door to a shed in the yard and there tried to get over the

fence. I had not noticed him but one of my soldiers caught him. We were

met at the door by Kanine, who was white and trembling. I realized

that something important had taken place, placed them all under arrest,

ordered the men tied and placed a close guard. All my questions were

met with silence save by Madame Kanine who cried: ‘Pity, pity for the

children! They are innocent!’ as she dropped on her knees and stretched

out her hands in supplication to us. The short-haired girl laughed out

of impudent eyes and blew a puff of smoke into my face. I was forced to

threaten them and said:

“‘I know that you have committed some crime, but you do not want to

confess. If you do not, I shall shoot the men and take the women to

Uliassutai to try them there.’

“I spoke with definiteness of voice and intention, for they roused my

deepest anger. Quite to my surprise the short-haired girl first began to

speak.

“‘I want to tell you about everything,’ she said.

“I ordered ink, paper and pen brought me. My soldiers were the

witnesses. Then I prepared the protocol of the confession of Pouzikoff’s

wife. This was her dark and bloody tale.

“‘My husband and I are Bolshevik commissars and we have been sent to

find out how many White officers are hidden in Mongolia. But the old

fellow Bobroff knew us. We wanted to go away but Kanine kept us, telling

us that Bobroff was rich and that he had for a long time wanted to kill

him and pillage his place. We agreed to join him. We decoyed the young

Bobroff to come and play cards with us. When he was going home my

husband stole along behind and shot him. Afterwards we all went to

Bobroff’s place. I climbed upon the fence and threw some poisoned meat

to the dogs, who were dead in a few minutes. Then we all climbed over.

The first person to emerge from the house was Bobroff’s wife. Pouzikoff,

who was hidden behind the door, killed her with his ax. The old fellow

we killed with a blow of the ax as he slept. The little girl ran out

into the room as she heard the noise and Kanine shot her in the head

with buckshot. Afterwards we looted the house and burned it, even

destroying the horses and cattle. Later all would have been completely

burned, so that no traces remained, but you suddenly arrived and these

stupid fellows at once betrayed us.’

“It was a dastardly affair,” continued the Lieutenant, as we returned

to the station. “The hair raised on my head as I listened to the calm

description of this young woman, hardly more than a girl. Only then did

I fully realize what depravity Bolshevism had brought into the world,

crushing out faith, fear of God and conscience. Only then did I

understand that all honest people must fight without compromise against

this most dangerous enemy of mankind, so long as life and strength

endure.”

As we walked I noticed at the side of the road a black spot. It

attracted and fixed my attention.

“What is that?” I asked, pointing to the spot.

“It is the murderer Pouzikoff whom I shot,” answered the Lieutenant. “I

would have shot both Kanine and the wife of Pouzikoff but I was sorry

for Kanine’s wife and children and I haven’t learned the lesson

of shooting women. Now I shall send them along with you under the

surveillance of my soldiers to Uliassutai. The same result will come,

for the Mongols who try them for the murder will surely kill them.”

This is what happened at Tisingol, on whose shores the will-o’-the-wisp

flits over the marshy pools and near which runs the cleavage of over two

hundred miles that the last earthquake left in the surface of the land.

Maybe it was out of this cleavage that Pouzikoff, Kanine and the others

who have sought to infect the whole world with horror and crime made

their appearance from the land of the inferno. One of Lieutenant

Ivanoff’s soldiers, who was always praying and pale, called them all

“the servants of Satan.”

Our trip from Tisingol to Uliassutai in the company of these criminals

was very unpleasant. My friend and I entirely lost our usual strength

of spirit and healthy frame of mind. Kanine persistently brooded and

thought while the impudent woman laughed, smoked and joked with the

soldiers and several of our companions. At last we crossed the Jagisstai

and in a few hours descried at first the fortress and then the low adobe

houses huddled on the plain, which we knew to be Uliassutai.

CHAPTER XXV

HARASSING DAYS

Once more we found ourselves in the whirl of events. During our

fortnight away a great deal had happened here. The Chinese Commissioner

Wang Tsao-tsun had sent eleven envoys to Urga but none had returned. The

situation in Mongolia remained far from clear. The Russian detachment

had been increased by the arrival of new colonists and secretly

continued its illegal existence, although the Chinese knew about it

through their omnipresent system of spies. In the town no Russian or

foreign citizens left their houses and all remained armed and ready to

act. At night armed sentinels stood guard in all their court-yards.

It was the Chinese who induced such precautions. By order of their

Commissioner all the Chinese merchants with stocks of rifles armed their

staffs and handed over any surplus guns to the officials, who with

these formed and equipped a force of two hundred coolies into a special

garrison of gamins. Then they took possession of the Mongolian arsenal

and distributed these additional guns among the Chinese vegetable

farmers in the nagan hushun, where there was always a floating

population of the lowest grade of transient Chinese laborers. This

trash of China now felt themselves strong, gathered together in

excited discussions and evidently were preparing for some outburst of

aggression. At night the coolies transported many boxes of cartridges

from the Chinese shops to the nagan hushun and the behaviour of the

Chinese mob became unbearably audacious. These coolies and gamins

impertinently stopped and searched people right on the streets and

sought to provoke fights that would allow them to take anything they

wanted. Through secret news we received from certain Chinese quarters

we learned that the Chinese were preparing a pogrom for all the Russians

and Mongols in Uliassutai. We fully realized that it was only necessary

to fire one single house at the right part of the town and the entire

settlement of wooden buildings would go up in flames. The whole

population prepared to defend themselves, increased the sentinels in the

compounds, appointed leaders for certain sections of the town, organized

a special fire brigade and prepared horses, carts and food for a hasty

flight. The situation became worse when news arrived from Kobdo that

the Chinese there had made a pogrom, killing some of the inhabitants and

burning the whole town after a wild looting orgy. Most of the people

got away to the forests on the mountains but it was at night and

consequently without warm clothes and without food. During the following

days these mountains around Kobdo heard many cries of misfortune, woe

and death. The severe cold and hunger killed off the women and children

out under the open sky of the Mongolian winter. This news was soon known

to the Chinese. They laughed in mockery and soon organized a big meeting

at the nagan hushun to discuss letting the mob and gamins loose on the

town.

A young Chinese, the son of a cook of one of the colonists, revealed

this news. We immediately decided to make an investigation. A Russian

officer and my friend joined me with this young Chinese as a guide for

a trip to the outskirts of the town. We feigned simply a stroll but were

stopped by the Chinese sentinel on the side of the city toward the nagan

hushun with an impertinent command that no one was allowed to leave

the town. As we spoke with him, I noticed that between the town and the

nagan hushun Chinese guards were stationed all along the way and that

streams of Chinese were moving in that direction. We saw at once it was

impossible to reach the meeting from this approach, so we chose another

route. We left the city from the eastern side and passed along by the

camp of the Mongolians who had been reduced to beggary by the Chinese

impositions. There also they were evidently anxiously awaiting the turn

of events, for, in spite of the lateness of the hour, none had gone to

sleep. We slipped out on the ice and worked around by the river to the

nagan hushun. As we passed free of the city we began to sneak cautiously

along, taking advantage of every bit of cover. We were armed with

revolvers and hand grenades and knew that a small detachment had been

prepared in the town to come to our aid, if we should be in danger.

First the young Chinese stole forward with my friend following him like

a shadow, constantly reminding him that he would strangle him like a

mouse if he made one move to betray us. I fear the young guide did not

greatly enjoy the trip with my gigantic friend puffing all too loudly

with the unusual exertions. At last the fences of nagan hushun were in

sight and nothing between us and them save the open plain, where our

group would have been easily spotted; so that we decided to crawl up one

by one, save that the Chinese was retained in the society of my trusted

friend. Fortunately there were many heaps of frozen manure on the plain,

which we made use of as cover to lead us right up to our objective

point, the fence of the enclosures. In the shadow of this we slunk along

to the courtyard where the voices of the excited crowd beckoned us. As

we took good vantage points in the darkness for listening and making

observations, we remarked two extraordinary things in our immediate

neighborhood.

Another invisible guest was present with us at the Chinese gathering.

He lay on the ground with his head in a hole dug by the dogs under the

fence. He was perfectly still and evidently had not heard our advance.

Nearby in a ditch lay a white horse with his nose muzzled and a little

further away stood another saddled horse tied to a fence.

In the courtyard there was a great hubbub. About two thousand men

were shouting, arguing and flourishing their arms about in wild

gesticulations. Nearly all were armed with rifles, revolvers, swords

and axes. In among the crowd circulated the gamins, constantly

talking, handing out papers, explaining and assuring. Finally a big,

broad-shouldered Chinese mounted the well combing, waved his rifle about

over his head and opened a tirade in strong, sharp tones.

“He is assuring the people,” said our interpreter, “that they must

do here what the Chinese have done in Kobdo and must secure from the

Commissioner the assurance of an order to his guard not to prevent the

carrying out of their plans. Also that the Chinese Commissioner

must demand from the Russians all their weapons. ‘Then we shall take

vengeance on the Russians for their Blagoveschensk crime when they

drowned three thousand Chinese in 1900. You remain here while I go to

the Commissioner and talk with him.’”

He jumped down from the well and quickly made his way to the gate toward

the town. At once I saw the man who was lying with his head under the

fence draw back out of his hole, take his white horse from the ditch and

then run over to untie the other horse and lead them both back to our

side, which was away from the city. He left the second horse there and

hid himself around the corner of the hushun. The spokesman went out of

the gate and, seeing his horse over on the other side of the enclosure,

slung his rifle across his back and started for his mount. He had gone

about half way when the stranger behind the corner of the fence suddenly

galloped out and in a flash literally swung the man clear from the

ground up across the pommel of his saddle, where we saw him tie the

mouth of the semi-strangled Chinese with a cloth and dash off with him

toward the west away from the town.

“Who do you suppose he is?” I asked of my friend, who answered up at

once: “It must be Tushegoun Lama. . . .”

His whole appearance did strongly remind me of this mysterious Lama

avenger and his manner of addressing himself to his enemy was a strict

replica of that of Tushegoun. Late in the night we learned that some

time after their orator had gone to seek the Commissioner’s cooperation

in their venture, his head had been flung over the fence into the midst

of the waiting audience and that eight gamins had disappeared on their

way from the hushun to the town without leaving trace or trail. This

event terrorized the Chinese mob and calmed their heated spirits.

The next day we received very unexpected aid. A young Mongol galloped in

from Urga, his overcoat torn, his hair all dishevelled and fallen to

his shoulders and a revolver prominent beneath his girdle. Proceeding

directly to the market where the Mongols are always gathered, without

leaving his saddle he cried out:

“Urga is captured by our Mongols and Chiang Chun Baron Ungern! Bogdo

Hutuktu is once more our Khan! Mongols, kill the Chinese and pillage

their shops! Our patience is exhausted!”

Through the crowd rose the roar of excitement. The rider was surrounded

with a mob of insistent questioners. The old Mongol Sait, Chultun Beyli,

who had been dismissed by the Chinese, was at once informed of this news

and asked to have the messenger brought to him. After questioning the

man he arrested him for inciting the people to riot, but he refused to

turn him over to the Chinese authorities. I was personally with the

Sait at the time and heard his decision in the matter. When the Chinese

Commissioner, Wang Tsao-tsun, threatened the Sait for disobedience to

his authority, the old man simply fingered his rosary and said:

“I believe the story of this Mongol in its every word and I apprehend

that you and I shall soon have to reverse our relationship.”

I felt that Wang Tsao-tsun also accepted the correctness of the Mongol’s

story, because he did not insist further. From this moment the Chinese

disappeared from the streets of Uliassutai as though they never had

been, and synchronously the patrols of the Russian officers and of

our foreign colony took their places. The panic among the Chinese was

heightened by the receipt of a letter containing the news that the

Mongols and Altai Tartars under the leadership of the Tartar officer

Kaigorodoff pursued the Chinese who were making off with their booty

from the sack of Kobdo and overtook and annihilated them on the borders

of Sinkiang. Another part of the letter told how General Bakitch and

the six thousand men who had been interned with him by the Chinese

authorities on the River Amyl had received arms and started to join with

Ataman Annenkoff, who had been interned in Kuldja, with the ultimate

intention of linking up with Baron Ungern. This rumour proved to be

wrong because neither Bakitch nor Annenkoff entertained this intention,

because Annenkoff had been transported by the Chinese into the Depths of

Turkestan. However, the news produced veritable stupefaction among the

Chinese.