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+Project Gutenberg Etext Beasts, Men and Gods, by F. Ossendowski
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+Beasts, Men and Gods
+
+by Ferdinand Ossendowski
+
+February, 2000  [Etext #2067]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext Beasts, Men and Gods, by F. Ossendowski
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+This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com.
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+
+
+BEASTS, MEN AND GODS
+
+by Ferdinand Ossendowski
+
+
+
+
+EXPLANATORY NOTE
+
+
+When one of the leading publicists in America, Dr. Albert Shaw of
+the Review of Reviews, after reading the manuscript of Part I of
+this volume, characterized the author as "The Robinson Crusoe of
+the Twentieth Century," he touched the feature of the narrative
+which is at once most attractive and most dangerous; for the
+succession of trying and thrilling experiences recorded seems in
+places too highly colored to be real or, sometimes, even possible
+in this day and generation.  I desire, therefore, to assure the
+reader at the outset that Dr. Ossendowski is a man of long and
+diverse experience as a scientist and writer with a training for
+careful observation which should put the stamp of accuracy and
+reliability on his chronicle.  Only the extraordinary events of
+these extraordinary times could have thrown one with so many
+talents back into the surroundings of the "Cave Man" and thus given
+to us this unusual account of personal adventure, of great human
+mysteries and of the political and religious motives which are
+energizing the "Heart of Asia."
+
+My share in the work has been to induce Dr. Ossendowski to write
+his story at this time and to assist him in rendering his
+experiences into English.
+
+LEWIS STANTON PALEN.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I.  DRAWING LOTS WITH DEATH
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.  INTO THE FORESTS
+
+II.  THE SECRET OF MY FELLOW TRAVELER
+
+III.  THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE
+
+IV.  A FISHERMAN
+
+V.  A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR
+
+VI.  A RIVER IN TRAVAIL
+
+VII.  THROUGH SOVIET SIBERIA
+
+VIII.  THREE DAYS ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE
+
+IX.  TO THE SAYANS AND SAFETY
+
+X.  THE BATTLE OF THE SEYBI
+
+XI.  THE BARRIER OF RED PARTISANS
+
+XII.  IN THE COUNTRY OF ETERNAL PEACE
+
+XIII.  MYSTERIES, MIRACLES AND A NEW FIGHT
+
+XIV.  THE RIVER OF THE DEVIL
+
+XV.  THE MARCH OF GHOSTS
+
+XVI.  IN MYSTERIOUS TIBET
+
+
+
+PART II.  THE LAND OF DEMONS
+
+
+XVII.  MYSTERIOUS MONGOLIA
+
+XVIII.  THE MYSTERIOUS LAMA AVENGER
+
+XIX.  WILD CHAHARS
+
+XX.  THE DEMON OF JAGISSTAI
+
+XXI.  THE NEST OF DEATH
+
+XXII.  AMONG THE MURDERERS
+
+XXIII.  ON A VOLCANO
+
+XXIV.  A BLOODY CHASTISEMENT
+
+XXV.  HARASSING DAYS
+
+XXVI.  THE BAND OF WHITE HUNGHUTZES
+
+XXVII.  MYSTERY IN A SMALL TEMPLE
+
+XXVIII.  THE BREATH OF DEATH
+
+
+
+PART III.  THE STRAINING HEART OF ASIA
+
+
+XXIX.  ON THE ROAD OF GREAT CONQUERORS
+
+XXX.  ARRESTED!
+
+XXXI.  TRAVELING BY "URGA"
+
+XXXII.  AN OLD FORTUNE TELLER
+
+XXXIII.  "DEATH FROM THE WHITE MAN WILL STAND BEHIND YOU"
+
+XXXIV.  THE HORROR OF WAR!
+
+XXXV.  IN THE CITY OF LIVING GODS, 30,000 BUDDHAS AND 60,000 MONKS
+
+XXXVI.  A SON OF CRUSADERS AND PRIVATEERS
+
+XXXVII.  THE CAMP OF MARTYRS
+
+XXXVIII.  BEFORE THE FACE OF BUDDHA
+
+XXXIX.  "THE MAN WITH A HEAD LIKE A SADDLE"
+
+
+
+PART IV.  THE LIVING BUDDHA
+
+
+XL.  IN THE BLISSFUL GARDEN OF A THOUSAND JOYS
+
+XLI.  THE DUST OF CENTURIES
+
+XLII.  THE BOOKS OF MIRACLES
+
+XLIII.  THE BIRTH OF THE LIVING BUDDHA
+
+XLIV.  A PAGE IN THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT LIVING BUDDHA
+
+XLV.  THE VISION OF THE LIVING BUDDHA OF MAY 17, 1921
+
+
+
+PART V.  MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES--THE KING OF THE WORLD
+
+
+XLVI.  THE SUBTERRANEAN KINGDOM
+
+XLVII.  THE KING OF THE WORLD BEFORE THE FACE OF GOD
+
+XLVIII.  REALITY OR RELIGIOUS FANTASY?
+
+XLIX.  THE PROPHECY OF THE KING OF THE WORLD IN 1890
+
+
+
+
+There are times, men and events about which History alone can
+record the final judgments; contemporaries and individual observers
+must only write what they have seen and heard.  The very truth
+demands it.
+
+TITUS LIVIUS.
+
+
+
+
+BEASTS, MEN AND GODS
+
+
+
+Part I
+
+DRAWING LOTS WITH DEATH
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTO THE FORESTS
+
+
+In the beginning of the year 1920 I happened to be living in the
+Siberian town of Krasnoyarsk, situated on the shores of the River
+Yenisei, that noble stream which is cradled in the sun-bathed
+mountains of Mongolia to pour its warming life into the Arctic
+Ocean and to whose mouth Nansen has twice come to open the shortest
+road for commerce from Europe to the heart of Asia.  There in the
+depths of the still Siberian winter I was suddenly caught up in the
+whirling storm of mad revolution raging all over Russia, sowing in
+this peaceful and rich land vengeance, hate, bloodshed and crimes
+that go unpunished by the law.  No one could tell the hour of his
+fate.  The people lived from day to day and left their homes not
+knowing whether they should return to them or whether they should
+be dragged from the streets and thrown into the dungeons of that
+travesty of courts, the Revolutionary Committee, more terrible and
+more bloody than those of the Mediaeval Inquisition.  We who were
+strangers in this distraught land were not saved from its
+persecutions and I personally lived through them.
+
+One morning, when I had gone out to see a friend, I suddenly
+received the news that twenty Red soldiers had surrounded my house
+to arrest me and that I must escape.  I quickly put on one of my
+friend's old hunting suits, took some money and hurried away on
+foot along the back ways of the town till I struck the open road,
+where I engaged a peasant, who in four hours had driven me twenty
+miles from the town and set me down in the midst of a deeply
+forested region.  On the way I bought a rifle, three hundred
+cartridges, an ax, a knife, a sheepskin overcoat, tea, salt, dry
+bread and a kettle.  I penetrated into the heart of the wood to an
+abandoned half-burned hut.  From this day I became a genuine
+trapper but I never dreamed that I should follow this role as long
+as I did.  The next morning I went hunting and had the good fortune
+to kill two heathcock.  I found deer tracks in plenty and felt sure
+that I should not want for food.  However, my sojourn in this place
+was not for long.  Five days later when I returned from hunting I
+noticed smoke curling up out of the chimney of my hut.  I
+stealthily crept along closer to the cabin and discovered two
+saddled horses with soldiers' rifles slung to the saddles.  Two
+disarmed men were not dangerous for me with a weapon, so I quickly
+rushed across the open and entered the hut.  From the bench two
+soldiers started up in fright.  They were Bolsheviki.  On their big
+Astrakhan caps I made out the red stars of Bolshevism and on their
+blouses the dirty red bands.  We greeted each other and sat down.
+The soldiers had already prepared tea and so we drank this ever
+welcome hot beverage and chatted, suspiciously eyeing one another
+the while.  To disarm this suspicion on their part, I told them
+that I was a hunter from a distant place and was living there
+because I found it good country for sables.  They announced to me
+that they were soldiers of a detachment sent from a town into the
+woods to pursue all suspicious people.
+
+"Do you understand, 'Comrade,'" said one of them to me, "we are
+looking for counter-revolutionists to shoot them?"
+
+I knew it without his explanations.  All my forces were directed to
+assuring them by my conduct that I was a simple peasant hunter and
+that I had nothing in common with the counter-revolutionists.  I
+was thinking also all the time of where I should go after the
+departure of my unwelcome guests.  It grew dark.  In the darkness
+their faces were even less attractive.  They took out bottles of
+vodka and drank and the alcohol began to act very noticeably.  They
+talked loudly and constantly interrupted each other, boasting how
+many bourgeoisie they had killed in Krasnoyarsk and how many
+Cossacks they had slid under the ice in the river.  Afterwards they
+began to quarrel but soon they were tired and prepared to sleep.
+All of a sudden and without any warning the door of the hut swung
+wide open and the steam of the heated room rolled out in a great
+cloud, out of which seemed to rise like a genie, as the steam
+settled, the figure of a tall, gaunt peasant impressively crowned
+with the high Astrakhan cap and wrapped in the great sheepskin
+overcoat that added to the massiveness of his figure.  He stood
+with his rifle ready to fire.  Under his girdle lay the sharp ax
+without which the Siberian peasant cannot exist.  Eyes, quick and
+glimmering like those of a wild beast, fixed themselves alternately
+on each of us.  In a moment he took off his cap, made the sign of
+the cross on his breast and asked of us: "Who is the master here?"
+
+I answered him.
+
+"May I stop the night?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, "places enough for all.  Take a cup of tea.  It
+is still hot."
+
+The stranger, running his eyes constantly over all of us and over
+everything about the room, began to take off his skin coat after
+putting his rifle in the corner.  He was dressed in an old leather
+blouse with trousers of the same material tucked in high felt
+boots.  His face was quite young, fine and tinged with something
+akin to mockery.  His white, sharp teeth glimmered as his eyes
+penetrated everything they rested upon.  I noticed the locks of
+grey in his shaggy head.  Lines of bitterness circled his mouth.
+They showed his life had been very stormy and full of danger.  He
+took a seat beside his rifle and laid his ax on the floor below.
+
+"What?  Is it your wife?" asked one of the drunken soldiers,
+pointing to the ax.
+
+The tall peasant looked calmly at him from the quiet eyes under
+their heavy brows and as calmly answered:
+
+"One meets a different folk these days and with an ax it is much
+safer."
+
+He began to drink tea very greedily, while his eyes looked at me
+many times with sharp inquiry in them and ran often round the whole
+cabin in search of the answer to his doubts.  Very slowly and with
+a guarded drawl he answered all the questions of the soldiers
+between gulps of the hot tea, then he turned his glass upside down
+as evidence of having finished, placed on the top of it the small
+lump of sugar left and remarked to the soldiers:
+
+"I am going out to look after my horse and will unsaddle your
+horses for you also."
+
+"All right," exclaimed the half-sleeping young soldier, "bring in
+our rifles as well."
+
+The soldiers were lying on the benches and thus left for us only
+the floor.  The stranger soon came back, brought the rifles and set
+them in the dark corner.  He dropped the saddle pads on the floor,
+sat down on them and began to take off his boots.  The soldiers and
+my guest soon were snoring but I did not sleep for thinking of what
+next to do.  Finally as dawn was breaking, I dozed off only to
+awake in the broad daylight and find my stranger gone.  I went
+outside the hut and discovered him saddling a fine bay stallion.
+
+"Are you going away?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, but I want to go together with these ---- comrades,'" he
+whispered, "and afterwards I shall come back."
+
+I did not ask him anything further and told him only that I would
+wait for him.  He took off the bags that had been hanging on his
+saddle, put them away out of sight in the burned corner of the
+cabin, looked over the stirrups and bridle and, as he finished
+saddling, smiled and said:
+
+"I am ready.  I'm going to awake my 'comrades.'"  Half an hour
+after the morning drink of tea, my three guests took their leave.
+I remained out of doors and was engaged in splitting wood for my
+stove.  Suddenly, from a distance, rifle shots rang through the
+woods, first one, then a second.  Afterwards all was still.  From
+the place near the shots a frightened covey of blackcock broke and
+came over me.  At the top of a high pine a jay cried out.  I
+listened for a long time to see if anyone was approaching my hut
+but everything was still.
+
+On the lower Yenisei it grows dark very early.  I built a fire in
+my stove and began to cook my soup, constantly listening for every
+noise that came from beyond the cabin walls.  Certainly I
+understood at all times very clearly that death was ever beside me
+and might claim me by means of either man, beast, cold, accident or
+disease.  I knew that nobody was near me to assist and that all my
+help was in the hands of God, in the power of my hands and feet, in
+the accuracy of my aim and in my presence of mind.  However, I
+listened in vain.  I did not notice the return of my stranger.
+Like yesterday he appeared all at once on the threshold.  Through
+the steam I made out his laughing eyes and his fine face.  He
+stepped into the hut and dropped with a good deal of noise three
+rifles into the corner.
+
+"Two horses, two rifles, two saddles, two boxes of dry bread, half
+a brick of tea, a small bag of salt, fifty cartridges, two
+overcoats, two pairs of boots," laughingly he counted out.  "In
+truth today I had a very successful hunt."
+
+In astonishment I looked at him.
+
+"What are you surprised at?" he laughed.  "Komu nujny eti
+tovarischi?  Who's got any use for these fellows?  Let us have tea
+and go to sleep.  Tomorrow I will guide you to another safer place
+and then go on."
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SECRET OF MY FELLOW TRAVELER
+
+
+At the dawn of day we started forth, leaving my first place of
+refuge.  Into the bags we packed our personal estate and fastened
+them on one of the saddles.
+
+"We must go four or five hundred versts," very calmly announced my
+fellow traveler, who called himself "Ivan," a name that meant
+nothing to my mind or heart in this land where every second man
+bore the same.
+
+"We shall travel then for a very long time," I remarked
+regretfully.
+
+"Not more than one week, perhaps even less," he answered.
+
+That night we spent in the woods under the wide spreading branches
+of the fir trees.  It was my first night in the forest under the
+open sky.  How many like this I was destined to spend in the year
+and a half of my wanderings!  During the day there was very sharp
+cold.  Under the hoofs of the horses the frozen snow crunched and
+the balls that formed and broke from their hoofs rolled away over
+the crust with a sound like crackling glass.  The heathcock flew
+from the trees very idly, hares loped slowly down the beds of
+summer streams.  At night the wind began to sigh and whistle as it
+bent the tops of the trees over our heads; while below it was still
+and calm.  We stopped in a deep ravine bordered by heavy trees,
+where we found fallen firs, cut them into logs for the fire and,
+after having boiled our tea, dined.
+
+Ivan dragged in two tree trunks, squared them on one side with his
+ax, laid one on the other with the squared faces together and then
+drove in a big wedge at the butt ends which separated them three or
+four inches.  Then we placed live coals in this opening and watched
+the fire run rapidly the whole length of the squared faces vis-a-
+vis.
+
+"Now there will be a fire in the morning," he announced.  "This is
+the 'naida' of the gold prospectors.  We prospectors wandering in
+the woods summer and winter always sleep beside this 'naida.'
+Fine!  You shall see for yourself," he continued.
+
+He cut fir branches and made a sloping roof out of them, resting it
+on two uprights toward the naida.  Above our roof of boughs and our
+naida spread the branches of protecting fir.  More branches were
+brought and spread on the snow under the roof, on these were placed
+the saddle cloths and together they made a seat for Ivan to rest on
+and to take off his outer garments down to his blouse.  Soon I
+noticed his forehead was wet with perspiration and that he was
+wiping it and his neck on his sleeves.
+
+"Now it is good and warm!" he exclaimed.
+
+In a short time I was also forced to take off my overcoat and soon
+lay down to sleep without any covering at all, while through the
+branches of the fir trees and our roof glimmered the cold bright
+stars and just beyond the naida raged a stinging cold, from which
+we were cosily defended.  After this night I was no longer
+frightened by the cold.  Frozen during the days on horseback, I was
+thoroughly warmed through by the genial naida at night and rested
+from my heavy overcoat, sitting only in my blouse under the roofs
+of pine and fir and sipping the ever welcome tea.
+
+During our daily treks Ivan related to me the stories of his
+wanderings through the mountains and woods of Transbaikalia in the
+search for gold.  These stories were very lively, full of
+attractive adventure, danger and struggle.  Ivan was a type of
+these prospectors who have discovered in Russia, and perhaps in
+other countries, the richest gold mines, while they themselves
+remain beggars.  He evaded telling me why he left Transbaikalia to
+come to the Yenisei.  I understood from his manner that he wished
+to keep his own counsel and so did not press him.  However, the
+blanket of secrecy covering this part of his mysterious life was
+one day quite fortuitously lifted a bit.  We were already at the
+objective point of our trip.  The whole day we had traveled with
+difficulty through a thick growth of willow, approaching the shore
+of the big right branch of the Yenisei, the Mana.  Everywhere we
+saw runways packed hard by the feet of the hares living in this
+bush.  These small white denizens of the wood ran to and fro in
+front of us.  Another time we saw the red tail of a fox hiding
+behind a rock, watching us and the unsuspecting hares at the same
+time.
+
+Ivan had been silent for a long while.  Then he spoke up and told
+me that not far from there was a small branch of the Mana, at the
+mouth of which was a hut.
+
+"What do you say?  Shall we push on there or spend the night by the
+naida?"
+
+I suggested going to the hut, because I wanted to wash and because
+it would be agreeable to spend the night under a genuine roof
+again.  Ivan knitted his brows but acceded.
+
+It was growing dark when we approached a hut surrounded by the
+dense wood and wild raspberry bushes.  It contained one small room
+with two microscopic windows and a gigantic Russian stove.  Against
+the building were the remains of a shed and a cellar.  We fired the
+stove and prepared our modest dinner.  Ivan drank from the bottle
+inherited from the soldiers and in a short time was very eloquent,
+with brilliant eyes and with hands that coursed frequently and
+rapidly through his long locks.  He began relating to me the story
+of one of his adventures, but suddenly stopped and, with fear in
+his eyes, squinted into a dark corner.
+
+"Is it a rat?" he asked.
+
+"I did not see anything," I replied.
+
+He again became silent and reflected with knitted brow.  Often we
+were silent through long hours and consequently I was not
+astonished.  Ivan leaned over near to me and began to whisper.
+
+"I want to tell you an old story.  I had a friend in Transbaikalia.
+He was a banished convict.  His name was Gavronsky.  Through many
+woods and over many mountains we traveled in search of gold and we
+had an agreement to divide all we got into even shares.  But
+Gavronsky suddenly went out to the 'Taiga' on the Yenisei and
+disappeared.  After five years we heard that he had found a very
+rich gold mine and had become a rich man; then later that he and
+his wife with him had been murdered. . . ."  Ivan was still for a
+moment and then continued:
+
+"This is their old hut.  Here he lived with his wife and somewhere
+on this river he took out his gold.  But he told nobody where.  All
+the peasants around here know that he had a lot of money in the
+bank and that he had been selling gold to the Government.  Here
+they were murdered."
+
+Ivan stepped to the stove, took out a flaming stick and, bending
+over, lighted a spot on the floor.
+
+"Do you see these spots on the floor and on the wall?  It is their
+blood, the blood of Gavronsky.  They died but they did not disclose
+the whereabouts of the gold.  It was taken out of a deep hole which
+they had drifted into the bank of the river and was hidden in the
+cellar under the shed.  But Gavronsky gave nothing away. . . .  AND
+LORD HOW I TORTURED THEM!  I burned them with fire; I bent back
+their fingers; I gouged out their eyes; but Gavronsky died in
+silence."
+
+He thought for a moment, then quickly said to me:
+
+"I have heard all this from the peasants."  He threw the log into
+the stove and flopped down on the bench.  "It's time to sleep," he
+snapped out, and was still.
+
+I listened for a long time to his breathing and his whispering to
+himself, as he turned from one side to the other and smoked his
+pipe.
+
+In the morning we left this scene of so much suffering and crime
+and on the seventh day of our journey we came to the dense cedar
+wood growing on the foothills of a long chain of mountains.
+
+"From here," Ivan explained to me, "it is eighty versts to the next
+peasant settlement.  The people come to these woods to gather cedar
+nuts but only in the autumn.  Before then you will not meet anyone.
+Also you will find many birds and beasts and a plentiful supply of
+nuts, so that it will be possible for you to live here.  Do you see
+this river?  When you want to find the peasants, follow along this
+stream and it will guide you to them."
+
+Ivan helped me build my mud hut.  But it was not the genuine mud
+hut.  It was one formed by the tearing out of the roots of a great
+cedar, that had probably fallen in some wild storm, which made for
+me the deep hole as the room for my house and flanked this on one
+side with a wall of mud held fast among the upturned roots.
+Overhanging ones formed also the framework into which we interlaced
+the poles and branches to make a roof, finished off with stones for
+stability and snow for warmth.  The front of the hut was ever open
+but was constantly protected by the guardian naida.  In that snow-
+covered den I spent two months like summer without seeing any other
+human being and without touch with the outer world where such
+important events were transpiring.  In that grave under the roots
+of the fallen tree I lived before the face of nature with my trials
+and my anxiety about my family as my constant companions, and in
+the hard struggle for my life.  Ivan went off the second day,
+leaving for me a bag of dry bread and a little sugar.  I never saw
+him again.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE
+
+
+Then I was alone.  Around me only the wood of eternally green
+cedars covered with snow, the bare bushes, the frozen river and, as
+far as I could see out through the branches and the trunks of the
+trees, only the great ocean of cedars and snow.  Siberian taiga!
+How long shall I be forced to live here?  Will the Bolsheviki find
+me here or not?  Will my friends know where I am?  What is
+happening to my family?  These questions were constantly as burning
+fires in my brain.  Soon I understood why Ivan guided me so long.
+We passed many secluded places on the journey, far away from all
+people, where Ivan could have safely left me but he always said
+that he would take me to a place where it would be easier to live.
+And it was so.  The charm of my lone refuge was in the cedar wood
+and in the mountains covered with these forests which stretched to
+every horizon.  The cedar is a splendid, powerful tree with wide-
+spreading branches, an eternally green tent, attracting to its
+shelter every living being.  Among the cedars was always
+effervescent life.  There the squirrels were continually kicking up
+a row, jumping from tree to tree; the nut-jobbers cried shrilly; a
+flock of bullfinches with carmine breasts swept through the trees
+like a flame; or a small army of goldfinches broke in and filled
+the amphitheatre of trees with their whistling; a hare scooted from
+one tree trunk to another and behind him stole up the hardly
+visible shadow of a white ermine, crawling on the snow, and I
+watched for a long time the black spot which I knew to be the tip
+of his tail; carefully treading the hard crusted snow approached a
+noble deer; at last there visited me from the top of the mountain
+the king of the Siberian forest, the brown bear.  All this
+distracted me and carried away the black thoughts from my brain,
+encouraging me to persevere.  It was good for me also, though
+difficult, to climb to the top of my mountain, which reached up out
+of the forest and from which I could look away to the range of red
+on the horizon.  It was the red cliff on the farther bank of the
+Yenisei.  There lay the country, the towns, the enemies and the
+friends; and there was even the point which I located as the place
+of my family.  It was the reason why Ivan had guided me here.  And
+as the days in this solitude slipped by I began to miss sorely this
+companion who, though the murderer of Gavronsky, had taken care of
+me like a father, always saddling my horse for me, cutting the wood
+and doing everything to make me comfortable.  He had spent many
+winters alone with nothing except his thoughts, face to face with
+nature--I should say, before the face of God.  He had tried the
+horrors of solitude and had acquired facility in bearing them.  I
+thought sometimes, if I had to meet my end in this place, that I
+would spend my last strength to drag myself to the top of the
+mountain to die there, looking away over the infinite sea of
+mountains and forest toward the point where my loved ones were.
+
+However, the same life gave me much matter for reflection and yet
+more occupation for the physical side.  It was a continuous
+struggle for existence, hard and severe.  The hardest work was the
+preparation of the big logs for the naida.  The fallen trunks of
+the trees were covered with snow and frozen to the ground.  I was
+forced to dig them out and afterwards, with the help of a long
+stick as a lever, to move them from their place.  For facilitating
+this work I chose the mountain for my supplies, where, although
+difficult to climb, it was easy to roll the logs down.  Soon I made
+a splendid discovery.  I found near my den a great quantity of
+larch, this beautiful yet sad forest giant, fallen during a big
+storm.  The trunks were covered with snow but remained attached to
+their stumps, where they had broken off.  When I cut into these
+stumps with the ax, the head buried itself and could with
+difficulty be drawn and, investigating the reason, I found them
+filled with pitch.  Chips of this wood needed only a spark to set
+them aflame and ever afterward I always had a stock of them to
+light up quickly for warming my hands on returning from the hunt or
+for boiling my tea.
+
+The greater part of my days was occupied with the hunt.  I came to
+understand that I must distribute my work over every day, for it
+distracted me from my sad and depressing thoughts.  Generally,
+after my morning tea, I went into the forest to seek heathcock or
+blackcock.  After killing one or two I began to prepare my dinner,
+which never had an extensive menu.  It was constantly game soup
+with a handful of dried bread and afterwards endless cups of tea,
+this essential beverage of the woods.  Once, during my search for
+birds, I heard a rustle in the dense shrubs and, carefully peering
+about, I discovered the points of a deer's horns.  I crawled along
+toward the spot but the watchful animal heard my approach.  With a
+great noise he rushed from the bush and I saw him very clearly,
+after he had run about three hundred steps, stop on the slope of
+the mountain.  It was a splendid animal with dark grey coat, with
+almost a black spine and as large as a small cow.  I laid my rifle
+across a branch and fired.  The animal made a great leap, ran
+several steps and fell.  With all my strength I ran to him but he
+got up again and half jumped, half dragged himself up the mountain.
+The second shot stopped him.  I had won a warm carpet for my den
+and a large stock of meat.  The horns I fastened up among the
+branches of my wall, where they made a fine hat rack.
+
+I cannot forget one very interesting but wild picture, which was
+staged for me several kilometres from my den.  There was a small
+swamp covered with grass and cranberries scattered through it,
+where the blackcock and sand partridges usually came to feed on the
+berries.  I approached noiselessly behind the bushes and saw a
+whole flock of blackcock scratching in the snow and picking out the
+berries.  While I was surveying this scene, suddenly one of the
+blackcock jumped up and the rest of the frightened flock
+immediately flew away.  To my astonishment the first bird began
+going straight up in a spiral flight and afterwards dropped
+directly down dead.  When I approached there sprang from the body
+of the slain cock a rapacious ermine that hid under the trunk of a
+fallen tree.  The bird's neck was badly torn.  I then understood
+that the ermine had charged the cock, fastened itself on his neck
+and had been carried by the bird into the air, as he sucked the
+blood from its throat, and had been the cause of the heavy fall
+back to the earth.  Thanks to his aeronautic ability I saved one
+cartridge.
+
+So I lived fighting for the morrow and more and more poisoned by
+hard and bitter thoughts.  The days and weeks passed and soon I
+felt the breath of warmer winds.  On the open places the snow began
+to thaw.  In spots the little rivulets of water appeared.  Another
+day I saw a fly or a spider awakened after the hard winter.  The
+spring was coming.  I realized that in spring it was impossible to
+go out from the forest.  Every river overflowed its banks; the
+swamps became impassable; all the runways of the animals turned
+into beds for streams of running water.  I understood that until
+summer I was condemned to a continuation of my solitude.  Spring
+very quickly came into her rights and soon my mountain was free
+from snow and was covered only with stones, the trunks of birch and
+aspen trees and the high cones of ant hills; the river in places
+broke its covering of ice and was coursing full with foam and
+bubbles.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A FISHERMAN
+
+
+One day during the hunt, I approached the bank of the river and
+noticed many very large fish with red backs, as though filled with
+blood.  They were swimming on the surface enjoying the rays of the
+sun.  When the river was entirely free from ice, these fish
+appeared in enormous quantities.  Soon I realized that they were
+working up-stream for the spawning season in the smaller rivers.  I
+thought to use a plundering method of catching, forbidden by the
+law of all countries; but all the lawyers and legislators should be
+lenient to one who lives in a den under the roots of a fallen tree
+and dares to break their rational laws.
+
+Gathering many thin birch and aspen trees I built in the bed of the
+stream a weir which the fish could not pass and soon I found them
+trying to jump over it.  Near the bank I left a hole in my barrier
+about eighteen inches below the surface and fastened on the up-
+stream side a high basket plaited from soft willow twigs, into
+which the fish came as they passed the hole.  Then I stood cruelly
+by and hit them on the head with a strong stick.  All my catch were
+over thirty pounds, some more than eighty.  This variety of fish is
+called the taimen, is of the trout family and is the best in the
+Yenisei.
+
+After two weeks the fish had passed and my basket gave me no more
+treasure, so I began anew the hunt.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR
+
+
+The hunt became more and more profitable and enjoyable, as spring
+animated everything.  In the morning at the break of day the forest
+was full of voices, strange and undiscernible to the inhabitant of
+the town.  There the heathcock clucked and sang his song of love,
+as he sat on the top branches of the cedar and admired the grey hen
+scratching in the fallen leaves below.  It was very easy to
+approach this full-feathered Caruso and with a shot to bring him
+down from his more poetic to his more utilitarian duties.  His
+going out was an euthanasia, for he was in love and heard nothing.
+Out in the clearing the blackcocks with their wide-spread spotted
+tails were fighting, while the hens strutting near, craning and
+chattering, probably some gossip about their fighting swains,
+watched and were delighted with them.  From the distance flowed in
+a stern and deep roar, yet full of tenderness and love, the mating
+call of the deer; while from the crags above came down the short
+and broken voice of the mountain buck.  Among the bushes frolicked
+the hares and often near them a red fox lay flattened to the ground
+watching his chance.  I never heard any wolves and they are usually
+not found in the Siberian regions covered with mountains and
+forest.
+
+But there was another beast, who was my neighbor, and one of us had to go
+away.  One day, coming back from the hunt with a big heathcock, I
+suddenly noticed among the trees a black, moving mass.  I stopped
+and, looking very attentively, saw a bear, digging away at an ant-
+hill.  Smelling me, he snorted violently, and very quickly shuffled
+away, astonishing me with the speed of his clumsy gait.  The
+following morning, while still lying under my overcoat, I was
+attracted by a noise behind my den.  I peered out very carefully
+and discovered the bear.  He stood on his hind legs and was noisily
+sniffing, investigating the question as to what living creature had
+adopted the custom of the bears of housing during the winter under
+the trunks of fallen trees.  I shouted and struck my kettle with
+the ax.  My early visitor made off with all his energy; but his
+visit did not please me.  It was very early in the spring that this
+occurred and the bear should not yet have left his hibernating
+place.  He was the so-called "ant-eater," an abnormal type of bear
+lacking in all the etiquette of the first families of the bear
+clan.
+
+I knew that the "ant-eaters" were very irritable and audacious and
+quickly I prepared myself for both the defence and the charge.  My
+preparations were short.  I rubbed off the ends of five of my
+cartridges, thus making dum-dums out of them, a sufficiently
+intelligible argument for so unwelcome a guest.  Putting on my coat
+I went to the place where I had first met the bear and where there
+were many ant-hills.  I made a detour of the whole mountain, looked
+in all the ravines but nowhere found my caller.  Disappointed and
+tired, I was approaching my shelter quite off my guard when I
+suddenly discovered the king of the forest himself just coming out
+of my lowly dwelling and sniffing all around the entrance to it.  I
+shot.  The bullet pierced his side.  He roared with pain and anger
+and stood up on his hind legs.  As the second bullet broke one of
+these, he squatted down but immediately, dragging the leg and
+endeavoring to stand upright, moved to attack me.  Only the third
+bullet in his breast stopped him.  He weighed about two hundred to
+two hundred fifty pounds, as near as I could guess, and was very
+tasty.  He appeared at his best in cutlets but only a little less
+wonderful in the Hamburg steaks which I rolled and roasted on hot
+stones, watching them swell out into great balls that were as light
+as the finest souffle omelettes we used to have at the "Medved" in
+Petrograd.  On this welcome addition to my larder I lived from then
+until the ground dried out and the stream ran down enough so that I
+could travel down along the river to the country whither Ivan had
+directed me.
+
+Ever traveling with the greatest precautions I made the journey
+down along the river on foot, carrying from my winter quarters all
+my household furniture and goods, wrapped up in the deerskin bag
+which I formed by tying the legs together in an awkward knot; and
+thus laden fording the small streams and wading through the swamps
+that lay across my path.  After fifty odd miles of this I came to
+the country called Sifkova, where I found the cabin of a peasant
+named Tropoff, located closest to the forest that came to be my
+natural environment.  With him I lived for a time.
+
+         *          *          *          *          *
+
+Now in these unimaginable surroundings of safety and peace, summing
+up the total of my experience in the Siberian taiga, I make the
+following deductions.  In every healthy spiritual individual of our
+times, occasions of necessity resurrect the traits of primitive
+man, hunter and warrior, and help him in the struggle with nature.
+It is the prerogative of the man with the trained mind and spirit
+over the untrained, who does not possess sufficient science and
+will power to carry him through.  But the price that the cultured
+man must pay is that for him there exists nothing more awful than
+absolute solitude and the knowledge of complete isolation from
+human society and the life of moral and aesthetic culture.  One
+step, one moment of weakness and dark madness will seize a man and
+carry him to inevitable destruction.  I spent awful days of
+struggle with the cold and hunger but I passed more terrible days
+in the struggle of the will to kill weakening destructive thoughts.
+The memories of these days freeze my heart and mind and even now,
+as I revive them so clearly by writing of my experiences, they
+throw me back into a state of fear and apprehension.  Moreover, I
+am compelled to observe that the people in highly civilized states
+give too little regard to the training that is useful to man in
+primitive conditions, in conditions incident to the struggle
+against nature for existence.  It is the single normal way to
+develop a new generation of strong, healthy, iron men, with at the
+same time sensitive souls.
+
+Nature destroys the weak but helps the strong, awakening in the
+soul emotions which remain dormant under the urban conditions of
+modern life.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A RIVER IN TRAVAIL
+
+
+My presence in the Sifkova country was not for long but I used it
+in full measure.  First, I sent a man in whom I had confidence and
+whom I considered trustworthy to my friends in the town that I had
+left and received from them linen, boots, money and a small case of
+first aid materials and essential medicines, and, what was most
+important, a passport in another name, since I was dead for the
+Bolsheviki.  Secondly, in these more or less favorable conditions I
+reflected upon the plan for my future actions.  Soon in Sifkova the
+people heard that the Bolshevik commissar would come for the
+requisition of cattle for the Red Army.  It was dangerous to remain
+longer.  I waited only until the Yenisei should lose its massive
+lock of ice, which kept it sealed long after the small rivulets had
+opened and the trees had taken on their spring foliage.  For one
+thousand roubles I engaged a fisherman who agreed to take me fifty-
+five miles up the river to an abandoned gold mine as soon as the
+river, which had then only opened in places, should be entirely
+clear of ice.  At last one morning I heard a deafening roar like a
+tremendous cannonade and ran out to find the river had lifted its
+great bulk of ice and then given way to break it up.  I rushed on
+down to the bank, where I witnessed an awe-inspiring but
+magnificent scene.  The river had brought down the great volume of
+ice that had been dislodged in the south and was carrying it
+northward under the thick layer which still covered parts of the
+stream until finally its weight had broken the winter dam to the
+north and released the whole grand mass in one last rush for the
+Arctic.  The Yenisei, "Father Yenisei," "Hero Yenisei," is one of
+the longest rivers in Asia, deep and magnificent, especially
+through the middle range of its course, where it is flanked and
+held in canyon-like by great towering ranges.  The huge stream had
+brought down whole miles of ice fields, breaking them up on the
+rapids and on isolated rocks, twisting them with angry swirls,
+throwing up sections of the black winter roads, carrying down the
+tepees built for the use of passing caravans which in the Winter
+always go from Minnusinsk to Krasnoyarsk on the frozen river.  From
+time to time the stream stopped in its flow, the roar began and the
+great fields of ice were squeezed and piled upward, sometimes as
+high as thirty feet, damming up the water behind, so that it
+rapidly rose and ran out over the low places, casting on the shore
+great masses of ice.  Then the power of the reinforced waters
+conquered the towering dam of ice and carried it downward with a
+sound like breaking glass.  At the bends in the river and round the
+great rocks developed terrifying chaos.  Huge blocks of ice jammed
+and jostled until some were thrown clear into the air, crashing
+against others already there, or were hurled against the curving
+cliffs and banks, tearing out boulders, earth and trees high up the
+sides.  All along the low embankments this giant of nature flung
+upward with a suddenness that leaves man but a pigmy in force a
+great wall of ice fifteen to twenty feet high, which the peasants
+call "Zaberega" and through which they cannot get to the river
+without cutting out a road.  One incredible feat I saw the giant
+perform, when a block many feet thick and many yards square was
+hurled through the air and dropped to crush saplings and little
+trees more than a half hundred feet from the bank.
+
+Watching this glorious withdrawal of the ice, I was filled with
+terror and revolt at seeing the awful spoils which the Yenisei bore
+away in this annual retreat.  These were the bodies of the executed
+counter-revolutionaries--officers, soldiers and Cossacks of the
+former army of the Superior Governor of all anti-Bolshevik Russia,
+Admiral Kolchak.  They were the results of the bloody work of the
+"Cheka" at Minnusinsk.  Hundreds of these bodies with heads and
+hands cut off, with mutilated faces and bodies half burned, with
+broken skulls, floated and mingled with the blocks of ice, looking
+for their graves; or, turning in the furious whirlpools among the
+jagged blocks, they were ground and torn to pieces into shapeless
+masses, which the river, nauseated with its task, vomited out upon
+the islands and projecting sand bars.  I passed the whole length of
+the middle Yenisei and constantly came across these putrifying and
+terrifying reminders of the work of the Bolsheviki.  In one place
+at a turn of the river I saw a great heap of horses, which had been
+cast up by the ice and current, in number not less than three
+hundred.  A verst below there I was sickened beyond endurance by
+the discovery of a grove of willows along the bank which had raked
+from the polluted stream and held in their finger-like drooping
+branches human bodies in all shapes and attitudes with a semblance
+of naturalness which made an everlasting picture on my distraught
+mind.  Of this pitiful gruesome company I counted seventy.
+
+At last the mountain of ice passed by, followed by the muddy
+freshets that carried down the trunks of fallen trees, logs and
+bodies, bodies, bodies.  The fisherman and his son put me and my
+luggage into their dugout made from an aspen tree and poled
+upstream along the bank.  Poling in a swift current is very hard
+work.  At the sharp curves we were compelled to row, struggling
+against the force of the stream and even in places hugging the
+cliffs and making headway only by clutching the rocks with our
+hands and dragging along slowly.  Sometimes it took us a long while
+to do five or six metres through these rapid holes.  In two days we
+reached the goal of our journey.  I spent several days in this gold
+mine, where the watchman and his family were living.  As they were
+short of food, they had nothing to spare for me and consequently my
+rifle again served to nourish me, as well as contributing something
+to my hosts.  One day there appeared here a trained
+agriculturalist.  I did not hide because during my winter in the
+woods I had raised a heavy beard, so that probably my own mother
+could not have recognized me.  However, our guest was very shrewd
+and at once deciphered me.  I did not fear him because I saw that
+he was not a Bolshevik and later had confirmation of this.  We
+found common acquaintances and a common viewpoint on current
+events.  He lived close to the gold mine in a small village where
+he superintended public works.  We determined to escape together
+from Russia.  For a long time I had puzzled over this matter and
+now my plan was ready.  Knowing the position in Siberia and its
+geography, I decided that the best way to safety was through
+Urianhai, the northern part of Mongolia on the head waters of the
+Yenisei, then through Mongolia and out to the Far East and the
+Pacific.  Before the overthrow of the Kolchak Government I had
+received a commission to investigate Urianhai and Western Mongolia
+and then, with great accuracy, I studied all the maps and
+literature I could get on this question.  To accomplish this
+audacious plan I had the great incentive of my own safety.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THROUGH SOVIET SIBERIA
+
+
+After several days we started through the forest on the left bank
+of the Yenisei toward the south, avoiding the villages as much as
+possible in fear of leaving some trail by which we might be
+followed.  Whenever we did have to go into them, we had a good
+reception at the hands of the peasants, who did not penetrate our
+disguise; and we saw that they hated the Bolsheviki, who had
+destroyed many of their villages.  In one place we were told that a
+detachment of Red troops had been sent out from Minnusinsk to chase
+the Whites.  We were forced to work far back from the shore of the
+Yenisei and to hide in the woods and mountains.  Here we remained
+nearly a fortnight, because all this time the Red soldiers were
+traversing the country and capturing in the woods half-dressed
+unarmed officers who were in hiding from the atrocious vengeance of
+the Bolsheviki.  Afterwards by accident we passed a meadow where we
+found the bodies of twenty-eight officers hung to the trees, with
+their faces and bodies mutilated.  There we determined never to
+allow ourselves to come alive into the hands of the Boisheviki.  To
+prevent this we had our weapons and a supply of cyanide of
+potassium.
+
+Passing across one branch of the Yenisei, once we saw a narrow,
+miry pass, the entrance to which was strewn with the bodies of men
+and horses.  A little farther along we found a broken sleigh with
+rifled boxes and papers scattered about.  Near them were also torn
+garments and bodies.  Who were these pitiful ones?  What tragedy
+was staged in this wild wood?  We tried to guess this enigma and we
+began to investigate the documents and papers.  These were official
+papers addressed to the Staff of General Pepelaieff.  Probably one
+part of the Staff during the retreat of Kolchak's army went through
+this wood, striving to hide from the enemy approaching from all
+sides; but here they were caught by the Reds and killed.  Not far
+from here we found the body of a poor unfortunate woman, whose
+condition proved clearly what had happened before relief came
+through the beneficent bullet.  The body lay beside a shelter of
+branches, strewn with bottles and conserve tins, telling the tale
+of the bantering feast that had preceded the destruction of this
+life.
+
+The further we went to the south, the more pronouncedly hospitable
+the people became toward us and the more hostile to the Bolsheviki.
+At last we emerged from the forests and entered the spacious
+vastness of the Minnusinsk steppes, crossed by the high red
+mountain range called the "Kizill-Kaiya" and dotted here and there
+with salt lakes.  It is a country of tombs, thousands of large and
+small dolmens, the tombs of the earliest proprietors of this land:
+pyramids of stone ten metres high, the marks set by Jenghiz Khan
+along his road of conquest and afterwards by the cripple Tamerlane-
+Temur.  Thousands of these dolmens and stone pyramids stretch in
+endless rows to the north.  In these plains the Tartars now live.
+They were robbed by the Bolsheviki and therefore hated them
+ardently.  We openly told them that we were escaping.  They gave us
+food for nothing and supplied us with guides, telling us with whom
+we might stop and where to hide in case of danger.
+
+After several days we looked down from the high bank of the Yenisei
+upon the first steamer, the "Oriol," from Krasnoyarsk to
+Minnusinsk, laden with Red soldiers.  Soon we came to the mouth of
+the river Tuba, which we were to follow straight east to the Sayan
+mountains, where Urianhai begins.  We thought the stage along the
+Tuba and its branch, the Amyl, the most dangerous part of our
+course, because the valleys of these two rivers had a dense
+population which had contributed large numbers of soldiers to the
+celebrated Communist Partisans, Schetinkin and Krafcheno.
+
+A Tartar ferried us and our horses over to the right bank of the
+Yenisei and afterwards sent us some Cossacks at daybreak who guided
+us to the mouth of the Tuba, where we spent the whole day in rest,
+gratifying ourselves with a feast of wild black currants and
+cherries.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THREE DAYS ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE
+
+
+Armed with our false passports, we moved along up the valley of the
+Tuba.  Every ten or fifteen versts we came across large villages of
+from one to six hundred houses, where all administration was in the
+hands of Soviets and where spies scrutinized all passers-by.  We
+could not avoid these villages for two reasons.  First, our
+attempts to avoid them when we were constantly meeting the peasants
+in the country would have aroused suspicion and would have caused
+any Soviet to arrest us and send us to the "Cheka" in Minnusinsk,
+where we should have sung our last song.  Secondly, in his
+documents my fellow traveler was granted permission to use the
+government post relays for forwarding him on his journey.
+Therefore, we were forced to visit the village Soviets and change
+our horses.  Our own mounts we had given to the Tartar and Cossack
+who helped us at the mouth of the Tuba, and the Cossack brought us
+in his wagon to the first village, where we received the post
+horses.  All except a small minority of the peasants were against
+the Bolsheviki and voluntarily assisted us.  I paid them for their
+help by treating their sick and my fellow traveler gave them
+practical advice in the management of their agriculture.  Those who
+helped us chiefly were the old dissenters and the Cossacks.
+
+Sometimes we came across villages entirely Communistic but very
+soon we learned to distinguish them.  When we entered a village
+with our horse bells tinkling and found the peasants who happened
+to be sitting in front of their houses ready to get up with a frown
+and a grumble that here were more new devils coming, we knew that
+this was a village opposed to the Communists and that here we could
+stop in safety.  But, if the peasants approached and greeted us
+with pleasure, calling us "Comrades," we knew at once that we were
+among the enemy and took great precautions.  Such villages were
+inhabited by people who were not the Siberian liberty-loving
+peasants but by emigrants from the Ukraine, idle and drunk, living
+in poor dirty huts, though their village were surrounded with the
+black and fertile soil of the steppes.  Very dangerous and pleasant
+moments we spent in the large village of Karatuz.  It is rather a
+town.  In the year 1912 two colleges were opened here and the
+population reached 15,000 people.  It is the capital of the South
+Yenisei Cossacks.  But by now it is very difficult to recognize
+this town.  The peasant emigrants and Red army murdered all the
+Cossack population and destroyed and burned most of the houses; and
+it is at present the center of Bolshevism and Communism in the
+eastern part of the Minnusinsk district.  In the building of the
+Soviet, where we came to exchange our horses, there was being held
+a meeting of the "Cheka."  We were immediately surrounded and
+questioned about our documents.  We were not any too calm about the
+impression which might be made by our papers and attempted to avoid
+this examination.  My fellow traveler afterwards often said to me:
+
+"It is great good fortune that among the Bolsheviki the good-for-
+nothing shoemaker of yesterday is the Governor of today and
+scientists sweep the streets or clean the stables of the Red
+cavalry.  I can talk with the Bolsheviki because they do not know
+the difference between 'disinfection' and 'diphtheria,'
+'anthracite' and 'appendicitis' and can talk them round in all
+things, even up to persuading them not to put a bullet into me."
+
+And so we talked the members of the "Cheka" round to everything
+that we wanted.  We presented to them a bright scheme for the
+future development of their district, when we would build the roads
+and bridges which would allow them to export the wood from
+Urianhai, iron and gold from the Sayan Mountains, cattle and furs
+from Mongolia.  What a triumph of creative work for the Soviet
+Government!  Our ode occupied about an hour and afterwards the
+members of the "Cheka," forgetting about our documents, personally
+changed our horses, placed our luggage on the wagon and wished us
+success.  It was the last ordeal within the borders of Russia.
+
+When we had crossed the valley of the river Amyl, Happiness smiled
+on us.  Near the ferry we met a member of the militia from Karatuz.
+He had on his wagon several rifles and automatic pistols, mostly
+Mausers, for outfitting an expedition through Urianhai in quest of
+some Cossack officers who had been greatly troubling the
+Bolsheviki.  We stood upon our guard.  We could very easily have
+met this expedition and we were not quite assured that the soldiers
+would be so appreciative of our high-sounding phrases as were the
+members of the "Cheka."  Carefully questioning the militiaman, we
+ferreted out the route their expedition was to take.  In the next
+village we stayed in the same house with him.  I had to open my
+luggage and suddenly I noticed his admiring glance fixed upon my
+bag.
+
+"What pleases you so much?" I asked.
+
+He whispered:  "Trousers . . . Trousers."
+
+I had received from my townsmen quite new trousers of black thick
+cloth for riding.  Those trousers attracted the rapt attention of
+the militiaman.
+
+"If you have no other trousers. . . ." I remarked, reflecting upon
+my plan of attack against my new friend.
+
+"No," he explained with sadness, "the Soviet does not furnish
+trousers.  They tell me they also go without trousers.  And my
+trousers are absolutely worn out.  Look at them."
+
+With these words he threw back the corner of his overcoat and I was
+astonished how he could keep himself inside these trousers, for
+they had such large holes that they were more of a net than
+trousers, a net through which a small shark could have slipped.
+
+"Sell me," he whispered, with a question in his voice.
+
+"I cannot, for I need them myself," I answered decisively.
+
+He reflected for a few minutes and afterward, approaching me, said:
+"Let us go out doors and talk.  Here it is inconvenient."
+
+We went outside.  "Now, what about it?" he began.  "You are going
+into Urianhai.  There the Soviet bank-notes have no value and you
+will not be able to buy anything, where there are plenty of sables,
+fox-skins, ermine and gold dust to be purchased, which they very
+willingly exchange for rifles and cartridges.  You have each of you
+a rifle and I will give you one more rifle with a hundred
+cartridges if you give me the trousers."
+
+"We do not need weapons.  We are protected by our documents," I
+answered, as though I did not understand.
+
+"But no," he interrupted, "you can change that rifle there into
+furs and gold.  I shall give you that rifle outright."
+
+"Ah, that's it, is it?  But it's very little for those trousers.
+Nowhere in Russia can you now find trousers.  All Russia goes
+without trousers and for your rifle I should receive a sable and
+what use to me is one skin?"
+
+Word by word I attained to my desire.  The militia-man got my
+trousers and I received a rifle with one hundred cartridges and two
+automatic pistols with forty cartridges each.  We were armed now so
+that we could defend ourselves.  Moreover, I persuaded the happy
+possessor of my trousers to give us a permit to carry the weapons.
+Then the law and force were both on our side.
+
+In a distant village we bought three horses, two for riding and one
+for packing, engaged a guide, purchased dried bread, meat, salt and
+butter and, after resting twenty-four hours, began our trip up the
+Amyl toward the Sayan Mountains on the border of Urianhai.  There
+we hoped not to meet Bolsheviki, either sly or silly.  In three
+days from the mouth of the Tuba we passed the last Russian village
+near the Mongolian-Urianhai border, three days of constant contact
+with a lawless population, of continuous danger and of the ever
+present possibility of fortuitous death.  Only iron will power,
+presence of mind and dogged tenacity brought us through all the
+dangers and saved us from rolling back down our precipice of
+adventure, at whose foot lay so many others who had failed to make
+this same climb to freedom which we had just accomplished.  Perhaps
+they lacked the persistence or the presence of mind, perhaps they
+had not the poetic ability to sing odes about "roads, bridges and
+gold mines" or perhaps they simply had no spare trousers.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TO THE SAYANS AND SAFETY
+
+
+Dense virgin wood surrounded us.  In the high, already yellow grass
+the trail wound hardly noticeable in among bushes and trees just
+beginning to drop their many colored leaves.  It is the old,
+already forgotten Amyl pass road.  Twenty-five years ago it carried
+the provisions, machinery and workers for the numerous, now
+abandoned, gold mines of the Amyl valley.  The road now wound along
+the wide and rapid Amyl, then penetrated into the deep forest,
+guiding us round the swampy ground filled with those dangerous
+Siberian quagmires, through the dense bushes, across mountains and
+wide meadows.  Our guide probably did not surmise our real
+intention and sometimes, apprehensively looking down at the ground,
+would say:
+
+"Three riders on horses with shoes on have passed here.  Perhaps
+they were soldiers."
+
+His anxiety was terminated when he discovered that the tracks led
+off to one side and then returned to the trail.
+
+"They did not proceed farther," he remarked, slyly smiling.
+
+"That's too bad," we answered.  "It would have been more lively to
+travel in company."
+
+But the peasant only stroked his beard and laughed.  Evidently he
+was not taken in by our statement.
+
+We passed on the way a gold mine that had been formerly planned and
+equipped on splendid lines but was now abandoned and the buildings
+all destroyed.  The Bolsheviki had taken away the machinery,
+supplies and also some parts of the buildings.  Nearby stood a dark
+and gloomy church with windows broken, the crucifix torn off and
+the tower burned, a pitifully typical emblem of the Russia of
+today.  The starving family of the watchman lived at the mine in
+continuing danger and privation.  They told us that in this forest
+region were wandering about a band of Reds who were robbing
+anything that remained on the property of the gold mine, were
+working the pay dirt in the richest part of the mine and, with a
+little gold washed, were going to drink and gamble it away in some
+distant villages where the peasants were making the forbidden vodka
+out of berries and potatoes and selling it for its weight in gold.
+A meeting with this band meant death.  After three days we crossed
+the northern ridge of the Sayan chain, passed the border river
+Algiak and, after this day, were abroad in the territory of
+Urianhai.
+
+This wonderful land, rich in most diverse forms of natural wealth,
+is inhabited by a branch of the Mongols, which is now only sixty
+thousand and which is gradually dying off, speaking a language
+quite different from any of the other dialects of this folk and
+holding as their life ideal the tenet of "Eternal Peace."  Urianhai
+long ago became the scene of administrative attempts by Russians,
+Mongols and Chinese, all of whom claimed sovereignty over the
+region whose unfortunate inhabitants, the Soyots, had to pay
+tribute to all three of these overlords.  It was due to this that
+the land was not an entirely safe refuge for us.  We had heard
+already from our militiaman about the expedition preparing to go
+into Urianhai and from the peasants we learned that the villages
+along the Little Yenisei and farther south had formed Red
+detachments, who were robbing and killing everyone who fell into
+their hands.  Recently they had killed sixty-two officers
+attempting to pass Urianhai into Mongolia; robbed and killed a
+caravan of Chinese merchants; and killed some German war prisoners
+who escaped from the Soviet paradise.  On the fourth day we reached
+a swampy valley where, among open forests, stood a single Russian
+house.  Here we took leave of our guide, who hastened away to get
+back before the snows should block his road over the Sayans.  The
+master of the establishment agreed to guide us to the Seybi River
+for ten thousand roubles in Soviet notes.  Our horses were tired
+and we were forced to give them a rest, so we decided to spend
+twenty-four hours here.
+
+We were drinking tea when the daughter of our host cried:
+
+"The Soyots are coming!"  Into the room with their rifles and
+pointed hats came suddenly four of them.
+
+"Mende," they grunted to us and then, without ceremony, began
+examining us critically.  Not a button or a seam in our entire
+outfit escaped their penetrating gaze.  Afterwards one of them, who
+appeared to be the local "Merin" or governor, began to investigate
+our political views.  Listening to our criticisms of the
+Bolsheviki, he was evidently pleased and began talking freely.
+
+"You are good people.  You do not like Bolsheviki.  We will help
+you."
+
+I thanked him and presented him with the thick silk cord which I
+was wearing as a girdle.  Before night they left us saying that
+they would return in the morning.  It grew dark.  We went to the
+meadow to look after our exhausted horses grazing there and came
+back to the house.  We were gaily chatting with the hospitable host
+when suddenly we heard horses' hoofs in the court and raucous
+voices, followed by the immediate entry of five Red soldiers armed
+with rifles and swords.  Something unpleasant and cold rolled up
+into my throat and my heart hammered.  We knew the Reds as our
+enemies.  These men had the red stars on their Astrakhan caps and
+red triangles on their sleeves.  They were members of the
+detachment that was out to look for Cossack officers.  Scowling at
+us they took off their overcoats and sat down.  We first opened the
+conversation, explaining the purpose of our journey in exploring
+for bridges, roads and gold mines.  From them we then learned that
+their commander would arrive in a little while with seven more men
+and that they would take our host at once as a guide to the Seybi
+River, where they thought the Cossack officers must be hidden.
+Immediately I remarked that our affairs were moving fortunately and
+that we must travel along together.  One of the soldiers replied
+that that would depend upon the "Comrade-officer."
+
+During our conversation the Soyot Governor entered.  Very
+attentively he studied again the new arrivals and then asked:  "Why
+did you take from the Soyots the good horses and leave bad ones?"
+
+The soldiers laughed at him.
+
+"Remember that you are in a foreign country!" answered the Soyot,
+with a threat in his voice.
+
+"God and the Devil!" cried one of the soldiers.
+
+But the Soyot very calmly took a seat at the table and accepted the
+cup of tea the hostess was preparing for him.  The conversation
+ceased.  The Soyot finished the tea, smoked his long pipe and,
+standing up, said:
+
+"If tomorrow morning the horses are not back at the owner's, we
+shall come and take them."  And with these words he turned and went
+out.
+
+I noticed an expression of apprehension on the faces of the
+soldiers.  Shortly one was sent out as a messenger while the others
+sat silent with bowed heads.  Late in the night the officer arrived
+with his other seven men.  As he received the report about the
+Soyot, he knitted his brows and said:
+
+"It's a bad mess.  We must travel through the swamp where a Soyot
+will be behind every mound watching us."
+
+He seemed really very anxious and his trouble fortunately prevented
+him from paying much attention to us.  I began to calm him and
+promised on the morrow to arrange this matter with the Soyots.  The
+officer was a coarse brute and a silly man, desiring strongly to be
+promoted for the capture of the Cossack officers, and feared that
+the Soyot could prevent him from reaching the Seybi.
+
+At daybreak we started together with the Red detachment.  When we
+had made about fifteen kilometers, we discovered behind the bushes
+two riders.  They were Soyots.  On their backs were their flint
+rifles.
+
+"Wait for me!" I said to the officer.  "I shall go for a parley
+with them."
+
+I went forward with all the speed of my horse.  One of the horsemen
+was the Soyot Governor, who said to me:
+
+"Remain behind the detachment and help us."
+
+"All right," I answered, "but let us talk a little, in order that
+they may think we are parleying."
+
+After a moment I shook the hand of the Soyot and returned to the
+soldiers.
+
+"All right," I exclaimed, "we can continue our journey.  No
+hindrance will come from the Soyots."
+
+We moved forward and, when we were crossing a large meadow, we
+espied at a long distance two Soyots riding at full gallop right up
+the side of a mountain.  Step by step I accomplished the necessary
+manoeuvre to bring me and my fellow traveler somewhat behind the
+detachment.  Behind our backs remained only one soldier, very
+brutish in appearance and apparently very hostile to us.  I had
+time to whisper to my companion only one word: "Mauser," and saw
+that he very carefully unbuttoned the saddle bag and drew out a
+little the handle of his pistol.
+
+Soon I understood why these soldiers, excellent woodsmen as they
+were, would not attempt to go to the Seybi without a guide.  All
+the country between the Algiak and the Seybi is formed by high and
+narrow mountain ridges separated by deep swampy valleys.  It is a
+cursed and dangerous place.  At first our horses mired to the
+knees, lunging about and catching their feet in the roots of bushes
+in the quagmires, then falling and pinning us under their sides,
+breaking parts of their saddles and bridles.  Then we would go in
+up to the riders' knees.  My horse went down once with his whole
+breast and head under the red fluid mud and we just saved it and no
+more.  Afterwards the officer's horse fell with him so that he
+bruised his head on a stone.  My companion injured one knee against
+a tree.  Some of the men also fell and were injured.  The horses
+breathed heavily.  Somewhere dimly and gloomily a crow cawed.
+Later the road became worse still.  The trail followed through the
+same miry swamp but everywhere the road was blocked with fallen
+tree trunks.  The horses, jumping over the trunks, would land in an
+unexpectedly deep hole and flounder.  We and all the soldiers were
+covered with blood and mud and were in great fear of exhausting our
+mounts.  For a long distance we had to get down and lead them.  At
+last we entered a broad meadow covered with bushes and bordered
+with rocks.  Not only horses but riders also began to sink to their
+middle in a quagmire with apparently no bottom.  The whole surface
+of the meadow was but a thin layer of turf, covering a lake with
+black putrefying water.  When we finally learned to open our column
+and proceed at big intervals, we found we could keep on this
+surface that undulated like rubber ice and swayed the bushes up and
+down.  In places the earth buckled up and broke.
+
+Suddenly, three shots sounded.  They were hardly more than the
+report of a Flobert rifle; but they were genuine shots, because the
+officer and two soldiers fell to the ground.  The other soldiers
+grabbed their rifles and, with fear, looked about for the enemy.
+Four more were soon unseated and suddenly I noticed our rearguard
+brute raise his rifle and aim right at me.  However, my Mauser
+outstrode his rifle and I was allowed to continue my story.
+
+"Begin!" I cried to my friend and we took part in the shooting.
+Soon the meadow began to swarm with Soyots, stripping the fallen,
+dividing the spoils and recapturing their horses.  In some forms of
+warfare it is never safe to leave any of the enemy to renew
+hostilities later with overwhelming forces.
+
+After an hour of very difficult road we began to ascend the
+mountain and soon arrived on a high plateau covered with trees.
+
+"After all, Soyots are not a too peaceful people," I remarked,
+approaching the Governor.
+
+He looked at me very sharply and replied:
+
+"It was not Soyots who did the killing."
+
+He was right.  It was the Abakan Tartars in Soyot clothes who
+killed the Bolsheviki.  These Tartars were running their herds of
+cattle and horses down out of Russia through Urianhai to Mongolia.
+They had as their guide and negotiator a Kalmuck Lamaite.  The
+following morning we were approaching a small settlement of Russian
+colonists and noticed some horsemen looking out from the woods.
+One of our young and brave Tartars galloped off at full speed
+toward these men in the wood but soon wheeled and returned with a
+reassuring smile.
+
+"All right," he exclaimed, laughing, "keep right on."
+
+We continued our travel on a good broad road along a high wooden
+fence surrounding a meadow filled with a fine herd of wapiti or
+izubr, which the Russian colonists breed for the horns that are so
+valuable in the velvet for sale to Tibetan and Chinese medicine
+dealers.  These horns, when boiled and dried, are called panti and
+are sold to the Chinese at very high prices.
+
+We were received with great fear by the settlers.
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed the hostess, "we thought. . ." and she broke
+off, looking at her husband.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE BATTLE ON THE SEYBI
+
+
+Constant dangers develop one's watchfulness and keenness of
+perception.  We did not take off our clothes nor unsaddle our
+horses, tired as we were.  I put my Mauser inside my coat and began
+to look about and scrutinize the people.  The first thing I
+discovered was the butt end of a rifle under the pile of pillows
+always found on the peasants' large beds.  Later I noticed the
+employees of our host constantly coming into the room for orders
+from him.  They did not look like simple peasants, although they
+had long beards and were dressed very dirtily.  They examined me
+with very attentive eyes and did not leave me and my friend alone
+with the host.  We could not, however, make out anything.  But then
+the Soyot Governor came in and, noticing our strained relations,
+began explaining in the Soyot language to the host all about us.
+
+"I beg your pardon," the colonist said, "but you know yourself that
+now for one honest man we have ten thousand murderers and robbers."
+
+With this we began chatting more freely.  It appeared that our host
+knew that a band of Bolsheviki would attack him in the search for
+the band of Cossack officers who were living in his house on and
+off.  He had heard also about the "total loss" of one detachment.
+However, it did not entirely calm the old man to have our news, for
+he had heard of the large detachment of Reds that was coming from
+the border of the Usinsky District in pursuit of the Tartars who
+were escaping with their cattle south to Mongolia.
+
+"From one minute to another we are awaiting them with fear," said
+our host to me.  "My Soyot has come in and announced that the Reds
+are already crossing the Seybi and the Tartars are prepared for the
+fight."
+
+We immediately went out to look over our saddles and packs and then
+took the horses and hid them in the bushes not far off.  We made
+ready our rifles and pistols and took posts in the enclosure to
+wait for our common enemy.  An hour of trying impatience passed,
+when one of the workmen came running in from the wood and
+whispered:
+
+"They are crossing our swamp. . . .  The fight is on."
+
+In fact, like an answer to his words, came through the woods the
+sound of a single rifle-shot, followed closely by the increasing
+rat-tat-tat of the mingled guns.  Nearer to the house the sounds
+gradually came.  Soon we heard the beating of the horses' hoofs and
+the brutish cries of the soldiers.  In a moment three of them burst
+into the house, from off the road where they were being raked now
+by the Tartars from both directions, cursing violently.  One of
+them shot at our host.  He stumbled along and fell on his knee, as
+his hand reached out toward the rifle under his pillows.
+
+"Who are YOU?" brutally blurted out one of the soldiers, turning to
+us and raising his rifle.  We answered with Mausers and
+successfully, for only one soldier in the rear by the door escaped,
+and that merely to fall into the hands of a workman in the
+courtyard who strangled him.  The fight had begun.  The soldiers
+called on their comrades for help.  The Reds were strung along in
+the ditch at the side of the road, three hundred paces from the
+house, returning the fire of the surrounding Tartars.  Several
+soldiers ran to the house to help their comrades but this time we
+heard the regular volley of the workmen of our host.  They fired as
+though in a manoeuvre calmly and accurately.  Five Red soldiers lay
+on the road, while the rest now kept to their ditch.  Before long
+we discovered that they began crouching and crawling out toward the
+end of the ditch nearest the wood where they had left their horses.
+The sounds of shots became more and more distant and soon we saw
+fifty or sixty Tartars pursuing the Reds across the meadow.
+
+Two days we rested here on the Seybi.  The workmen of our host,
+eight in number, turned out to be officers hiding from the
+Bolsheviks.  They asked permission to go on with us, to which we
+agreed.
+
+When my friend and I continued our trip we had a guard of eight
+armed officers and three horses with packs.  We crossed a beautiful
+valley between the Rivers Seybi and Ut.  Everywhere we saw splendid
+grazing lands with numerous herds upon them, but in two or three
+houses along the road we did not find anyone living.  All had
+hidden away in fear after hearing the sounds of the fight with the
+Reds.  The following day we went up over the high chain of
+mountains called Daban and, traversing a great area of burned
+timber where our trail lay among the fallen trees, we began to
+descend into a valley hidden from us by the intervening foothills.
+There behind these hills flowed the Little Yenisei, the last large
+river before reaching Mongolia proper.  About ten kilometers from
+the river we spied a column of smoke rising up out of the wood.
+Two of the officers slipped away to make an investigation.  For a
+long time they did not return and we, fearful lest something had
+happened, moved off carefully in the direction of the smoke, all
+ready for a fight if necessary.  We finally came near enough to
+hear the voices of many people and among them the loud laugh of one
+of our scouts.  In the middle of a meadow we made out a large tent
+with two tepees of branches and around these a crowd of fifty or
+sixty men.  When we broke out of the forest all of them rushed
+forward with a joyful welcome for us.  It appeared that it was a
+large camp of Russian officers and soldiers who, after their escape
+from Siberia, had lived in the houses of the Russian colonists and
+rich peasants in Urianhai.
+
+"What are you doing here?" we asked with surprise.
+
+"Oh, ho, you know nothing at all about what has been going on?"
+replied a fairly old man who called himself Colonel Ostrovsky.  "In
+Urianhai an order has been issued from the Military Commissioner to
+mobilize all men over twenty-eight years of age and everywhere
+toward the town of Belotzarsk are moving detachments of these
+Partisans.  They are robbing the colonists and peasants and killing
+everyone that falls into their hands.  We are hiding here from
+them."
+
+The whole camp counted only sixteen rifles and three bombs,
+belonging to a Tartar who was traveling with his Kalmuck guide to
+his herds in Western Mongolia.  We explained the aim of our journey
+and our intention to pass through Mongolia to the nearest port on
+the Pacific.  The officers asked me to bring them out with us.  I
+agreed.  Our reconnaissance proved to us that there were no
+Partisans near the house of the peasant who was to ferry us over
+the Little Yenisei.  We moved off at once in order to pass as
+quickly as possible this dangerous zone of the Yenisei and to sink
+ourselves into the forest beyond.  It snowed but immediately
+thawed.  Before evening a cold north wind sprang up, bringing with
+it a small blizzard.  Late in the night our party reached the
+river.  Our colonist welcomed us and offered at once to ferry us
+over and swim the horses, although there was ice still floating
+which had come down from the head-waters of the stream.  During
+this conversation there was present one of the peasant's workmen,
+red-haired and squint-eyed.  He kept moving around all the time and
+suddenly disappeared.  Our host noticed it and, with fear in his
+voice, said:
+
+"He has run to the village and will guide the Partisans here.  We
+must cross immediately."
+
+Then began the most terrible night of my whole journey.  We
+proposed to the colonist that he take only our food and ammunition
+in the boat, while we would swim our horses across, in order to
+save the time of the many trips.  The width of the Yenisei in this
+place is about three hundred metres.  The stream is very rapid and
+the shore breaks away abruptly to the full depth of the stream.
+The night was absolutely dark with not a star in the sky.  The wind
+in whistling swirls drove the snow and sleet sharply against our
+faces.  Before us flowed the stream of black, rapid water, carrying
+down thin, jagged blocks of ice, twisting and grinding in the
+whirls and eddies.  For a long time my horse refused to take the
+plunge down the steep bank, snorted and braced himself.  With all
+my strength I lashed him with my whip across his neck until, with a
+pitiful groan, he threw himself into the cold stream.  We both went
+all the way under and I hardly kept my seat in the saddle.  Soon I
+was some metres from the shore with my horse stretching his head
+and neck far forward in his efforts and snorting and blowing
+incessantly.  I felt the every motion of his feet churning the
+water and the quivering of his whole body under me in this trial.
+At last we reached the middle of the river, where the current
+became exceedingly rapid and began to carry us down with it.  Out
+of the ominous darkness I heard the shoutings of my companions and
+the dull cries of fear and suffering from the horses.  I was chest
+deep in the icy water.  Sometimes the floating blocks struck me;
+sometimes the waves broke up over my head and face.  I had no time
+to look about or to feel the cold.  The animal wish to live took
+possession of me; I became filled with the thought that, if my
+horse's strength failed in his struggle with the stream, I must
+perish.  All my attention was turned to his efforts and to his
+quivering fear.  Suddenly he groaned loudly and I noticed he was
+sinking.  The water evidently was over his nostrils, because the
+intervals of his frightened snorts through the nostrils became
+longer.  A big block of ice struck his head and turned him so that
+he was swimming right downstream.  With difficulty I reined him
+around toward the shore but felt now that his force was gone.  His
+head several times disappeared under the swirling surface.  I had
+no choice.  I slipped from the saddle and, holding this by my left
+hand, swam with my right beside my mount, encouraging him with my
+shouts.  For a time he floated with lips apart and his teeth set
+firm.  In his widely opened eyes was indescribable fear.  As soon
+as I was out of the saddle, he had at once risen in the water and
+swam more calmly and rapidly.  At last under the hoofs of my
+exhausted animal I heard the stones.  One after another my
+companions came up on the shore.  The well-trained horses had
+brought all their burdens over.  Much farther down our colonist
+landed with the supplies.  Without a moment's loss we packed our
+things on the horses and continued our journey.  The wind was
+growing stronger and colder.  At the dawn of day the cold was
+intense.  Our soaked clothes froze and became hard as leather; our
+teeth chattered; and in our eyes showed the red fires of fever: but
+we traveled on to put as much space as we could between ourselves
+and the Partisans.  Passing about fifteen kilometres through the
+forest we emerged into an open valley, from which we could see the
+opposite bank of the Yenisei.  It was about eight o'clock.  Along
+the road on the other shore wound the black serpent-like line of
+riders and wagons which we made out to be a column of Red soldiers
+with their transport.  We dismounted and hid in the bushes in order
+to avoid attracting their attention.
+
+All the day with the thermometer at zero and below we continued our
+journey, only at night reaching the mountains covered with larch
+forests, where we made big fires, dried our clothes and warmed
+ourselves thoroughly.  The hungry horses did not leave the fires
+but stood right behind us with drooped heads and slept.  Very early
+in the morning several Soyots came to our camp.
+
+"Ulan?  (Red?)" asked one of them.
+
+"No! No!" exclaimed all our company.
+
+"Tzagan?  (White?)" followed the new question.
+
+"Yes, yes," said the Tartar, "all are Whites."
+
+"Mende!  Mende!" they grunted and, after starting their cups of
+tea, began to relate very interesting and important news.  It
+appeared that the Red Partisans, moving from the mountains Tannu
+Ola, occupied with their outposts all the border of Mongolia to
+stop and seize the peasants and Soyots driving out their cattle.
+To pass the Tannu Ola now would be impossible.  I saw only one way--
+to turn sharp to the southeast, pass the swampy valley of the
+Buret Hei and reach the south shore of Lake Kosogol, which is
+already in the territory of Mongolia proper.  It was very
+unpleasant news.  To the first Mongol post in Samgaltai was not
+more than sixty miles from our camp, while to Kosogol by the
+shortest line not less than two hundred seventy-five.  The horses
+my friend and I were riding, after having traveled more than six
+hundred miles over hard roads and without proper food or rest,
+could scarcely make such an additional distance.  But, reflecting
+upon the situation and studying my new fellow travelers, I
+determined not to attempt to pass the Tannu Ola.  They were
+nervous, morally weary men, badly dressed and armed and most of
+them were without weapons.  I knew that during a fight there is no
+danger so great as that of disarmed men.  They are easily caught by
+panic, lose their heads and infect all the others.  Therefore, I
+consulted with my friends and decided to go to Kosogol.  Our
+company agreed to follow us.  After luncheon, consisting of soup
+with big lumps of meat, dry bread and tea, we moved out.  About two
+o'clock the mountains began to rise up before us.  They were the
+northeast outspurs of the Tannu Ola, behind which lay the Valley of
+Buret Hei.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE BARRIER OF RED PARTISANS
+
+
+In a valley between two sharp ridges we discovered a herd of yaks
+and cattle being rapidly driven off to the north by ten mounted
+Soyots.  Approaching us warily they finally revealed that Noyon
+(Prince) of Todji had ordered them to drive the herds along the
+Buret Hei into Mongolia, apprehending the pillaging of the Red
+Partisans.  They proceeded but were informed by some Soyot hunters
+that this part of the Tannu Ola was occupied by the Partisans from
+the village of Vladimirovka.  Consequently they were forced to
+return.  We inquired from them the whereabouts of these outposts
+and how many Partisans were holding the mountain pass over into
+Mongolia.  We sent out the Tartar and the Kalmuck for a
+reconnaissance while all of us prepared for the further advance by
+wrapping the feet of our horses in our shirts and by muzzling their
+noses with straps and bits of rope so that they could not neigh.
+It was dark when our investigators returned and reported to us that
+about thirty Partisans had a camp some ten kilometers from us,
+occupying the yurtas of the Soyots.  At the pass were two outposts,
+one of two soldiers and the other of three.  From the outposts to
+the camp was a little over a mile.  Our trail lay between the two
+outposts.  From the top of the mountain one could plainly see the
+two posts and could shoot them all.  When we had come near to the
+top of this mountain, I left our party and, taking with me my
+friend, the Tartar, the Kalmuck and two of the young officers,
+advanced.  From the mountain I saw about five hundred yards ahead
+two fires.  At each of the fires sat a soldier with his rifle and
+the others slept.  I did not want to fight with the Partisans but
+we had to do away with these outposts and that without firing or we
+never should get through the pass.  I did not believe the Partisans
+could afterwards track us because the whole trail was thickly
+marked with the spoors of horses and cattle.
+
+"I shall take for my share these two," whispered my friend,
+pointing to the left outpost.
+
+The rest of us were to take care of the second post.  I crept along
+through the bushes behind my friend in order to help him in case of
+need; but I am bound to admit that I was not at all worried about
+him.  He was about seven feet tall and so strong that, when a horse
+used to refuse sometimes to take the bit, he would wrap his arm
+around its neck, kick its forefeet out from under it and throw it
+so that he could easily bridle it on the ground.  When only a
+hundred paces remained, I stood behind the bushes and watched.  I
+could see very distinctly the fire and the dozing sentinel.  He sat
+with his rifle on his knees.  His companion, asleep beside him, did
+not move.  Their white felt boots were plainly visible to me.  For
+a long time I did not remark my friend.  At the fire all was quiet.
+Suddenly from the other outpost floated over a few dim shouts and
+all was still.  Our sentinel slowly raised his head.  But just at
+this moment the huge body of my friend rose up and blanketed the
+fire from me and in a twinkling the feet of the sentinel flashed
+through the air, as my companion had seized him by the throat and
+swung him clear into the bushes, where both figures disappeared.
+In a second he re-appeared, flourished the rifle of the Partisan
+over his head and I heard the dull blow which was followed by an
+absolute calm.  He came back toward me and, confusedly smiling,
+said:
+
+"It is done.  God and the Devil!  When I was a boy, my mother
+wanted to make a priest out of me.  When I grew up, I became a
+trained agronome in order . . . to strangle the people and smash
+their skulls.  Revolution is a very stupid thing!"
+
+And with anger and disgust he spit and began to smoke his pipe.
+
+At the other outpost also all was finished.  During this night we
+reached the top of the Tannu Ola and descended again into a valley
+covered with dense bushes and twined with a whole network of small
+rivers and streams.  It was the headwaters of the Buret Hei.  About
+one o'clock we stopped and began to feed our horses, as the grass
+just there was very good.  Here we thought ourselves in safety.  We
+saw many calming indications.  On the mountains were seen the
+grazing herds of reindeers and yaks and approaching Soyots
+confirmed our supposition.  Here behind the Tannu Ola the Soyots
+had not seen the Red soldiers.  We presented to these Soyots a
+brick of tea and saw them depart happy and sure that we were
+"Tzagan," a "good people."
+
+While our horses rested and grazed on the well-preserved grass, we
+sat by the fire and deliberated upon our further progress.  There
+developed a sharp controversy between two sections of our company,
+one led by a Colonel who with four officers were so impressed by
+the absence of Reds south of the Tannu Ola that they determined to
+work westward to Kobdo and then on to the camp on the Emil River
+where the Chinese authorities had interned six thousand of the
+forces of General Bakitch, which had come over into Mongolian
+territory.  My friend and I with sixteen of the officers chose to
+carry through our old plan to strike for the shores of Lake Kosogol
+and thence out to the Far East.  As neither side could persuade the
+other to abandon its ideas, our company was divided and the next
+day at noon we took leave of one another.  It turned out that our
+own wing of eighteen had many fights and difficulties on the way,
+which cost us the lives of six of our comrades, but that the
+remainder of us came through to the goal of our journey so closely
+knit by the ties of devotion which fighting and struggling for our
+very lives entailed that we have ever preserved for one another the
+warmest feelings of friendship.  The other group under Colonel
+Jukoff perished.  He met a big detachment of Red cavalry and was
+defeated by them in two fights.  Only two officers escaped.  They
+related to me this sad news and the details of the fights when we
+met four months later in Urga.
+
+Our band of eighteen riders with five packhorses moved up the
+valley of the Buret Hei.  We floundered in the swamps, passed
+innumerable miry streams, were frozen by the cold winds and were
+soaked through by the snow and sleet; but we persisted
+indefatigably toward the south end of Kosogol.  As a guide our
+Tartar led us confidently over these trails well marked by the feet
+of many cattle being run out of Urianhai to Mongolia.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN THE COUNTRY OF ETERNAL PEACE
+
+
+The inhabitants of Urianhai, the Soyots, are proud of being the
+genuine Buddhists and of retaining the pure doctrine of holy Rama
+and the deep wisdom of Sakkia-Mouni.  They are the eternal enemies
+of war and of the shedding of blood.  Away back in the thirteenth
+century they preferred to move out from their native land and take
+refuge in the north rather than fight or become a part of the
+empire of the bloody conqueror Jenghiz Khan, who wanted to add to
+his forces these wonderful horsemen and skilled archers.  Three
+times in their history they have thus trekked northward to avoid
+struggle and now no one can say that on the hands of the Soyots
+there has ever been seen human blood.  With their love of peace
+they struggled against the evils of war.  Even the severe Chinese
+administrators could not apply here in this country of peace the
+full measure of their implacable laws.  In the same manner the
+Soyots conducted themselves when the Russian people, mad with blood
+and crime, brought this infection into their land.  They avoided
+persistently meetings and encounters with the Red troops and
+Partisans, trekking off with their families and cattle southward
+into the distant principalities of Kemchik and Soldjak.  The
+eastern branch of this stream of emigration passed through the
+valley of the Buret Hei, where we constantly outstrode groups of
+them with their cattle and herds.
+
+We traveled quickly along the winding trail of the Buret Hei and in
+two days began to make the elevations of the mountain pass between
+the valleys of the Buret Hei and Kharga.  The trail was not only
+very steep but was also littered with fallen larch trees and
+frequently intercepted, incredible as it may seem, with swampy
+places where the horses mired badly.  Then again we picked our
+dangerous road over cobbles and small stones that rolled away under
+our horses' feet and bumped off over the precipice nearby.  Our
+horses fatigued easily in passing this moraine that had been strewn
+by ancient glaciers along the mountain sides.  Sometimes the trail
+led right along the edge of the precipices where the horses started
+great slides of stones and sand.  I remember one whole mountain
+covered with these moving sands.  We had to leave our saddles and,
+taking the bridles in our hands, to trot for a mile or more over
+these sliding beds, sometimes sinking in up to our knees and going
+down the mountain side with them toward the precipices below.  One
+imprudent move at times would have sent us over the brink.  This
+destiny met one of our horses.  Belly down in the moving trap, he
+could not work free to change his direction and so slipped on down
+with a mass of it until he rolled over the precipice and was lost
+to us forever.  We heard only the crackling of breaking trees along
+his road to death.  Then with great difficulty we worked down to
+salvage the saddle and bags.  Further along we had to abandon one
+of our pack horses which had come all the way from the northern
+border of Urianhai with us.  We first unburdened it but this did
+not help; no more did our shouting and threats.  He only stood with
+his head down and looked so exhausted that we realized he had
+reached the further bourne of his land of toil.  Some Soyots with
+us examined him, felt of his muscles on the fore and hind legs,
+took his head in their hands and moved it from side to side,
+examined his head carefully after that and then said:
+
+"That horse will not go further.  His brain is dried out."  So we
+had to leave him.
+
+That evening we came to a beautiful change in scene when we topped
+a rise and found ourselves on a broad plateau covered with larch.
+On it we discovered the yurtas of some Soyot hunters, covered with
+bark instead of the usual felt.  Out of these ten men with rifles
+rushed toward us as we approached.  They informed us that the
+Prince of Soldjak did not allow anyone to pass this way, as he
+feared the coming of murderers and robbers into his dominions.
+
+"Go back to the place from which you came," they advised us with
+fear in their eyes.
+
+I did not answer but I stopped the beginnings of a quarrel between
+an old Soyot and one of my officers.  I pointed to the small stream
+in the valley ahead of us and asked him its name.
+
+"Oyna," replied the Soyot.  "It is the border of the principality
+and the passage of it is forbidden."
+
+"All right," I said, "but you will allow us to warm and rest
+ourselves a little."
+
+"Yes, yes!" exclaimed the hospitable Soyots, and led us into their
+tepees.
+
+On our way there I took the opportunity to hand to the old Soyot a
+cigarette and to another a box of matches.  We were all walking
+along together save one Soyot who limped slowly in the rear and was
+holding his hand up over his nose.
+
+"Is he ill?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," sadly answered the old Soyot.  "That is my son.  He has been
+losing blood from the nose for two days and is now quite weak."
+
+I stopped and called the young man to me.
+
+"Unbutton your outer coat," I ordered, "bare your neck and chest
+and turn your face up as far as you can."  I pressed the jugular
+vein on both sides of his head for some minutes and said to him:
+
+"The blood will not flow from your nose any more.  Go into your
+tepee and lie down for some time."
+
+The "mysterious" action of my fingers created on the Soyots a
+strong impression.  The old Soyot with fear and reverence
+whispered:
+
+"Ta Lama, Ta Lama!  (Great Doctor)."
+
+In the yurta we were given tea while the old Soyot sat thinking
+deeply about something.  Afterwards he took counsel with his
+companions and finally announced:
+
+"The wife of our Prince is sick in her eyes and I think the Prince
+will be very glad if I lead the 'Ta Lama' to him.  He will not
+punish me, for he ordered that no 'bad people' should be allowed to
+pass; but that should not stop the 'good people' from coming to us.
+
+"Do as you think best," I replied rather indifferently.  "As a
+matter of fact, I know how to treat eye diseases but I would go
+back if you say so."
+
+"No, no!" the old man exclaimed with fear.  "I shall guide you
+myself."
+
+Sitting by the fire, he lighted his pipe with a flint, wiped the
+mouthpiece on his sleeve and offered it to me in true native
+hospitality.  I was "comme il faut" and smoked.  Afterwards he
+offered his pipe to each one of our company and received from each
+a cigarette, a little tobacco or some matches.  It was the seal on
+our friendship.  Soon in our yurta many persons piled up around us,
+men, women, children and dogs.  It was impossible to move.  From
+among them emerged a Lama with shaved face and close cropped hair,
+dressed in the flowing red garment of his caste.  His clothes and
+his expression were very different from the common mass of dirty
+Soyots with their queues and felt caps finished off with squirrel
+tails on the top.  The Lama was very kindly disposed towards us but
+looked ever greedily at our gold rings and watches.  I decided to
+exploit this avidity of the Servant of Buddha.  Supplying him with
+tea and dried bread, I made known to him that I was in need of
+horses.
+
+"I have a horse.  Will you buy it from me?" he asked.  "But I do
+not accept Russian bank notes.  Let us exchange something."
+
+For a long time I bargained with him and at last for my gold
+wedding ring, a raincoat and a leather saddle bag I received a fine
+Soyot horse--to replace one of the pack animals we had lost--and a
+young goat.  We spent the night here and were feasted with fat
+mutton.  In the morning we moved off under the guidance of the old
+Soyot along the trail that followed the valley of the Oyna, free
+from both mountains and swamps.  But we knew that the mounts of my
+friend and myself, together with three others, were too worn down
+to make Kosogol and determined to try to buy others in Soldjak.
+Soon we began to meet little groups of Soyot yurtas with their
+cattle and horses round about.  Finally we approached the shifting
+capital of the Prince.  Our guide rode on ahead for the parley with
+him after assuring us that the Prince would be glad to welcome the
+Ta Lama, though at the time I remarked great anxiety and fear in
+his features as he spoke.  Before long we emerged on to a large
+plain well covered with small bushes.  Down by the shore of the
+river we made out big yurtas with yellow and blue flags floating
+over them and easily guessed that this was the seat of government.
+Soon our guide returned to us.  His face was wreathed with smiles.
+He flourished his hands and cried:
+
+"Noyon (the Prince) asks you to come!  He is very glad!"
+
+From a warrior I was forced to change myself into a diplomat.  As
+we approached the yurta of the Prince, we were met by two
+officials, wearing the peaked Mongol caps with peacock feathers
+rampants behind.  With low obeisances they begged the foreign
+"Noyon" to enter the yurta.  My friend the Tartar and I entered.
+In the rich yurta draped with expensive silk we discovered a
+feeble, wizen-faced little old man with shaven face and cropped
+hair, wearing also a high pointed beaver cap with red silk apex
+topped off with a dark red button with the long peacock feathers
+streaming out behind.  On his nose were big Chinese spectacles.  He
+was sitting on a low divan, nervously clicking the beads of his
+rosary.  This was Ta Lama, Prince of Soldjak and High Priest of the
+Buddhist Temple.  He welcomed us very cordially and invited us to
+sit down before the fire burning in the copper brazier.  His
+surprisingly beautiful Princess served us with tea and Chinese
+confections and cakes.  We smoked our pipes, though the Prince as a
+Lama did not indulge, fulfilling, however, his duty as a host by
+raising to his lips the pipes we offered him and handing us in
+return the green nephrite bottle of snuff.  Thus with the etiquette
+accomplished we awaited the words of the Prince.  He inquired
+whether our travels had been felicitous and what were our further
+plans.  I talked with him quite frankly and requested his
+hospitality for the rest of our company and for the horses.  He
+agreed immediately and ordered four yurtas set up for us.
+
+"I hear that the foreign Noyon," the Prince said, "is a good
+doctor."
+
+"Yes, I know some diseases and have with me some medicines," I
+answered, "but I am not a doctor.  I am a scientist in other
+branches."
+
+But the Prince did not understand this.  In his simple directness a
+man who knows how to treat disease is a doctor.
+
+"My wife has had constant trouble for two months with her eyes," he
+announced.  "Help her."
+
+I asked the Princess to show me her eyes and I found the typical
+conjunctivitis from the continual smoke of the yurta and the
+general uncleanliness.  The Tartar brought me my medicine case.  I
+washed her eyes with boric acid and dropped a little cocaine and a
+feeble solution of sulphurate of zinc into them.
+
+"I beg you to cure me," pleaded the Princess.  "Do not go away
+until you have cured me.  We shall give you sheep, milk and flour
+for all your company.  I weep now very often because I had very
+nice eyes and my husband used to tell me they shone like the stars
+and now they are red.  I cannot bear it, I cannot!"
+
+She very capriciously stamped her foot and, coquettishly smiling at
+me, asked:
+
+"Do you want to cure me?  Yes?"
+
+The character and manners of lovely woman are the same everywhere:
+on bright Broadway, along the stately Thames, on the vivacious
+boulevards of gay Paris and in the silk-draped yurta of the Soyot
+Princess behind the larch covered Tannu Ola.
+
+"I shall certainly try," assuringly answered the new oculist.
+
+We spent here ten days, surrounded by the kindness and friendship
+of the whole family of the Prince.  The eyes of the Princess, which
+eight years ago had seduced the already old Prince Lama, were now
+recovered.  She was beside herself with joy and seldom left her
+looking-glass.
+
+The Prince gave me five fairly good horses, ten sheep and a bag of
+flour, which was immediately transformed into dry bread.  My friend
+presented him with a Romanoff five-hundred-rouble note with a
+picture of Peter the Great upon it, while I gave to him a small
+nugget of gold which I had picked up in the bed of a stream.  The
+Prince ordered one of the Soyots to guide us to the Kosogol.  The
+whole family of the Prince conducted us to the monastery ten
+kilometres from the "capital."  We did not visit the monastery but
+we stopped at the "Dugun," a Chinese trading establishment.  The
+Chinese merchants looked at us in a very hostile manner though they
+simultaneously offered us all sorts of goods, thinking especially
+to catch us with their round bottles (lanhon) of maygolo or sweet
+brandy made from aniseed.  As we had neither lump silver nor
+Chinese dollars, we could only look with longing at these
+attractive bottles, till the Prince came to the rescue and ordered
+the Chinese to put five of them in our saddle bags.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MYSTERIES, MIRACLES AND A NEW FIGHT
+
+
+In the evening of the same day we arrived at the Sacred Lake of
+Teri Noor, a sheet of water eight kilometres across, muddy and
+yellow, with low unattractive shores studded with large holes.  In
+the middle of the lake lay what was left of a disappearing island.
+On this were a few trees and some old ruins.  Our guide explained
+to us that two centuries ago the lake did not exist and that a very
+strong Chinese fortress stood here on the plain.  A Chinese chief
+in command of the fortress gave offence to an old Lama who cursed
+the place and prophesied that it would all be destroyed.  The very
+next day the water began rushing up from the ground, destroyed the
+fortress and engulfed all the Chinese soldiers.  Even to this day
+when storms rage over the lake the waters cast up on the shores the
+bones of men and horses who perished in it.  This Teri Noor
+increases its size every year, approaching nearer and nearer to the
+mountains.  Skirting the eastern shore of the lake, we began to
+climb a snow-capped ridge.  The road was easy at first but the
+guide warned us that the most difficult bit was there ahead.  We
+reached this point two days later and found there a steep mountain
+side thickly set with forest and covered with snow.  Beyond it lay
+the lines of eternal snow--ridges studded with dark rocks set in
+great banks of the white mantle that gleamed bright under the clear
+sunshine.  These were the eastern and highest branches of the Tannu
+Ola system.  We spent the night beneath this wood and began the
+passage of it in the morning.  At noon the guide began leading us
+by zigzags in and out but everywhere our trail was blocked by deep
+ravines, great jams of fallen trees and walls of rock caught in
+their mad tobogganings from the mountain top.  We struggled for
+several hours, wore out our horses and, all of a sudden, turned up
+at the place where we had made our last halt.  It was very evident
+our Soyot had lost his way; and on his face I noticed marked fear.
+
+"The old devils of the cursed forest will not allow us to pass," he
+whispered with trembling lips.  "It is a very ominous sign.  We
+must return to Kharga to the Noyon."
+
+But I threatened him and he took the lead again evidently without
+hope or effort to find the way.  Fortunately, one of our party, an
+Urianhai hunter, noticed the blazes on the trees, the signs of the
+road which our guide had lost.  Following these, we made our way
+through the wood, came into and crossed a belt of burned larch
+timber and beyond this dipped again into a small live forest
+bordering the bottom of the mountains crowned with the eternal
+snows.  It grew dark so that we had to camp for the night.  The
+wind rose high and carried in its grasp a great white sheet of snow
+that shut us off from the horizon on every side and buried our camp
+deep in its folds.  Our horses stood round like white ghosts,
+refusing to eat or to leave the circle round our fire.  The wind
+combed their manes and tails.  Through the niches in the mountains
+it roared and whistled.  From somewhere in the distance came the
+low rumble of a pack of wolves, punctuated at intervals by the
+sharp individual barking that a favorable gust of wind threw up
+into high staccato.
+
+As we lay by the fire, the Soyot came over to me and said:  "Noyon,
+come with me to the obo.  I want to show you something."
+
+We went there and began to ascend the mountain.  At the bottom of a
+very steep slope was laid up a large pile of stones and tree
+trunks, making a cone of some three metres in height.  These obo
+are the Lamaite sacred signs set up at dangerous places, the altars
+to the bad demons, rulers of these places.  Passing Soyots and
+Mongols pay tribute to the spirits by hanging on the branches of
+the trees in the obo hatyk, long streamers of blue silk, shreds
+torn from the lining of their coats or simply tufts of hair cut
+from their horses' manes; or by placing on the stones lumps of meat
+or cups of tea and salt.
+
+"Look at it," said the Soyot.  "The hatyks are torn off.  The
+demons are angry, they will not allow us to pass, Noyon. . . ."
+
+He caught my hand and with supplicating voice whispered:  "Let us
+go back, Noyon; let us!  The demons do not wish us to pass their
+mountains.  For twenty years no one has dared to pass these
+mountains and all bold men who have tried have perished here.  The
+demons fell upon them with snowstorm and cold.  Look!  It is
+beginning already. . . .  Go back to our Noyon, wait for the warmer
+days and then. . . ."
+
+I did not listen further to the Soyot but turned back to the fire,
+which I could hardly see through the blinding snow.  Fearing our
+guide might run away, I ordered a sentry to be stationed for the
+night to watch him.  Later in the night I was awakened by the
+sentry, who said to me:  "Maybe I am mistaken, but I think I heard
+a rifle."
+
+What could I say to it?  Maybe some stragglers like ourselves were
+giving a sign of their whereabouts to their lost companions, or
+perhaps the sentry had mistaken for a rifle shot the sound of some
+falling rock or frozen ice and snow.  Soon I fell asleep again and
+suddenly saw in a dream a very clear vision.  Out on the plain,
+blanketed deep with snow, was moving a line of riders.  They were
+our pack horses, our Kalmuck and the funny pied horse with the
+Roman nose.  I saw us descending from this snowy plateau into a
+fold in the mountains.  Here some larch trees were growing, close
+to which gurgled a small, open brook.  Afterwards I noticed a fire
+burning among the trees and then woke up.
+
+It grew light.  I shook up the others and asked them to prepare
+quickly so as not to lose time in getting under way.  The storm was
+raging.  The snow blinded us and blotted out all traces of the
+road.  The cold also became more intense.  At last we were in the
+saddles.  The Soyot went ahead trying to make out the trail.  As we
+worked higher the guide less seldom lost the way.  Frequently we
+fell into deep holes covered with snow; we scrambled up over
+slippery rocks.  At last the Soyot swung his horse round and,
+coming up to me, announced very positively:  "I do not want to die
+with you and I will not go further."
+
+My first motion was the swing of my whip back over my head.  I was
+so close to the "Promised Land" of Mongolia that this Soyot,
+standing in the way of fulfilment of my wishes, seemed to me my
+worst enemy.  But I lowered my flourishing hand.  Into my head
+flashed a quite wild thought.
+
+"Listen," I said.  "If you move your horses, you will receive a
+bullet in the back and you will perish not at the top of the
+mountain but at the bottom.  And now I will tell you what will
+happen to us.  When we shall have reached these rocks above, the
+wind will have ceased and the snowstorm will have subsided.  The
+sun will shine as we cross the snowy plain above and afterwards we
+shall descend into a small valley where there are larches growing
+and a stream of open running water.  There we shall light our fires
+and spend the night."
+
+The Soyot began to tremble with fright.
+
+"Noyon has already passed these mountains of Darkhat Ola?" he asked
+in amazement.
+
+"No," I answered, "but last night I had a vision and I know that we
+shall fortunately win over this ridge."
+
+"I will guide you!" exclaimed the Soyot, and, whipping his horse,
+led the way up the steep slope to the top of the ridge of eternal
+snows.
+
+As we were passing along the narrow edge of a precipice, the Soyot
+stopped and attentively examined the trail.
+
+"Today many shod horses have passed here!" he cried through the
+roar of the storm.  "Yonder on the snow the lash of a whip has been
+dragged.  These are not Soyots."
+
+The solution of this enigma appeared instantly.  A volley rang out.
+One of my companions cried out, as he caught hold of his right
+shoulder; one pack horse fell dead with a bullet behind his ear.
+We quickly tumbled out of our saddles, lay down behind the rocks
+and began to study the situation.  We were separated from a
+parallel spur of the mountain by a small valley about one thousand
+paces across.  There we made out about thirty riders already
+dismounted and firing at us.  I had never allowed any fighting to
+be done until the initiative had been taken by the other side.  Our
+enemy fell upon us unawares and I ordered my company to answer.
+
+"Aim at the horses!" cried Colonel Ostrovsky.  Then he ordered the
+Tartar and Soyot to throw our own animals.  We killed six of theirs
+and probably wounded others, as they got out of control.  Also our
+rifles took toll of any bold man who showed his head from behind
+his rock.  We heard the angry shouting and maledictions of Red
+soldiers who shot up our position more and more animatedly.
+
+Suddenly I saw our Soyot kick up three of the horses and spring
+into the saddle of one with the others in leash behind.  Behind him
+sprang up the Tartar and the Kalmuck.  I had already drawn my rifle
+on the Soyot but, as soon as I saw the Tartar and Kalmuck on their
+lovely horses behind him, I dropped my gun and knew all was well.
+The Reds let off a volley at the trio but they made good their
+escape behind the rocks and disappeared.  The firing continued more
+and more lively and I did not know what to do.  From our side we
+shot rarely, saving our cartridges.  Watching carefully the enemy,
+I noticed two black points on the snow high above the Reds.  They
+slowly approached our antagonists and finally were hidden from view
+behind some sharp hillocks.  When they emerged from these, they
+were right on the edge of some overhanging rocks at the foot of
+which the Reds lay concealed from us.  By this time I had no doubt
+that these were the heads of two men.  Suddenly these men rose up
+and I watched them flourish and throw something that was followed
+by two deafening roars which re-echoed across the mountain valley.
+Immediately a third explosion was followed by wild shouts and
+disorderly firing among the Reds.  Some of the horses rolled down
+the slope into the snow below and the soldiers, chased by our
+shots, made off as fast as they could down into the valley out of
+which we had come.
+
+Afterward the Tartar told me the Soyot had proposed to guide them
+around behind the Reds to fall upon their rear with the bombs.
+When I had bound up the wounded shoulder of the officer and we had
+taken the pack off the killed animal, we continued our journey.
+Our position was complicated.  We had no doubt that the Red
+detachment came up from Mongolia.  Therefore, were there Red troops
+in Mongolia?  What was their strength?  Where might we meet them?
+Consequently, Mongolia was no more the Promised Land?  Very sad
+thoughts took possession of us.
+
+But Nature pleased us.  The wind gradually fell.  The storm ceased.
+The sun more and more frequently broke through the scudding clouds.
+We were traveling upon a high, snow-covered plateau, where in one
+place the wind blew it clean and in another piled it high with
+drifts which caught our horses and held them so that they could
+hardly extricate themselves at times.  We had to dismount and wade
+through the white piles up to our waists and often a man or horse
+was down and had to be helped to his feet.  At last the descent
+began and at sunset we stopped in the small larch grove, spent the
+night at the fire among the trees and drank the tea boiled in the
+water carried from the open mountain brook.  In various places we
+came across the tracks of our recent antagonists.
+
+Everything, even Nature herself and the angry demons of Darkhat
+Ola, had helped us: but we were not gay, because again before us
+lay the dread uncertainty that threatened us with new and possibly
+destructive dangers.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE RIVER OF THE DEVIL
+
+
+Ulan Taiga with Darkhat Ola lay behind us.  We went forward very
+rapidly because the Mongol plains began here, free from the
+impediments of mountains.  Everywhere splendid grazing lands
+stretched away.  In places there were groves of larch.  We crossed
+some very rapid streams but they were not deep and they had hard
+beds.  After two days of travel over the Darkhat plain we began
+meeting Soyots driving their cattle rapidly toward the northwest
+into Orgarkha Ola.  They communicated to us very unpleasant news.
+
+The Bolsheviki from the Irkutsk district had crossed the Mongolian
+border, captured the Russian colony at Khathyl on the southern
+shore of Lake Kosogol and turned, off south toward Muren Kure, a
+Russian settlement beside a big Lamaite monastery sixty miles south
+of Kosogol.  The Mongols told us there were no Russian troops
+between Khathyl and Muren Kure, so we decided to pass between these
+two points to reach Van Kure farther to the east.  We took leave of
+our Soyot guide and, after having sent three scouts in advance,
+moved forward.  From the mountains around the Kosogol we admired
+the splendid view of this broad Alpine lake.  It was set like a
+sapphire in the old gold of the surrounding hills, chased with
+lovely bits of rich dark forestry.  At night we approached Khathyl
+with great precaution and stopped on the shore of the river that
+flows from Kosogol, the Yaga or Egingol.  We found a Mongol who
+agreed to transport us to the other bank of the frozen stream and
+to lead us by a safe road between Khathyl and Muren Kure.
+Everywhere along the shore of the river were found large obo and
+small shrines to the demons of the stream.
+
+"Why are there so many obo?" we asked the Mongol.
+
+"It is the River of the Devil, dangerous and crafty," replied the
+Mongol.  "Two days ago a train of carts went through the ice and
+three of them with five soldiers were lost."
+
+We started to cross.  The surface of the river resembled a thick
+piece of looking-glass, being clear and without snow.  Our horses
+walked very carefully but some fell and floundered before they
+could regain their feet.  We were leading them by the bridle.  With
+bowed heads and trembling all over they kept their frightened eyes
+ever on the ice at their feet.  I looked down and understood their
+fear.  Through the cover of one foot of transparent ice one could
+clearly see the bottom of the river.  Under the lighting of the
+moon all the stones, the holes and even some of the grasses were
+distinctly visible, even though the depth was ten metres and more.
+The Yaga rushed under the ice with a furious speed, swirling and
+marking its course with long bands of foam and bubbles.  Suddenly I
+jumped and stopped as though fastened to the spot.  Along the
+surface of the river ran the boom of a cannon, followed by a second
+and a third.
+
+"Quicker, quicker!" cried our Mongol, waving us forward with his
+hand.
+
+Another cannon boom and a crack ran right close to us.  The horses
+swung back on their haunches in protest, reared and fell, many of
+them striking their heads severely on the ice.  In a second it
+opened up two feet wide, so that I could follow its jagged course
+along the surface.  Immediately up out of the opening the water
+spread over the ice with a rush.
+
+"Hurry, hurry!" shouted the guide.
+
+With great difficulty we forced our horses to jump over this
+cleavage and to continue on further.  They trembled and disobeyed
+and only the strong lash forced them to forget this panic of fear
+and go on.
+
+When we were safe on the farther bank and well into the woods, our
+Mongol guide recounted to us how the river at times opens in this
+mysterious way and leaves great areas of clear water.  All the men
+and animals on the river at such times must perish.  The furious
+current of cold water will always carry them down under the ice.
+At other times a crack has been known to pass right under a horse
+and, where he fell in with his front feet in the attempt to get
+back to the other side, the crack has closed up and ground his legs
+or feet right off.
+
+The valley of Kosogol is the crater of an extinct volcano.  Its
+outlines may be followed from the high west shore of the lake.
+However, the Plutonic force still acts and, asserting the glory of
+the Devil, forces the Mongols to build obo and offer sacrifices at
+his shrines.  We spent all the night and all the next day hurrying
+away eastward to avoid a meeting with the Reds and seeking good
+pasturage for our horses.  At about nine o'clock in the evening a
+fire shone out of the distance.  My friend and I made toward it
+with the feeling that it was surely a Mongol yurta beside which we
+could camp in safety.  We traveled over a mile before making out
+distinctly the lines of a group of yurtas.  But nobody came out to
+meet us and, what astonished us more, we were not surrounded by the
+angry black Mongolian dogs with fiery eyes.  Still, from the
+distance we had seen the fire and so there must be someone there.
+We dismounted from our horses and approached on foot.  From out of
+the yurta rushed two Russian soldiers, one of whom shot at me with
+his pistol but missed me and wounded my horse in the back through
+the saddle.  I brought him to earth with my Mauser and the other
+was killed by the butt end of my friend's rifle.  We examined the
+bodies and found in their pockets the papers of soldiers of the
+Second Squadron of the Communist Interior Defence.  Here we spent
+the night.  The owners of the yurtas had evidently run away, for
+the Red soldiers had collected and packed in sacks the property of
+the Mongols.  Probably they were just planning to leave, as they
+were fully dressed.  We acquired two horses, which we found in the
+bushes, two rifles and two automatic pistols with cartridges.  In
+the saddle bags we also found tea, tobacco, matches and cartridges--
+all of these valuable supplies to help us keep further hold on our
+lives.
+
+Two days later we were approaching the shore of the River Uri when
+we met two Russian riders, who were the Cossacks of a certain
+Ataman Sutunin, acting against the Bolsheviki in the valley of the
+River Selenga.  They were riding to carry a message from Sutunin to
+Kaigorodoff, chief of the Anti-Bolsheviki in the Altai region.
+They informed us that along the whole Russian-Mongolian border the
+Bolshevik troops were scattered; also that Communist agitators had
+penetrated to Kiakhta, Ulankom and Kobdo and had persuaded the
+Chinese authorities to surrender to the Soviet authorities all the
+refugees from Russia.  We knew that in the neighborhood of Urga and
+Van Kure engagements were taking place between the Chinese troops
+and the detachments of the Anti-Bolshevik Russian General Baron
+Ungern Sternberg and Colonel Kazagrandi, who were fighting for the
+independence of Outer Mongolia.  Baron Ungern had now been twice
+defeated, so that the Chinese were carrying on high-handed in Urga,
+suspecting all foreigners of having relations with the Russian
+General.
+
+We realized that the whole situation was sharply reversed.  The
+route to the Pacific was closed.  Reflecting very carefully over
+the problem, I decided that we had but one possible exit left.  We
+must avoid all Mongolian cities with Chinese administration, cross
+Mongolia from north to south, traverse the desert in the southern
+part of the Principality of Jassaktu Khan, enter the Gobi in the
+western part of Inner Mongolia, strike as rapidly as possible
+through sixty miles of Chinese territory in the Province of Kansu
+and penetrate into Tibet.  Here I hoped to search out one of the
+English Consuls and with his help to reach some English port in
+India.  I understood thoroughly all the difficulties incident to
+such an enterprise but I had no other choice.  It only remained to
+make this last foolish attempt or to perish without doubt at the
+hands of the Boisheviki or languish in a Chinese prison.  When I
+announced my plan to my companions, without in any way hiding from
+them all its dangers and quixotism, all of them answered very
+quickly and shortly:  "Lead us!  We will follow."
+
+One circumstance was distinctly in our favor.  We did not fear
+hunger, for we had some supplies of tea, tobacco and matches and a
+surplus of horses, saddles, rifles, overcoats and boots, which were
+an excellent currency for exchange.  So then we began to initiate
+the plan of the new expedition.  We should start to the south,
+leaving the town of Uliassutai on our right and taking the
+direction of Zaganluk, then pass through the waste lands of the
+district of Balir of Jassaktu Khan, cross the Naron Khuhu Gobi and
+strike for the mountains of Boro.  Here we should be able to take a
+long rest to recuperate the strength of our horses and of
+ourselves.  The second section of our journey would be the passage
+through the western part of Inner Mongolia, through the Little
+Gobi, through the lands of the Torguts, over the Khara Mountains,
+across Kansu, where our road must be chosen to the west of the
+Chinese town of Suchow.  From there we should have to enter the
+Dominion of Kuku Nor and then work on southward to the head waters
+of the Yangtze River.  Beyond this I had but a hazy notion, which
+however I was able to verify from a map of Asia in the possession
+of one of the officers, to the effect that the mountain chains to
+the west of the sources of the Yangtze separated that river system
+from the basin of the Brahmaputra in Tibet Proper, where I expected
+to be able to find English assistance.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE MARCH OF GHOSTS
+
+
+In no other way can I describe the journey from the River Ero to
+the border of Tibet.  About eleven hundred miles through the snowy
+steppes, over mountains and across deserts we traveled in forty-
+eight days.  We hid from the people as we journeyed, made short
+stops in the most desolate places, fed for whole weeks on nothing
+but raw, frozen meat in order to avoid attracting attention by the
+smoke of fires.  Whenever we needed to purchase a sheep or a steer
+for our supply department, we sent out only two unarmed men who
+represented to the natives that they were the workmen of some
+Russian colonists.  We even feared to shoot, although we met a
+great herd of antelopes numbering as many as five thousand head.
+Behind Balir in the lands of the Lama Jassaktu Khan, who had
+inherited his throne as a result of the poisoning of his brother at
+Urga by order of the Living Buddha, we met wandering Russian
+Tartars who had driven their herds all the way from Altai and
+Abakan.  They welcomed us very cordially, gave us oxen and thirty-
+six bricks of tea.  Also they saved us from inevitable destruction,
+for they told us that at this season it was utterly impossible for
+horses to make the trip across the Gobi, where there was no grass
+at all.  We must buy camels by exchanging for them our horses and
+some other of our bartering supplies.  One of the Tartars the next
+day brought to their camp a rich Mongol with whom he drove the
+bargain for this trade.  He gave us nineteen camels and took all
+our horses, one rifle, one pistol and the best Cossack saddle.  He
+advised us by all means to visit the sacred Monastery of
+Narabanchi, the last Lamaite monastery on the road from Mongolia to
+Tibet.  He told us that the Holy Hutuktu, "the Incarnate Buddha,"
+would be greatly offended if we did not visit the monastery and his
+famous "Shrine of Blessings," where all travelers going to Tibet
+always offered prayers.  Our Kalmuck Lamaite supported the Mongol
+in this.  I decided to go there with the Kalmuck.  The Tartars gave
+me some big silk hatyk as presents and loaned us four splendid
+horses.  Although the monastery was fifty-five miles distant, by
+nine o'clock in the evening I entered the yurta of this holy
+Hutuktu.
+
+He was a middle-aged, clean shaven, spare little man, laboring
+under the name of Jelyb Djamsrap Hutuktu.  He received us very
+cordially and was greatly pleased with the presentation of the
+hatyk and with my knowledge of the Mongol etiquette in which my
+Tartar had been long and persistently instructing me.  He listened
+to me most attentively and gave valuable advice about the road,
+presenting me then with a ring which has since opened for me the
+doors of all Lamaite monasteries.  The name of this Hutuktu is
+highly esteemed not only in all Mongolia but in Tibet and in the
+Lamaite world of China.  We spent the night in his splendid yurta
+and on the following morning visited the shrines where they were
+conducting very solemn services with the music of gongs, tom-toms
+and whistling.  The Lamas with their deep voices were intoning the
+prayers while the lesser priests answered with their antiphonies.
+The sacred phrase:  "Om!  Mani padme Hung!" was endlessly repeated.
+
+The Hutuktu wished us success, presented us with a large yellow
+hatyk and accompanied us to the monastery gate.  When we were in
+our saddles he said:
+
+"Remember that you are always welcome guests here.  Life is very
+complicated and anything may happen.  Perhaps you will be forced in
+future to re-visit distant Mongolia and then do not miss Narabanchi
+Kure."
+
+That night we returned to the Tartars and the next day continued
+our journey.  As I was very tired, the slow, easy motion of the
+camel was welcome and restful to me.  All the day I dozed off at
+intervals to sleep.  It turned out to be very disastrous for me;
+for, when my camel was going up the steep bank of a river, in one
+of my naps I fell off and hit my head on a stone, lost
+consciousness and woke up to find my overcoat covered with blood.
+My friends surrounded me with their frightened faces.  They
+bandaged my head and we started off again.  I only learned long
+afterwards from a doctor who examined me that I had cracked my
+skull as the price of my siesta.
+
+We crossed the eastern ranges of the Altai and the Karlik Tag,
+which are the most oriental sentinels the great Tian Shan system
+throws out into the regions of the Gobi; and then traversed from
+the north to the south the entire width of the Khuhu Gobi.  Intense
+cold ruled all this time and fortunately the frozen sands gave us
+better speed.  Before passing the Khara range, we exchanged our
+rocking-chair steeds for horses, a deal in which the Torguts
+skinned us badly like the true "old clothes men" they are.
+
+Skirting around these mountains we entered Kansu.  It was a
+dangerous move, for the Chinese were arresting all refugees and I
+feared for my Russian fellow-travelers.  During the days we hid in
+the ravines, the forests and bushes, making forced marches at
+night.  Four days we thus used in this passage of Kansu.  The few
+Chinese peasants we did encounter were peaceful appearing and most
+hospitable.  A marked sympathetic interest surrounded the Kalmuck,
+who could speak a bit of Chinese, and my box of medicines.
+Everywhere we found many ill people, chiefly afflicted with eye
+troubles, rheumatism and skin diseases.
+
+As we were approaching Nan Shan, the northeast branch of the Altyn
+Tag (which is in turn the east branch of the Pamir and Karakhorum
+system), we overhauled a large caravan of Chinese merchants going
+to Tibet and joined them.  For three days we were winding through
+the endless ravine-like valleys of these mountains and ascending
+the high passes.  But we noticed that the Chinese knew how to pick
+the easiest routes for caravans over all these difficult places.
+In a state of semi-consciousness I made this whole journey toward
+the large group of swampy lakes, feeding the Koko Nor and a whole
+network of large rivers.  From fatigue and constant nervous strain,
+probably helped by the blow on my head, I began suffering from
+sharp attacks of chills and fever, burning up at times and then
+chattering so with my teeth that I frightened my horse who several
+times threw me from the saddle.  I raved, cried out at times and
+even wept.  I called my family and instructed them how they must
+come to me.  I remember as though through a dream how I was taken
+from the horse by my companions, laid on the ground, supplied with
+Chinese brandy and, when I recovered a little, how they said to me:
+
+"The Chinese merchants are heading for the west and we must travel
+south."
+
+"No!  To the north," I replied very sharply.
+
+"But no, to the south," my companions assured me.
+
+"God and the Devil!" I angrily ejaculated, "we have just swum the
+Little Yenisei and Algyak is to the north!"
+
+"We are in Tibet," remonstrated my companions.  "We must reach the
+Brahmaputra."
+
+Brahmaputra. . . .  Brahmaputra. . . .  This word revolved in my
+fiery brain, made a terrible noise and commotion.  Suddenly I
+remembered everything and opened my eyes.  I hardly moved my lips
+and soon I again lost consciousness.  My companions brought me to
+the monastery of Sharkhe, where the Lama doctor quickly brought me
+round with a solution of fatil or Chinese ginseng.  In discussing
+our plans he expressed grave doubt as to whether we would get
+through Tibet but he did not wish to explain to me the reason for
+his doubts.
+
+
+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.
+
+Just at this time there arrived at the house of the Bolshevist
+Russian colonist Bourdukoff three Bolshevik agents from Irkutsk
+named Saltikoff, Freimann and Novak, who started an agitation among
+the Chinese authorities to get them to disarm the Russian officers
+and hand them over to the Reds.  They persuaded the Chinese Chamber
+of Commerce to petition the Irkutsk Soviet to send a detachment of
+Reds to Uliassutai for the protection of the Chinese against the
+White detachments.  Freimann brought with him communistic pamphlets
+in Mongolian and instructions to begin the reconstruction of the
+telegraph line to Irkutsk.  Bourdukoff also received some messages
+from the Bolsheviki.  This quartette developed their policy very
+successfully and soon saw Wang Tsao-tsun fall in with their
+schemes.  Once more the days of expecting a pogrom in Uliassutai
+returned to us.  The Russian officers anticipated attempts to
+arrest them.  The representative of one of the American firms went
+with me to the Commissioner for a parley.  We pointed out to him
+the illegality of his acts, inasmuch as he was not authorized by
+his Government to treat with the Bolsheviki when the Soviet
+Government had not been recognized by Peking.  Wang Tsao-tsun and
+his advisor Fu Hsiang were palpably confused at finding we knew of
+his secret meetings with the Bolshevik agents.  He assured us that
+his guard was sufficient to prevent any such pogrom.  It was quite
+true that his guard was very capable, as it consisted of well
+trained and disciplined soldiers under the command of a serious-
+minded and well educated officer; but, what could eighty soldiers
+do against a mob of three thousand coolies, one thousand armed
+merchants and two hundred gamins?  We strongly registered our
+apprehensions and urged him to avoid any bloodshed, pointing out
+that the foreign and Russian population were determined to defend
+themselves to the last moment.  Wang at once ordered the
+establishment of strong guards on the streets and thus made a very
+interesting picture with all the Russian, foreign and Chinese
+patrols moving up and down throughout the whole town.  Then we did
+not know there were three hundred more sentinels on duty, the men
+of Tushegoun Lama hidden nearby in the mountains.
+
+Once more the picture changed very sharply and suddenly.  The
+Mongolian Sait received news through the Lamas of the nearest
+monastery that Colonel Kazagrandi, after fighting with the Chinese
+irregulars, had captured Van Kure and had formed there Russian-
+Mongolian brigades of cavalry, mobilizing the Mongols by the order
+of the Living Buddha and the Russians by order of Baron Ungern.  A
+few hours later it became known that in the large monastery of
+Dzain the Chinese soldiers had killed the Russian Captain Barsky
+and as a result some of the troops of Kazagrandi attacked and swept
+the Chinese out of the place.  At the taking of Van Kure the
+Russians arrested a Korean Communist who was on his way from Moscow
+with gold and propaganda to work in Korea and America.  Colonel
+Kazagrandi sent this Korean with his freight of gold to Baron
+Ungern.  After receiving this news the chief of the Russian
+detachment in Uliassutai arrested all the Bolsheviki agents and
+passed judgment upon them and upon the murderers of the Bobroffs.
+Kanine, Madame Pouzikoff and Freimann were shot.  Regarding
+Saltikoff and Novak some doubt sprang up and, moreover, Saltikoff
+escaped and hid, while Novak, under advice from Lieutenant Colonel
+Michailoff, left for the west.  The chief of the Russian detachment
+gave out orders for the mobilization of the Russian colonists and
+openly took Uliassutai under his protection with the tacit
+agreement of the Mongolian authorities.  The Mongol Sait, Chultun
+Beyli, convened a council of the neighboring Mongolian Princes, the
+soul of which was the noted Mongolian patriot, Hun Jap Lama.  The
+Princes quickly formulated their demands upon the Chinese for the
+complete evacuation of the territory subject to the Sait Chultun
+Beyli.  Out of it grew parleys, threats and friction between the
+various Chinese and Mongolian elements.  Wang Tsao-tsun proposed
+his scheme of settlement, which some of the Mongolian Princes
+accepted; but Jap Lama at the decisive moment threw the Chinese
+document to the ground, drew his knife and swore that he would die
+by his own hand rather than set it as a seal upon this treacherous
+agreement.  As a result the Chinese proposals were rejected and the
+antagonists began to prepare themselves for the struggle.  All the
+armed Mongols were summoned from Jassaktu Khan, Sain-Noion Khan and
+the dominion of Jahantsi Lama.  The Chinese authorities placed
+their four machine guns and prepared to defend the fortress.
+Continuous deliberations were held by both the Chinese and Mongols.
+Finally, our old acquaintance Tzeren came to me as one of the
+unconcerned foreigners and handed to me the joint requests of Wang
+Tsao-tsun and Chultun Beyli to try to pacify the two elements and
+to work out a fair agreement between them.  Similar requests were
+handed to the representative of an American firm.  The following
+evening we held the first meeting of the arbitrators and the
+Chinese and Mongolian representatives.  It was passionate and
+stormy, so that we foreigners lost all hope of the success of our
+mission.  However, at midnight when the speakers were tired, we
+secured agreement on two points: the Mongols announced that they
+did not want to make war and that they desired to settle this
+matter in such a way as to retain the friendship of the great
+Chinese people; while the Chinese Commissioner acknowledged that
+China had violated the treaties by which full independence had been
+legally granted to Mongolia.
+
+These two points formed for us the groundwork of the next meeting
+and gave us the starting points for urging reconciliation.  The
+deliberations continued for three days and finally turned so that
+we foreigners could propose our suggestions for an agreement.  Its
+chief provisions were that the Chinese authorities should surrender
+administrative powers, return the arms to the Mongolians, disarm
+the two hundred gamins and leave the country; and that the Mongols
+on their side should give free and honorable passage of their
+country to the Commissioner with his armed guard of eighty men.
+This Chinese-Mongolian Treaty of Uliassutai was signed and sealed
+by the Chinese Commissioners, Wang Tsao-tsun and Fu Hsiang, by both
+Mongolian Saits, by Hun Jap Lama and other Princes, as well as by
+the Russian and Chinese Presidents of the Chambers of Commerce and
+by us foreign arbitrators.  The Chinese officials and convoy began
+at once to pack up their belongings and prepare for departure.  The
+Chinese merchants remained in Uliassutai because Sait Chultun
+Beyli, now having full authority and power, guaranteed their
+safety.  The day of departure for the expedition of Wang Tsao-tsun
+arrived.  The camels with their packs already filled the yamen
+court-yard and the men only awaited the arrival of their horses
+from the plains.  Suddenly the news spread everywhere that the herd
+of horses had been stolen during the night and run off toward the
+south.  Of two soldiers that had been sent out to follow the tracks
+of the herd only one came back with the news that the other had
+been killed.  Astonishment spread over the whole town while among
+the Chinese it turned to open panic.  It perceptibly increased when
+some Mongols from a distant ourton to the east came in and
+announced that in various places along the post road to Urga they
+had discovered the bodies of sixteen of the soldiers whom Wang
+Tsao-tsun had sent out with letters for Urga.  The mystery of these
+events will soon be explained.
+
+The chief of the Russian detachment received a letter from a
+Cossack Colonel, V. N. Domojiroff, containing the order to disarm
+immediately the Chinese garrison, to arrest all Chinese officials
+for transport to Baron Ungern at Urga, to take control of
+Uliassutai, by force if necessary, and to join forces with his
+detachment.  At the very same time a messenger from the Narabanchi
+Hutuktu galloped in with a letter to the effect that a Russian
+detachment under the leadership of Hun Boldon and Colonel
+Domojiroff from Urga had pillaged some Chinese firms and killed the
+merchants, had come to the Monastery and demanded horses, food and
+shelter.  The Hutuktu asked for help because the ferocious
+conqueror of Kobdo, Hun Boldon, could very easily pillage the
+unprotected isolated monastery.  We strongly urged Colonel
+Michailoff not to violate the sealed treaty and discountenance all
+the foreigners and Russians who had taken part in making it, for
+this would but be to imitate the Bolshevik principle of making
+deceit the leading rule in all acts of state.  This touched
+Michailoff and he answered Domojiroff that Uliassutai was already
+in his hands without a fight; that over the building of the former
+Russian Consulate the tri-color flag of Russia was flying; the
+gamins had been disarmed but that the other orders could not be
+carried out, because their execution would violate the Chinese-
+Mongolian treaty just signed in Uliassutai.
+
+Daily several envoys traveled from Narabanchi Hutuktu to
+Uliassutai.  The news became more and more disquieting.  The
+Hutuktu reported that Hun Boldon was mobilizing the Mongolian
+beggars and horse stealers, arming and training them; that the
+soldiers were taking the sheep of the monastery; that the "Noyon"
+Domojiroff was always drunk; and that the protests of the Hutuktu
+were answered with jeers and scolding.  The messengers gave very
+indefinite information regarding the strength of the detachment,
+some placing it at about thirty while others stated that Domojiroff
+said he had eight hundred in all.  We could not understand it at
+all and soon the messengers ceased coming.  All the letters of the
+Sait remained unanswered and the envoys did not return.  There
+seemed to be no doubt that the men had been killed or captured.
+
+Prince Chultun Beyli determined to go himself.  He took with him
+the Russian and Chinese Presidents of the Chambers of Commerce and
+two Mongolian officers.  Three days elapsed without receiving any
+news from him whatever.  The Mongols began to get worried.  Then
+the Chinese Commissioner and Hun Jap Lama addressed a request to
+the foreigner group to send some one to Narabanchi, in order to try
+to resolve the controversy there and to persuade Domojiroff to
+recognize the treaty and not permit the "great insult of violation"
+of a covenant between the two great peoples.  Our group asked me
+once more to accomplish this mission pro bono publico.  I had
+assigned me as interpreter a fine young Russian colonist, the
+nephew of the murdered Bobroff, a splendid rider as well as a cool,
+brave man.  Lt.-Colonel Michailoff gave me one of his officers to
+accompany me.  Supplied with an express tzara for the post horses
+and guides, we traveled rapidly over the way which was now familiar
+to me to find my old friend, Jelib Djamsrap Huktuktu of Narabanchi.
+Although there was deep snow in some places, we made from one
+hundred to one hundred and fifteen miles per day.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE BAND OF WHITE HUNGHUTZES
+
+
+We arrived at Narabanchi late at night on the third day out.  As we
+were approaching, we noticed several riders who, as soon as they
+had seen us, galloped quickly back to the monastery.  For some time
+we looked for the camp of the Russian detachment without finding
+it.  The Mongols led us into the monastery, where the Hutuktu
+immediately received me.  In his yurta sat Chultun Beyli.  There he
+presented me with hatyks and said to me:  "The very God has sent
+you here to us in this difficult moment."
+
+It seems Domojiroff had arrested both the Presidents of the
+Chambers of Commerce and had threatened to shoot Prince Chultun.
+Both Domojiroff and Hun Boldon had no documents legalizing their
+activities.  Chultun Beyli was preparing to fight with them.
+
+I asked them to take me to Domojiroff.  Through the dark I saw four
+big yurtas and two Mongol sentinels with Russian rifles.  We
+entered the Russian "Noyon's" tent.  A very strange picture was
+presented to our eyes.  In the middle of the yurta the brazier was
+burning.  In the usual place for the altar stood a throne, on which
+the tall, thin, grey-haired Colonel Domojiroff was seated.  He was
+only in his undergarments and stockings, was evidently a little
+drunk and was telling stories.  Around the brazier lay twelve young
+men in various picturesque poses.  My officer companion reported to
+Domojiroff about the events in Uliassutai and during the
+conversation I asked Domojiroff where his detachment was encamped.
+He laughed and answered, with a sweep of his hand:  "This is my
+detachment."  I pointed out to him that the form of his orders to
+us in Uliassutai had led us to believe that he must have a large
+company with him.  Then I informed him that Lt.-Colonel Michailoff
+was preparing to cross swords with the Bolshevik force approaching
+Uliassutai.
+
+"What?" he exclaimed with fear and confusion, "the Reds?"
+
+We spent the night in his yurta and, when I was ready to lie down,
+my officer whispered to me:
+
+"Be sure to keep your revolver handy," to which I laughed and said:
+
+"But we are in the center of a White detachment and therefore in
+perfect safety!"
+
+"Uh-huh!" answered my officer and finished the response with one
+eye closed.
+
+The next day I invited Domojiroff to walk with me over the plain,
+when I talked very frankly with him about what had been happening.
+He and Hun Boldon had received orders from Baron Ungern simply to
+get into touch with General Bakitch, but instead they began
+pillaging Chinese firms along the route and he had made up his mind
+to become a great conqueror.  On the way he had run across some of
+the officers who deserted Colonel Kazagrandi and formed his present
+band.  I succeeded in persuading Domojiroff to arrange matters
+peacefully with Chultun Beyli and not to violate the treaty.  He
+immediately went ahead to the monastery.  As I returned, I met a
+tall Mongol with a ferocious face, dressed in a blue silk
+outercoat--it was Hun Boldon.  He introduced himself and spoke with
+me in Russian.  I had only time to take off my coat in the tent of
+Domojiroff when a Mongol came running to invite me to the yurta of
+Hun Boldon.  The Prince lived just beside me in a splendid blue
+yurta.  Knowing the Mongolian custom, I jumped into the saddle and
+rode the ten paces to his door.  Hun Boldon received me with
+coldness and pride.
+
+"Who is he?" he inquired of the interpreter, pointing to me with
+his finger.
+
+I understood his desire to offend me and I answered in the same
+manner, thrusting out my finger toward him and turning to the
+interpreter with the same question in a slightly more unpleasant
+tone:
+
+"Who is he?  High Prince and warrior or shepherd and brute?"
+
+Boldon at once became confused and, with trembling voice and
+agitation in his whole manner, blurted out to me that he would not
+allow me to interfere in his affairs and would shoot every man who
+dared to run counter to his orders.  He pounded on the low table
+with his fist and then rose up and drew his revolver.  But I was
+much traveled among the nomads and had studied them thoroughly--
+Princes, Lamas, shepherds and brigands.  I grasped my whip and,
+striking it on the table with all my strength, I said to the
+interpreter:
+
+"Tell him that he has the honor to speak with neither Mongol nor
+Russian but with a foreigner, a citizen of a great and free state.
+Tell him he must first learn to be a man and then he can visit me
+and we can talk together."
+
+I turned and went out.  Ten minutes later Hun Boldon entered my
+yurta and offered his apologies.  I persuaded him to parley with
+Chultun Beyli and not to offend the free Mongol people with his
+activities.  That very night all was arranged.  Hun Boldon
+dismissed his Mongols and left for Kobdo, while Domojiroff with his
+band started for Jassaktu Khan to arrange for the mobilization of
+the Mongols there.  With the consent of Chultun Beyli he wrote to
+Wang Tsao-tsun a demand to disarm his guard, as all of the Chinese
+troops in Urga had been so treated; but this letter arrived after
+Wang had bought camels to replace the stolen horses and was on his
+way to the border.  Later Lt.-Colonel Michailoff sent a detachment
+of fifty men under the command of Lieutenant Strigine to overhaul
+Wang and receive their arms.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+MYSTERY IN A SMALL TEMPLE
+
+
+Prince Chultun Beyli and I were ready to leave the Narabanchi Kure.
+While the Hutuktu was holding service for the Sait in the Temple of
+Blessing, I wandered around through the narrow alleyways between
+the walls of the houses of the various grades of Lama Gelongs,
+Getuls, Chaidje and Rabdjampa; of schools where the learned doctors
+of theology or Maramba taught together with the doctors of medicine
+or Ta Lama; of the residences for students called Bandi; of stores,
+archives and libraries.  When I returned to the yurta of the
+Hutuktu, he was inside.  He presented me with a large hatyk and
+proposed a walk around the monastery.  His face wore a preoccupied
+expression from which I gathered that he had something he wished to
+discuss with me.  As we went out of the yurta, the liberated
+President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and a Russian officer
+joined us.  The Hutuktu led us to a small building just back of a
+bright yellow stone wall.
+
+"In that building once stopped the Dalai Lama and Bogdo Khan and we
+always paint the buildings yellow where these holy persons have
+lived.  Enter!"
+
+The interior of the building was arranged with splendor.  On the
+ground floor was the dining-room, furnished with richly carved,
+heavy blackwood Chinese tables and cabinets filled with porcelains
+and bronze.  Above were two rooms, the first a bed-room hung with
+heavy yellow silk curtains; a large Chinese lantern richly set with
+colored stones hung by a thin bronze chain from the carved wooden
+ceiling beam.  Here stood a large square bed covered with silken
+pillows, mattresses and blankets.  The frame work of the bed was
+also of the Chinese blackwood and carried, especially on the posts
+that held the roof-like canopy, finely executed carvings with the
+chief motive the conventional dragon devouring the sun.  By the
+side stood a chest of drawers completely covered with carvings
+setting forth religious pictures.  Four comfortable easy chairs
+completed the furniture, save for the low oriental throne which
+stood on a dais at the end of the room.
+
+"Do you see this throne?" said the Hutuktu to me.  "One night in
+winter several horsemen rode into the monastery and demanded that
+all the Gelongs and Getuls with the Hutuktu and Kanpo at their head
+should congregate in this room.  Then one of the strangers mounted
+the throne, where he took off his bashlyk or cap-like head
+covering.  All of the Lamas fell to their knees as they recognized
+the man who had been long ago described in the sacred bulls of
+Dalai Lama, Tashi Lama and Bogdo Khan.  He was the man to whom the
+whole world belongs and who has penetrated into all the mysteries
+of Nature.  He pronounced a short Tibetan prayer, blessed all his
+hearers and afterwards made predictions for the coming half
+century.  This was thirty years ago and in the interim all his
+prophecies are being fulfilled.  During his prayers before that
+small shrine in the next room this door opened of its own accord,
+the candles and lights before the altar lighted themselves and the
+sacred braziers without coals gave forth great streams of incense
+that filled the room.  And then, without warning, the King of the
+World and his companions disappeared from among us.  Behind him
+remained no trace save the folds in the silken throne coverings
+which smoothed themselves out and left the throne as though no one
+had sat upon it."
+
+The Hutuktu entered the shrine, kneeled down, covering his eyes
+with his hands, and began to pray.  I looked at the calm,
+indifferent face of the golden Buddha, over which the flickering
+lamps threw changing shadows, and then turned my eyes to the side
+of the throne.  It was wonderful and difficult to believe but I
+really saw there the strong, muscular figure of a man with a
+swarthy face of stern and fixed expression about the mouth and
+jaws, thrown into high relief by the brightness of the eyes.
+Through his transparent body draped in white raiment I saw the
+Tibetan inscriptions on the back of the throne.  I closed my eyes
+and opened them again.  No one was there but the silk throne
+covering seemed to be moving.
+
+"Nervousness," I thought.  "Abnormal and over-emphasized
+impressionability growing out of the unusual surroundings and
+strains."
+
+The Hutuktu turned to me and said:  "Give me your hatyk.  I have
+the feeling that you are troubled about those whom you love, and I
+want to pray for them.  And you must pray also, importune God and
+direct the sight of your soul to the King of the World who was here
+and sanctified this place."
+
+The Hutuktu placed the hatyk on the shoulder of the Buddha and,
+prostrating himself on the carpet before the altar, whispered the
+words of prayer.  Then he raised his head and beckoned me to him
+with a slight movement of his hand.
+
+"Look at the dark space behind the statue of Buddha and he will
+show your beloved to you."
+
+Readily obeying his deep-voiced command, I began to look into the
+dark niche behind the figure of the Buddha.  Soon out of the
+darkness began to appear streams of smoke or transparent threads.
+They floated in the air, becoming more and more dense and
+increasing in number, until gradually they formed the bodies of
+several persons and the outlines of various objects.  I saw a room
+that was strange to me with my family there, surrounded by some
+whom I knew and others whom I did not.  I recognized even the dress
+my wife wore.  Every line of her dear face was clearly visible.
+Gradually the vision became too dark, dissipated itself into the
+streams of smoke and transparent threads and disappeared.  Behind
+the golden Buddha was nothing but the darkness.  The Hutuktu arose,
+took my hatyk from the shoulder of the Buddha and handed it to me
+with these words:
+
+"Fortune is always with you and with your family.  God's goodness
+will not forsake you."
+
+We left the building of this unknown King of the World, where he
+had prayed for all mankind and had predicted the fate of peoples
+and states.  I was greatly astonished to find that my companions
+had also seen my vision and to hear them describe to me in minute
+detail the appearance and the clothes of the persons whom I had
+seen in the dark niche behind the head of Buddha.*
+
+
+* In order that I might have the evidence of others on this
+extraordinarily impressive vision, I asked them to make protocols
+or affidavits concerning what they saw.  This they did and I now
+have these statements in my possession.
+
+
+The Mongol officer also told me that Chultun Beyli had the day
+before asked the Hutuktu to reveal to him his fate in this
+important juncture of his life and in this crisis of his country
+but the Hutuktu only waved his hand in an expression of fear and
+refused.  When I asked the Hutuktu for the reason of his refusal,
+suggesting to him that it might calm and help Chultun Beyli as the
+vision of my beloved had strengthened me, the Hutuktu knitted his
+brow and answered:
+
+"No!  The vision would not please the Prince.  His fate is black.
+Yesterday I thrice sought his fortune on the burned shoulder blades
+and with the entrails of sheep and each time came to the same dire
+result, the same dire result! . . ."
+
+He did not really finish speaking but covered his face with his
+hands in fear.  He was convinced that the lot of Chultun Beyli was
+black as the night.
+
+In an hour we were behind the low hills that hid the Narabanchi
+Kure from our sight.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE BREATH OF DEATH
+
+
+We arrived at Uliassutai on the day of the return of the detachment
+which had gone out to disarm the convoy of Wang Tsao-tsun.  This
+detachment had met Colonel Domojiroff, who ordered them not only to
+disarm but to pillage the convoy and, unfortunately, Lieutenant
+Strigine executed this illegal and unwarranted command.  It was
+compromising and ignominious to see Russian officers and soldiers
+wearing the Chinese overcoats, boots and wrist watches which had
+been taken from the Chinese officials and the convoy.  Everyone had
+Chinese silver and gold also from the loot.  The Mongol wife of
+Wang Tsao-tsun and her brother returned with the detachment and
+entered a complaint of having been robbed by the Russians.  The
+Chinese officials and their convoy, deprived of their supplies,
+reached the Chinese border only after great distress from hunger
+and cold.  We foreigners were astounded that Lt.-Colonel Michailoff
+received Strigine with military honors but we caught the
+explanation of it later when we learned that Michailoff had been
+given some of the Chinese silver and his wife the handsomely
+decorated saddle of Fu Hsiang.  Chultun Beyli demanded that all the
+weapons taken from the Chinese and all the stolen property be
+turned over to him, as it must later be returned to the Chinese
+authorities; but Michailoff refused.  Afterwards we foreigners cut
+off all contact with the Russian detachment.  The relations between
+the Russians and Mongols became very strained.  Several of the
+Russian officers protested against the acts of Michailoff and
+Strigine and controversies became more and more serious.
+
+At this time, one morning in April, an extraordinary group of armed
+horsemen arrived at Uliassutai.  They stayed at the house of the
+Bolshevik Bourdukoff, who gave them, so we were told, a great
+quantity of silver.  This group explained that they were former
+officers in the Imperial Guard.  They were Colonels Poletika, N. N.
+Philipoff and three of the latter's brothers.  They announced that
+they wanted to collect all the White officers and soldiers then in
+Mongolia and China and lead them to Urianhai to fight the
+Bolsheviki; but that first they wanted to wipe out Ungern and
+return Mongolia to China.  They called themselves the
+representatives of the Central Organization of the Whites in
+Russia.
+
+The society of Russian officers in Uliassutai invited them to a
+meeting, examined their documents and interrogated them.
+Investigation proved that all the statements of these officers
+about their former connections were entirely wrong, that Poletika
+occupied an important position in the war commissariat of the
+Bolsheviki, that one of the Philipoff brothers was the assistant of
+Kameneff in his first attempt to reach England, that the Central
+White Organization in Russia did not exist, that the proposed
+fighting in Urianhai was but a trap for the White officers and that
+this group was in close relations with the Bolshevik Bourdukoff.
+
+A discussion at once sprang up among the officers as to what they
+should do with this group, which split the detachment into two
+distinct parties.  Lt.-Colonel Michailoff with several officers
+joined themselves to Poletika's group just as Colonel Domojiroff
+arrived with his detachment.  He began to get in touch with both
+factions and to feel out the politics of the situation, finally
+appointing Poletika to the post of Commandant of Uliassutai and
+sending to Baron Ungern a full report of the events in the town.
+In this document he devoted much space to me, accusing me of
+standing in the way of the execution of his orders.  His officers
+watched me continuously.  From different quarters I received
+warnings to take great care.  This band and its leader openly
+demanded to know what right this foreigner had to interfere in the
+affairs of Mongolia, one of Domojiroff's officers directly giving
+me the challenge in a meeting in the attempt to provoke a
+controversy.  I quietly answered him:
+
+"And on what basis do the Russian refugees interfere, they who have
+rights neither at home nor abroad?"
+
+The officer made no verbal reply but in his eyes burned a definite
+answer.  My huge friend who sat beside me noticed this, strode over
+toward him and, towering over him, stretched his arms and hands as
+though just waking from sleep and remarked:  "I'm looking for a
+little boxing exercise."
+
+On one occasion Domojiroff's men would have succeeded in taking me
+if I had not been saved by the watchfulness of our foreign group.
+I had gone to the fortress to negotiate with the Mongol Sait for
+the departure of the foreigners from Uliassutai.  Chultun Beyli
+detained me for a long time, so that I was forced to return about
+nine in the evening.  My horse was walking.  Half a mile from the
+town three men sprang up out of the ditch and ran at me.  I whipped
+up my horse but noticed several more men coming out of the other
+ditch as though to head me off.  They, however, made for the other
+group and captured them and I heard the voice of a foreigner
+calling me back.  There I found three of Domojiroff's officers
+surrounded by the Polish soldiers and other foreigners under the
+leadership of my old trusted agronome, who was occupied with tying
+the hands of the officers behind their backs so strongly that the
+bones cracked.  Ending his work and still smoking his perpetual
+pipe, he announced in a serious and important manner:  "I think it
+best to throw them into the river."
+
+Laughing at his seriousness and the fear of Domojiroff's officers,
+I asked them why they had started to attack me.  They dropped their
+eyes and were silent.  It was an eloquent silence and we perfectly
+understood what they had proposed to do.  They had revolvers hidden
+in their pockets.
+
+"Fine!" I said.  "All is perfectly clear.  I shall release you but
+you must report to your sender that he will not welcome you back
+the next time.  Your weapons I shall hand to the Commandant of
+Uliassutai."
+
+My friend, using his former terrifying care, began to untie them,
+repeating over and over:  "And I would have fed you to the fishes
+in the river!"  Then we all returned to the town, leaving them to
+go their way.
+
+Domojiroff continued to send envoys to Baron Ungern at Urga with
+requests for plenary powers and money and with reports about
+Michailoff, Chultun Beyli, Poletika, Philipoff and myself.  With
+Asiatic cunning he was then maintaining good relations with all
+those for whom he was preparing death at the hands of the severe
+warrior, Baron Ungern, who was receiving only one-sided reports
+about all the happenings in Uliassutai.  Our whole colony was
+greatly agitated.  The officers split into different parties; the
+soldiers collected in groups and discussed the events of the day,
+criticising their chiefs, and under the influence of some of
+Domojiroff's men began making such statements as:
+
+"We have now seven Colonels, who all want to be in command and are
+all quarreling among themselves.  They all ought to be pegged down
+and given good sound thrashings.  The one who could take the
+greatest number of blows ought to be chosen as our chief."
+
+It was an ominous joke that proved the demoralization of the
+Russian detachment.
+
+"It seems," my friend frequently observed, "that we shall soon have
+the pleasure of seeing a Council of Soldiers here in Uliassutai.
+God and the Devil!  One thing here is very unfortunate--there are
+no forests near into which good Christian men may dive and get away
+from all these cursed Soviets.  It's bare, frightfully bare, this
+wretched Mongolia, with no place for us to hide."
+
+Really this possibility of the Soviet was approaching.  On one
+occasion the soldiers captured the arsenal containing the weapons
+surrendered by the Chinese and carried them off to their barracks.
+Drunkenness, gambling and fighting increased.  We foreigners,
+carefully watching events and in fear of a catastrophe, finally
+decided to leave Uliassutai, that caldron of passions,
+controversies and denunciations.  We heard that the group of
+Poletika was also preparing to get out a few days later.  We
+foreigners separated into two parties, one traveling by the old
+caravan route across the Gobi considerably to the south of Urga to
+Kuku-Hoto or Kweihuacheng and Kalgan, and mine, consisting of my
+friend, two Polish soldiers and myself, heading for Urga via Zain
+Shabi, where Colonel Kazagrandi had asked me in a recent letter to
+meet him.  Thus we left the Uliassutai where we had lived through
+so many exciting events.
+
+On the sixth day after our departure there arrived in the town the
+Mongol-Buriat detachment under the command of the Buriat Vandaloff
+and the Russian Captain Bezrodnoff.  Afterwards I met them in Zain
+Shabi.  It was a detachment sent out from Urga by Baron Ungern to
+restore order in Uliassutai and to march on to Kobdo.  On the way
+from Zain Shabi Bezrodnoff came across the group of Poletika and
+Michailoff.  He instituted a search which disclosed suspicious
+documents in their baggage and in that of Michailoff and his wife
+the silver and other possessions taken from the Chinese.  From this
+group of sixteen he sent N. N. Philipoff to Baron Ungern, released
+three others and shot the remaining twelve.  Thus ended in Zain
+Shabi the life of one party of Uliassutai refugees and the
+activities of the group of Poletika.  In Uliassutai Bezrodnoff shot
+Chultun Beyli for the violation of the treaty with the Chinese, and
+also some Bolshevist Russian colonists; arrested Domojiroff and
+sent him to Urga; and . . . restored order.  The predictions about
+Chultun Beyli were fulfilled.
+
+I knew of Domojiroff's reports regarding myself but I decided,
+nevertheless, to proceed to Urga and not to swing round it, as
+Poletika had started to do when he was accidentally captured by
+Bezrodnoff.  I was accustomed now to looking into the eyes of
+danger and I set out to meet the terrible "bloody Baron."  No one
+can decide his own fate.  I did not think myself in the wrong and
+the feeling of fear had long since ceased to occupy a place in my
+menage.  On the way a Mongol rider who overhauled us brought the
+news of the death of our acquaintances at Zain Shabi.  He spent the
+night with me in the yurta at the ourton and related to me the
+following legend of death.
+
+"It was a long time ago when the Mongolians ruled over China.  The
+Prince of Uliassutai, Beltis Van, was mad.  He executed any one he
+wished without trial and no one dared to pass through his town.
+All the other Princes and rich Mongols surrounded Uliassutai, where
+Beltis raged, cut off communication on every road and allowed none
+to pass in or out.  Famine developed in the town.  They consumed
+all the oxen, sheep and horses and finally Beltis Van determined to
+make a dash with his soldiers through to the west to the land of
+one of his tribes, the Olets.  He and his men all perished in the
+fight.  The Princes, following the advice of the Hutuktu Buyantu,
+buried the dead on the slopes of the mountains surrounding
+Uliassutai.  They buried them with incantations and exorcisings in
+order that Death by Violence might be kept from a further
+visitation to their land.  The tombs were covered with heavy stones
+and the Hutuktu predicted that the bad demon of Death by Violence
+would only leave the earth when the blood of a man should he
+spilled upon the covering stone.  Such a legend lived among us.
+Now it is fulfilled.  The Russians shot there three Bolsheviki and
+the Chinese two Mongols.  The evil spirit of Beltis Van broke loose
+from beneath the heavy stone and now mows down the people with his
+scythe.  The noble Chultun Beyli has perished; the Russian Noyon
+Michailoff also has fallen; and death has flowed out from
+Uliassutai all over our boundless plains.  Who shall be able to
+stem it now?  Who shall tie the ferocious hands?  An evil time has
+fallen upon the Gods and the Good Spirits.  The Evil Demons have
+made war upon the Good Spirits.  What can man now do?  Only perish,
+only perish. . . ."
+
+
+
+Part III
+
+THE STRAINING HEART OF ASIA
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+ON THE ROAD OF GREAT CONQUERORS
+
+
+The great conqueror, Jenghiz Khan, the son of sad, stern, severe
+Mongolia, according to an old Mongolian legend "mounted to the top
+of Karasu Togol and with his eyes of an eagle looked to the west
+and the east.  In the west he saw whole seas of human blood over
+which floated a bloody fog that blanketed all the horizon.  There
+he could not discern his fate.  But the gods ordered him to proceed
+to the west, leading with him all his warriors and Mongolian
+tribes.  To the east he saw wealthy towns, shining temples, crowds
+of happy people, gardens and fields of rich earth, all of which
+pleased the great Mongol.  He said to his sons:  'There in the west
+I shall be fire and sword, destroyer, avenging Fate; in the east I
+shall come as the merciful, great builder, bringing happiness to
+the people and to the land.'"
+
+Thus runs the legend.  I found much of truth in it.  I had passed
+over much of his road to the west and always identified it by the
+old tombs and the impertinent monuments of stone to the merciless
+conqueror.  I saw also a part of the eastern road of the hero, over
+which he traveled to China.  Once when we were making a trip out of
+Uliassutai we stopped the night in Djirgalantu.  The old host of
+the ourton, knowing me from my previous trip to Narabanchi,
+welcomed us very kindly and regaled us with stories during our
+evening meal.  Among other things he led us out of the yurta and
+pointed out a mountain peak brightly lighted by the full moon and
+recounted to us the story of one of the sons of Jenghiz, afterwards
+Emperor of China, Indo-China and Mongolia, who had been attracted
+by the beautiful scenery and grazing lands of Djirgalantu and had
+founded here a town.  This was soon left without inhabitants, for
+the Mongol is a nomad who cannot live in artificial cities.  The
+plain is his house and the world his town.  For a time this town
+witnessed battles between the Chinese and the troops of Jenghiz
+Khan but afterwards it was forgotten.  At present there remains
+only a half-ruined tower, from which in the early days the heavy
+rocks were hurled down upon the heads of the enemy, and the
+dilapidated gate of Kublai, the grandson of Jenghiz Khan.  Against
+the greenish sky drenched with the rays of the moon stood out the
+jagged line of the mountains and the black silhouette of the tower
+with its loopholes, through which the alternate scudding clouds and
+light flashed.
+
+When our party left Uliassutai, we traveled on leisurely, making
+thirty-five to fifty miles a day until we were within sixty miles
+of Zain Shabi, where I took leave of the others to go south to this
+place in order to keep my engagement with Colonel Kazagrandi.  The
+sun had just risen as my single Mongol guide and I without any pack
+animals began to ascend the low, timbered ridges, from the top of
+which I caught the last glimpses of my companions disappearing down
+the valley.  I had no idea then of the many and almost fatal
+dangers which I should have to pass through during this trip by
+myself, which was destined to prove much longer than I had
+anticipated.  As we were crossing a small river with sandy shores,
+my Mongol guide told me how the Mongolians came there during the
+summer to wash gold, in spite of the prohibitions of the Lamas.
+The manner of working the placer was very primitive but the results
+testified clearly to the richness of these sands.  The Mongol lies
+flat on the ground, brushes the sand aside with a feather and keeps
+blowing into the little excavation so formed.  From time to time he
+wets his finger and picks up on it a small bit of grain gold or a
+diminutive nugget and drops these into a little bag hanging under
+his chin.  In such manner this primitive dredge wins about a
+quarter of an ounce or five dollars' worth of the yellow metal per
+day.
+
+I determined to make the whole distance to Zain Shabi in a single
+day.  At the ourtons I hurried them through the catching and
+saddling of the horses as fast as I could.  At one of these
+stations about twenty-five miles from the monastery the Mongols
+gave me a wild horse, a big, strong white stallion.  Just as I was
+about to mount him and had already touched my foot to the stirrup,
+he jumped and kicked me right on the leg which had been wounded in
+the Ma-chu fight.  The leg soon began to swell and ache.  At sunset
+I made out the first Russian and Chinese buildings and later the
+monastery at Zain.  We dropped into the valley of a small stream
+which flowed along a mountain on whose peak were set white rocks
+forming the words of a Tibetan prayer.  At the bottom of this
+mountain was a cemetery for the Lamas, that is, piles of bones and
+a pack of dogs.  At last the monastery lay right below us, a common
+square surrounded with wooden fences.  In the middle rose a large
+temple quite different from all those of western Mongolia, not in
+the Chinese but in the Tibetan style of architecture, a white
+building with perpendicular walls and regular rows of windows in
+black frames, with a roof of black tiles and with a most unusual
+damp course laid between the stone walls and the roof timbers and
+made of bundles of twigs from a Tibetan tree which never rots.
+Another small quadrangle lay a little to the east and contained
+Russian buildings connected with the monastery by telephone.
+
+"That is the house of the Living God of Zain," the Mongol
+explained, pointing to this smaller quadrangle.  "He likes Russian
+customs and manners."
+
+To the north on a conical-shaped hill rose a tower that recalled
+the Babylonian zikkurat.  It was the temple where the ancient books
+and manuscripts were kept and the broken ornaments and objects used
+in the religious ceremonies together with the robes of deceased
+Hutuktus preserved.  A sheer cliff rose behind this museum, which
+it was impossible for one to climb.  On the face of this were
+carved images of the Lamaite gods, scattered about without any
+special order.  They were from one to two and a half metres high.
+At night the monks lighted lamps before them, so that one could see
+these images of the gods and goddesses from far away.
+
+We entered the trading settlement.  The streets were deserted and
+from the windows only women and children looked out.  I stopped
+with a Russian firm whose other branches I had known throughout the
+country.  Much to my astonishment they welcomed me as an
+acquaintance.  It appeared that the Hutuktu of Narabanchi had sent
+word to all the monasteries that, whenever I should come, they must
+all render me aid, inasmuch as I had saved the Narabanchi Monastery
+and, by the clear signs of the divinations, I was an incarnate
+Buddha beloved of the Gods.  This letter of this kindly disposed
+Hutuktu helped me very much--perhaps I should even say more, that
+it saved me from death.  The hospitality of my hosts proved of
+great and much needed assistance to me because my injured leg had
+swelled and was aching severely.  When I took off my boot, I found
+my foot all covered with blood and my old wound re-opened by the
+blow.  A felcher was called to assist me with treatment and
+bandaging, so that I was able to walk again three days later.
+
+I did not find Colonel Kazagrandi at Zain Shabi.  After destroying
+the Chinese gamins who had killed the local Commandant, he had
+returned via Van Kure.  The new Commandment handed me the letter of
+Kazagrandi, who very cordially asked me to visit him after I had
+rested in Zain.  A Mongolian document was enclosed in the letter
+giving me the right to receive horses and carts from herd to herd
+by means of the "urga," which I shall later describe and which
+opened for me an entirely new vista of Mongolian life and country
+that I should otherwise never have seen.  The making of this
+journey of over two hundred miles was a very disagreeable task for
+me; but evidently Kazagrandi, whom I had never met, had serious
+reasons for wishing this meeting.
+
+At one o'clock the day after my arrival I was visited by the local
+"Very God," Gheghen Pandita Hutuktu.  A more strange and
+extraordinary appearance of a god I could not imagine.  He was a
+short, thin young man of twenty or twenty-two years with quick,
+nervous movements and with an expressive face lighted and
+dominated, like the countenances of all the Mongol gods, by large,
+frightened eyes.  He was dressed in a blue silk Russian uniform
+with yellow epaulets with the sacred sign of Pandita Hutuktu, in
+blue silk trousers and high boots, all surmounted by a white
+Astrakhan cap with a yellow pointed top.  At his girdle a revolver
+and sword were slung.  I did not know quite what to think of this
+disguised god.  He took a cup of tea from the host and began to
+talk with a mixture of Mongolian and Russian.
+
+"Not far from my Kure is located the ancient monastery of Erdeni
+Dzu, erected on the site of the ruins of Karakorum, the ancient
+capital of Jenghiz Khan and afterwards frequently visited by Kublai
+Kahn for sanctuary and rest after his labors as Emperor of China,
+India, Persia, Afghanistan, Mongolia and half of Europe.  Now only
+ruins and tombs remain to mark this former 'Garden of Beatific
+Days.'  The pious monks of Baroun Kure found in the underground
+chambers of the ruins manuscripts that were much older than Erdeni
+Dzu itself.  In these my Maramba Meetchik-Atak found the prediction
+that the Hutuktu of Zain who should carry the title of 'Pandita,'
+should be but twenty-one years of age, be born in the heart of the
+lands of Jenghiz Khan and have on his chest the natural sign of the
+swastika--such Hutuktu would be honored by the people in the days
+of a great war and trouble, would begin the fight with the servants
+of Red evil and would conquer them and bring order into the
+universe, celebrating this happy day in the city with white temples
+and with the songs of ten thousand bells.  It is I, Pandita
+Hutuktu!  The signs and symbols have met in me.  I shall destroy
+the Bolsheviki, the bad 'servants of the Red evil,' and in Moscow I
+shall rest from my glorious and great work.  Therefore I have asked
+Colonel Kazagrandi to enlist me in the troops of Baron Ungern and
+give me the chance to fight.  The Lamas seek to prevent me from
+going but who is the god here?"
+
+He very sternly stamped his foot, while the Lamas and guard who
+accompanied him reverently bowed their heads.
+
+As he left he presented me with a hatyk and, rummaging through my
+saddle bags, I found a single article that might be considered
+worthy as a gift for a Hutuktu, a small bottle of osmiridium, this
+rare, natural concomitant of platinum.
+
+"This is the most stable and hardest of metals," I said.  "Let it
+be the sign of your glory and strength, Hutuktu!"
+
+The Pandita thanked me and invited me to visit him.  When I had
+recovered a little, I went to his house, which was arranged in
+European style: electric lights, push bells and telephone.  He
+feasted me with wine and sweets and introduced me to two very
+interesting personages, one an old Tibetan surgeon with a face
+deeply pitted by smallpox, a heavy thick nose and crossed eyes.  He
+was a peculiar surgeon, consecrated in Tibet.  His duties consisted
+in treating and curing Hutuktus when they were ill and . . . in
+poisoning them when they became too independent or extravagant or
+when their policies were not in accord with the wishes of the
+Council of Lamas of the Living Buddha or the Dalai Lama.  By now
+Pandita Hutuktu probably rests in eternal peace on the top of some
+sacred mountain, sent thither by the solicitude of his
+extraordinary court physician.  The martial spirit of Pandita
+Hutuktu was very unwelcome to the Council of Lamas, who protested
+against the adventuresomeness of this "Living God."
+
+Pandita liked wine and cards.  One day when he was in the company
+of Russians and dressed in a European suit, some Lamas came running
+to announce that divine service had begun and that the "Living God"
+must take his place on the altar to be prayed to but he had gone
+out from his abode and was playing cards!  Without any confusion
+Pandita drew his red mantle of the Hutuktu over his European coat
+and long grey trousers and allowed the shocked Lamas to carry their
+"God" away in his palanquin.
+
+Besides the surgeon-poisoner I met at the Hutuktu's a lad of
+thirteen years, whose youthfulness, red robe and cropped hair led
+me to suppose he was a Bandi or student servant in the home of the
+Hutuktu; but it turned out otherwise.  This boy was the first
+Hubilgan, also an incarnate Buddha, an artful teller of fortunes
+and the successor of Pandita Hutuktu.  He was drunk all the time
+and a great card player, always making side-splitting jokes that
+greatly offended the Lamas.
+
+That same evening I made the acquaintance of the second Hubilgan
+who called on me, the real administrator of Zain Shabi, which is an
+independent dominion subject directly to the Living Buddha.  This
+Hubilgan was a serious and ascetic man of thirty-two, well educated
+and deeply learned in Mongol lore.  He knew Russian and read much
+in that language, being interested chiefly in the life and stories
+of other peoples.  He had a high respect for the creative genius of
+the American people and said to me:
+
+"When you go to America, ask the Americans to come to us and lead
+us out from the darkness that surrounds us.  The Chinese and
+Russians will lead us to destruction and only the Americans can
+save us."
+
+It is a deep satisfaction for me to carry out the request of this
+influential Mongol, Hubilgan, and to urge his appeal to the
+American people.  Will you not save this honest, uncorrupted but
+dark, deceived and oppressed people?  They should not be allowed to
+perish, for within their souls they carry a great store of strong
+moral forces.  Make of them a cultured people, believing in the
+verity of humankind; teach them to use the wealth of their land;
+and the ancient people of Jenghiz Khan will ever be your faithful
+friends.
+
+When I had sufficiently recovered, the Hutuktu invited me to travel
+with him to Erdeni Dzu, to which I willingly agreed.  On the
+following morning a light and comfortable carriage was brought for
+me.  Our trip lasted five days, during which we visited Erdeni Dzu,
+Karakorum, Hoto-Zaidam and Hara-Balgasun.  All these are the ruins
+of monasteries and cities erected by Jenghiz Khan and his
+successors, Ugadai Khan and Kublai in the thirteenth century.  Now
+only the remnants of walls and towers remain, some large tombs and
+whole books of legends and stories.
+
+"Look at these tombs!" said the Hutuktu to me.  "Here the son of
+Khan Uyuk was buried.  This young prince was bribed by the Chinese
+to kill his father but was frustrated in his attempt by his own
+sister, who killed him in her watchful care of her old father, the
+Emperor and Khan.  There is the tomb of Tsinilla, the beloved
+spouse of Khan Mangu.  She left the capital of China to go to Khara
+Bolgasun, where she fell in love with the brave shepherd Damcharen,
+who overtook the wind on his steed and who captured wild yaks and
+horses with his bare hands.  The enraged Khan ordered his
+unfaithful wife strangled but afterwards buried her with imperial
+honors and frequently came to her tomb to weep for his lost love."
+
+"And what happened to Damcharen?" I inquired.
+
+The Hutuktu himself did not know; but his old servant, the real
+archive of legends, answered:
+
+"With the aid of ferocious Chahar brigands he fought with China for
+a long time.  It is, however, unknown how he died."
+
+Among the ruins the monks pray at certain fixed times and they also
+search for sacred books and objects concealed or buried in the
+debris.  Recently they found here two Chinese rifles and two gold
+rings and big bundles of old manuscripts tied with leather thongs.
+
+"Why did this region attract the powerful emperors and Khans who
+ruled from the Pacific to the Adriatic?" I asked myself.  Certainly
+not these mountains and valleys covered with larch and birch, not
+these vast sands, receding lakes and barren rocks.  It seems that I
+found the answer.
+
+The great emperors, remembering the vision of Jenghiz Khan, sought
+here new revelations and predictions of his miraculous, majestic
+destiny, surrounded by the divine honors, obeisance and hate.
+Where could they come into touch with the gods, the good and bad
+spirits?  Only there where they abode.  All the district of Zain
+with these ancient ruins is just such a place.
+
+"On this mountain only such men can ascend as are born of the
+direct line of Jenghiz Khan," the Pandita explained to me.  "Half
+way up the ordinary man suffocates and dies, if he ventures to go
+further.  Recently Mongolian hunters chased a pack of wolves up
+this mountain and, when they came to this part of the mountainside,
+they all perished.  There on the slopes of the mountain lie the
+bones of eagles, big horned sheep and the kabarga antelope, light
+and swift as the wind.  There dwells the bad demon who possesses
+the book of human destinies."
+
+"This is the answer," I thought.
+
+In the Western Caucasus I once saw a mountain between Soukhoum Kale
+and Tuopsei where wolves, eagles and wild goats also perish, and
+where men would likewise perish if they did not go on horseback
+through this zone.  There the earth breathes out carbonic acid gas
+through holes in the mountainside, killing all animal life.  The
+gas clings to the earth in a layer about half a metre thick.  Men
+on horseback pass above this and the horses always hold their heads
+way up and snuff and whinny in fear until they cross the dangerous
+zone.  Here on the top of this mountain where the bad demon peruses
+the book of human destinies is the same phenomenon, and I realized
+the sacred fear of the Mongols as well as the stern attraction of
+this place for the tall, almost gigantic descendants of Jenghiz
+Khan.  Their heads tower above the layers of poisonous gas, so that
+they can reach the top of this mysterious and terrible mountain.
+Also it is possible to explain this phenomenon geologically,
+because here in this region is the southern edge of the coal
+deposits which are the source of carbonic acid and swamp gases.
+
+Not far from the ruins in the lands of Hun Doptchin Djamtso there
+is a small lake which sometimes burns with a red flame, terrifying
+the Mongols and herds of horses.  Naturally this lake is rich with
+legends.  Here a meteor formerly fell and sank far into the earth.
+In the hole this lake appeared.  Now, it seems, the inhabitants of
+the subterranean passages, semi-man and semi-demon, are laboring to
+extract this "stone of the sky" from its deep bed and it is setting
+the water on fire as it rises and falls back in spite of their
+every effort.  I did not see the lake myself but a Russian colonist
+told me that it may be petroleum on the lake that is fired either
+from the campfires of the shepherds or by the blazing rays of the
+sun.
+
+At any rate all this makes it very easy to understand the
+attractions for the great Mongol potentates.  The strongest
+impression was produced upon me by Karakorum, the place where the
+cruel and wise Jenghiz Khan lived and laid his gigantic plans for
+overrunning all the west with blood and for covering the east with
+a glory never before seen.  Two Karakorums were erected by Jenghiz
+Khan, one here near Tatsa Gol on the Caravan Road and the other in
+Pamir, where the sad warriors buried the greatest of human
+conquerors in the mausoleum built by five hundred captives who were
+sacrificed to the spirit of the deceased when their work was done.
+
+The warlike Pandita Hutuktu prayed on the ruins where the shades of
+these potentates who had ruled half the world wandered, and his
+soul longed for the chimerical exploits and for the glory of
+Jenghiz and Tamerlane.
+
+On the return journey we were invited not far from Zain to visit a
+very rich Mongol by the way.  He had already prepared the yurtas
+suitable for Princes, ornamented with rich carpets and silk
+draperies.  The Hutuktu accepted.  We arranged ourselves on the
+soft pillows in the yurtas as the Hutuktu blessed the Mongol,
+touching his head with his holy hand, and received the hatyks.  The
+host then had a whole sheep brought in to us, boiled in a huge
+vessel.  The Hutuktu carved off one hind leg and offered it to me,
+while he reserved the other for himself.  After this he gave a
+large piece of meat to the smallest son of the host, which was the
+sign that Pandita Hutuktu invited all to begin the feast.  In a
+trice the sheep was entirely carved or torn up and in the hands of
+the banqueters.  When the Hutuktu had thrown down by the brazier
+the white bones without a trace of meat left on them, the host on
+his knees withdrew from the fire a piece of sheepskin and
+ceremoniously offered it on both his hands to the Hutuktu.  Pandita
+began to clean off the wool and ashes with his knife and, cutting
+it into thin strips, fell to eating this really tasty course.  It
+is the covering from just above the breast bone and is called in
+Mongolian tarach or "arrow."  When a sheep is skinned, this small
+section is cut out and placed on the hot coals, where it is broiled
+very slowly.  Thus prepared it is considered the most dainty bit of
+the whole animal and is always presented to the guest of honor.  It
+is not permissible to divide it, such is the strength of the custom
+and ceremony.
+
+After dinner our host proposed a hunt for bighorns, a large herd of
+which was known to graze in the mountains within less than a mile
+from the yurtas.  Horses with rich saddles and bridles were led up.
+All the elaborate harness of the Hutuktu's mount was ornamented
+with red and yellow bits of cloth as a mark of his rank.  About
+fifty Mongol riders galloped behind us.  When we left our horses,
+we were placed behind the rocks roughly three hundred paces apart
+and the Mongols began the encircling movement around the mountain.
+After about half an hour I noticed way up among the rocks something
+flash and soon made out a fine bighorn jumping with tremendous
+springs from rock to rock, and behind him a herd of some twenty odd
+head leaping like lightning over the ground.  I was vexed beyond
+words when it appeared that the Mongols had made a mess of it and
+pushed the herd out to the side before having completed their
+circle.  But happily I was mistaken.  Behind a rock right ahead of
+the herd a Mongol sprang up and waved his hands.  Only the big
+leader was not frightened and kept right on past the unarmed Mongol
+while all the rest of the herd swung suddenly round and rushed
+right down upon me.  I opened fire and dropped two of them.  The
+Hutuktu also brought down one as well as a musk antelope that came
+unexpectedly from behind a rock hard by.  The largest pair of horns
+weighed about thirty pounds, but they were from a young sheep.
+
+The day following our return to Zain Shabi, as I was feeling quite
+recovered, I decided to go on to Van Kure.  At my leave-taking from
+the Hutuktu I received a large hatyk from him together with warmest
+expressions of thanks for the present I had given him on the first
+day of our acquaintance.
+
+"It is a fine medicine!" he exclaimed.  "After our trip I felt
+quite exhausted but I took your medicine and am now quite
+rejuvenated.  Many, many thanks!"
+
+The poor chap had swallowed my osmiridium.  To be sure it could not
+harm him; but to have helped him was wonderful.  Perhaps doctors in
+the Occident may wish to try this new, harmless and very cheap
+remedy--only eight pounds of it in the whole world--and I merely
+ask that they leave me the patent rights for it for Mongolia,
+Barga, Sinkiang, Koko Nor and all the other lands of Central Asia.
+
+An old Russian colonist went as guide for me.  They gave me a big
+but light and comfortable cart hitched and drawn in a marvelous
+way.  A straight pole four metres long was fastened athwart the
+front of the shafts.  On either side two riders took this pole
+across their saddle pommels and galloped away with me across the
+plains.  Behind us galloped four other riders with four extra
+horses.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+ARRESTED!
+
+
+About twelve miles from Zain we saw from a ridge a snakelike line
+of riders crossing the valley, which detachment we met half an hour
+later on the shore of a deep, swampy stream.  The group consisted
+of Mongols, Buriats and Tibetans armed with Russian rifles.  At the
+head of the column were two men, one of whom in a huge black
+Astrakhan and black felt cape with red Caucasian cowl on his
+shoulders blocked my road and, in a coarse, harsh voice, demanded
+of me:  "Who are you, where are you from and where are you going?"
+
+I gave also a laconic answer.  They then said that they were a
+detachment of troops from Baron Ungern under the command of Captain
+Vandaloff.  "I am Captain Bezrodnoff, military judge."
+
+Suddenly he laughed loudly.  His insolent, stupid face did not
+please me and, bowing to the officers, I ordered my riders to move.
+
+"Oh no!" he remonstrated, as he blocked the road again.  "I cannot
+allow you to go farther.  I want to have a long and serious
+conversation with you and you will have to come back to Zain for
+it."
+
+I protested and called attention to the letter of Colonel
+Kazagrandi, only to hear Bezrodnoff answer with coldness:
+
+"This letter is a matter of Colonel Kazagrandi's and to bring you
+back to Zain and talk with you is my affair.  Now give me your
+weapon."
+
+But I could not yield to this demand, even though death were
+threatened.
+
+"Listen," I said.  "Tell me frankly.  Is yours really a detachment
+fighting against the Boisheviki or is it a Red contingent?"
+
+"No, I assure you!" replied the Buriat officer Vandaloff,
+approaching me.  "We have already been fighting the Bolsheviki for
+three years."
+
+"Then I cannot hand you my weapon," I calmly replied.  "I brought
+it from Soviet Siberia, have had many fights with this faithful
+weapon and now I am to be disarmed by White officers!  It is an
+offence that I cannot allow."
+
+With these words I threw my rifle and my Mauser into the stream.
+The officers were confused.  Bezrodnoff turned red with anger.
+
+"I freed you and myself from humiliation," I explained.
+
+Bezrodnoff in silence turned his horse, the whole detachment of
+three hundred men passed immediately before me and only the last
+two riders stopped, ordered my Mongols to turn my cart round and
+then fell in behind my little group.  So I was arrested!  One of
+the horsemen behind me was a Russian and he told me that Bezrodnoff
+carried with him many death decrees.  I was sure that mine was
+among them.
+
+Stupid, very stupid!  What was the use of fighting one's way
+through Red detachments, of being frozen and hungry, of almost
+perishing in Tibet only to die from a bullet of one of Bezrodnoff's
+Mongols?  For such a pleasure it was not worth while to travel so
+long and so far!  In every Siberian "Cheka" I could have had this
+end so joyfully accorded me.
+
+When we arrived at Zain Shabi, my luggage was examined and
+Bezrodnoff began to question me in minutest detail about the events
+in Uliassutai.  We talked about three hours, during which I tried
+to defend all the officers of Uliassutai, maintaining that one must
+not trust only the reports of Domojiroff.  When our conversation
+was finished, the Captain stood up and offered his apologies for
+detaining me in my journey.  Afterwards he presented me a fine
+Mauser with silver mountings on the handle and said:
+
+"Your pride greatly pleased me.  I beg you to receive this weapon
+as a memento of me."
+
+The following morning I set out anew from Zain Shabi, having in my
+pocket the laissez-passer of Bezrodnoff for his outposts.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+TRAVELING BY "URGA"
+
+
+Once more we traveled along the now known places, the mountain from
+which I espied the detachment of Bezrodnoff, the stream into which
+I had thrown my weapon, and soon all this lay behind us.  At the
+first ourton we were disappointed because we did not find horses
+there.  In the yurtas were only the host with two of his sons.  I
+showed him my document and he exclaimed:
+
+"Noyon has the right of 'urga.'  Horses will be brought very soon."
+
+He jumped into his saddle, took two of my Mongols with him,
+providing them and himself with long thin poles, four or five
+metres in length, and fitted at the end with a loop of rope, and
+galloped away.  My cart moved behind them.  We left the road,
+crossed the plain for an hour and came upon a big herd of horses
+grazing there.  The Mongol began to catch a quota of them for us
+with his pole and noose or urga, when out of the mountains nearby
+came galloping the owners of the herds.  When the old Mongol showed
+my papers to them, they submissively acquiesced and substituted
+four of their men for those who had come with me thus far.  In this
+manner the Mongols travel, not along the ourton or station road but
+directly from one herd to another, where the fresh horses are
+caught and saddled and the new owners substituted for those of the
+last herd.  All the Mongols so effected by the right of urga try to
+finish their task as rapidly as possible and gallop like mad for
+the nearest herd in your general direction of travel to turn over
+their task to their neighbor.  Any traveler having this right of
+urga can catch horses himself and, if there are no owners, can
+force the former ones to carry on and leave the animals in the next
+herd he requisitions.  But this happens very rarely because the
+Mongol never likes to seek out his animals in another's herd, as it
+always gives so many chances for controversy.
+
+It was from this custom, according to one explanation, that the
+town of Urga took its name among outsiders.  By the Mongols
+themselves it is always referred to as Ta Kure, "The Great
+Monastery."  The reason the Buriats and Russians, who were the
+first to trade into this region, called it Urga was because it was
+the principal destination of all the trading expeditions which
+crossed the plains by this old method or right of travel.  A second
+explanation is that the town lies in a "loop" whose sides are
+formed by three mountain ridges, along one of which the River Tola
+runs like the pole or stick of the familiar urga of the plains.
+
+Thanks to this unique ticket of urga I crossed quite untraveled
+sections of Mongolia for about two hundred miles.  It gave me the
+welcome opportunity to observe the fauna of this part of the
+country.  I saw many huge herds of Mongolian antelopes running from
+five to six thousand, many groups of bighorns, wapiti and kabarga
+antelopes.  Sometimes small herds of wild horses and wild asses
+flashed as a vision on the horizon.
+
+In one place I observed a big colony of marmots.  All over an area
+of several square miles their mounds were scattered with the holes
+leading down to their runways below, the dwellings of the marmot.
+In and out among these mounds the greyish-yellow or brown animals
+ran in all sizes up to half that of an average dog.  They ran
+heavily and the skin on their fat bodies moved as though it were
+too big for them.  The marmots are splendid prospectors, always
+digging deep ditches, throwing out on the surface all the stones.
+In many places I saw mounds the marmots had made from copper ore
+and farther north some from minerals containing wolfram and
+vanadium.  Whenever the marmot is at the entrance of his hole, he
+sits up straight on his hind legs and looks like a bit of wood, a
+small stump or a stone.  As soon as he spies a rider in the
+distance, he watches him with great curiosity and begins whistling
+sharply.  This curiosity of the marmots is taken advantage of by
+the hunters, who sneak up to their holes flourishing streamers of
+cloth on the tips of long poles.  The whole attention of the small
+animals is concentrated on this small flag and only the bullet that
+takes his life explains to him the reason for this previously
+unknown object.
+
+I saw a very exciting picture as I passed through a marmot colony
+near the Orkhon River.  There were thousands of holes here so that
+my Mongols had to use all their skill to keep the horses from
+breaking their legs in them.  I noticed an eagle circling high
+overhead.  All of a sudden he dropped like a stone to the top of a
+mound, where he sat motionless as a rock.  The marmot in a few
+minutes ran out of his hole to a neighbor's doorway.  The eagle
+calmly jumped down from the top and with one wing closed the
+entrance to the hole.  The rodent heard the noise, turned back and
+rushed to the attack, trying to break through to his hole where he
+had evidently left his family.  The struggle began.  The eagle
+fought with one free wing, one leg and his beak but did not
+withdraw the bar to the entrance.  The marmot jumped at the
+rapacious bird with great boldness but soon fell from a blow on the
+head.  Only then the eagle withdrew his wing, approached the
+marmot, finished him off and with difficulty lifted him in his
+talons to carry him away to the mountains for a tasty luncheon.
+
+In the more barren places with only occasional spears of grass in
+the plain another species of rodent lives, called imouran, about
+the size of a squirrel.  They have a coat the same color as the
+prairie and, running about it like snakes, they collect the seeds
+that are blown across by the wind and carry them down into their
+diminutive homes.  The imouran has a truly faithful friend, the
+yellow lark of the prairie with a brown back and head.  When he
+sees the imouran running across the plain, he settles on his back,
+flaps his wings in balance and rides well this swiftly galloping
+mount, who gaily flourishes his long shaggy tail.  The lark during
+his ride skilfully and quickly catches the parasites living on the
+body of his friend, giving evidence of his enjoyment of his work
+with a short agreeable song.  The Mongols call the imouran "the
+steed of the gay lark."  The lark warns the imouran of the approach
+of eagles and hawks with three sharp whistles the moment he sees
+the aerial brigand and takes refuge himself behind a stone or in a
+small ditch.  After this signal no imouran will stick his head out
+of his hole until the danger is past.  Thus the gay lark and his
+steed live in kindly neighborliness.
+
+In other parts of Mongolia where there was very rich grass I saw
+another type of rodent, which I had previously come across in
+Urianhai.  It is a gigantic black prairie rat with a short tail and
+lives in colonies of from one to two hundred.  He is interesting
+and unique as the most skilful farmer among the animals in his
+preparation of his winter supply of fodder.  During the weeks when
+the grass is most succulent he actually mows it down with swift
+jerky swings of his head, cutting about twenty or thirty stalks
+with his sharp long front teeth.  Then he allows his grass to cure
+and later puts up his prepared hay in a most scientific manner.
+First he makes a mound about a foot high.  Through this he pushes
+down into the ground four slanting stakes, converging toward the
+middle of the pile, and binds them close over the surface of the
+hay with the longest strands of grass, leaving the ends protruding
+enough for him to add another foot to the height of the pile, when
+he again binds the surface with more long strands--all this to keep
+his winter supply of food from blowing away over the prairie.  This
+stock he always locates right at the door of his den to avoid long
+winter hauls.  The horses and camels are very fond of this small
+farmer's hay, because it is always made from the most nutritious
+grass.  The haycocks are so strongly made that one can hardly kick
+them to pieces.
+
+Almost everywhere in Mongolia I met either single pairs or whole
+flocks of the greyish-yellow prairie partridges, salga or
+"partridge swallow," so called because they have long sharp tails
+resembling those of swallows and because their flight also is a
+close copy of that of the swallow.  These birds are very tame or
+fearless, allowing men to come within ten or fifteen paces of them;
+but, when they do break, they go high and fly long distances
+without lighting, whistling all the time quite like swallows.
+Their general markings are light grey and yellow, though the males
+have pretty chocolate spots on the backs and wings, while their
+legs and feet are heavily feathered.
+
+My opportunity to make these observations came from traveling
+through unfrequented regions by the urga, which, however, had its
+counterbalancing disadvantages.  The Mongols carried me directly
+and swiftly toward my destination, receiving with great
+satisfaction the presents of Chinese dollars which I gave them.
+But after having made about five thousand miles on my Cossack
+saddle that now lay behind me on the cart all covered with dust
+like common merchandise, I rebelled against being wracked and torn
+by the rough riding of the cart as it was swung heedlessly over
+stones, hillocks and ditches by the wild horses with their equally
+wild riders, bounding and cracking and holding together only
+through its tenacity of purpose in demonstrating the cosiness and
+attractiveness of a good Mongol equipage!  All my bones began to
+ache.  Finally I groaned at every lunge and at last I suffered a
+very sharp attack of ischias or sciatica in my wounded leg.  At
+night I could neither sleep, lie down nor sit with comfort and
+spent the whole night pacing up and down the plain, listening to
+the loud snoring of the inhabitants of the yurta.  At times I had
+to fight the two huge black dogs which attacked me.  The following
+day I could endure the wracking only until noon and was then forced
+to give up and lie down.  The pain was unbearable.  I could not
+move my leg nor my back and finally fell into a high fever.  We
+were forced to stop and rest.  I swallowed all my stock of aspirin
+and quinine but without relief.  Before me was a sleepless night
+about which I could not think without weakening fear.  We had
+stopped in the yurta for guests by the side of a small monastery.
+My Mongols invited the Lama doctor to visit me, who gave me two
+very bitter powders and assured me I should be able to continue in
+the morning.  I soon felt a stimulated palpitation of the heart,
+after which the pain became even sharper.  Again I spent the night
+without any sleep but when the sun arose the pain ceased instantly
+and, after an hour, I ordered them to saddle me a horse, as I was
+afraid to continue further in the cart.
+
+While the Mongols were catching the horses, there came to my tent
+Colonel N. N. Philipoff, who told me that he denied all the
+accusations that he and his brother and Poletika were Bolsheviki
+and that Bezrodnoff allowed him to go to Van Kure to meet Baron
+Ungern, who was expected there.  Only Philipoff did not know that
+his Mongol guide was armed with a bomb and that another Mongol had
+been sent on ahead with a letter to Baron Ungern.  He did not know
+that Poletika and his brothers were shot at the same time in Zain
+Shabi.  Philipoff was in a hurry and wanted to reach Van Kure that
+day.  I left an hour after him.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+AN OLD FORTUNE TELLER
+
+
+From this point we began traveling along the ourton road.  In this
+region the Mongols had very poor and exhausted horses, because they
+were forced continuously to supply mounts to the numerous envoys of
+Daichin Van and of Colonel Kazagrandi.  We were compelled to spend
+the night at the last ourton before Van Kure, where a stout old
+Mongol and his son kept the station.  After our supper he took the
+shoulder-blade of the sheep, which had been carefully scraped clean
+of all the flesh, and, looking at me, placed this bone in the coals
+with some incantations and said:
+
+"I want to tell your fortune.  All my predictions come true."
+
+When the bone had been blackened he drew it out, blew off the ashes
+and began to scrutinize the surface very closely and to look
+through it into the fire.  He continued his examination for a long
+time and then, with fear in his face, placed the bone back in the
+coals.
+
+"What did you see?" I asked, laughing.
+
+"Be silent!" he whispered.  "I made out horrible signs."
+
+He again took out the bone and began examining it all over, all the
+time whispering prayers and making strange movements.  In a very
+solemn quiet voice he began his predictions.
+
+"Death in the form of a tall white man with red hair will stand
+behind you and will watch you long and close.  You will feel it and
+wait but Death will withdraw. . . .  Another white man will become
+your friend. . . .  Before the fourth day you will lose your
+acquaintances.  They will die by a long knife.  I already see them
+being eaten by the dogs.  Beware of the man with a head like a
+saddle.  He will strive for your death."
+
+For a long time after the fortune had been told we sat smoking and
+drinking tea but still the old fellow looked at me only with fear.
+Through my brain flashed the thought that thus must his companions
+in prison look at one who is condemned to death.
+
+The next morning we left the fortune teller before the sun was up,
+and, when we had made about fifteen miles, hove in sight of Van
+Kure.  I found Colonel Kazagrandi at his headquarters.  He was a
+man of good family, an experienced engineer and a splendid officer,
+who had distinguished himself in the war at the defence of the
+island of Moon in the Baltic and afterwards in the fight with the
+Bolsheviki on the Volga.  Colonel Kazagrandi offered me a bath in a
+real tub, which had its habitat in the house of the president of
+the local Chamber of Commerce.  As I was in this house, a tall
+young captain entered.  He had long curly red hair and an unusually
+white face, though heavy and stolid, with large, steel-cold eyes
+and with beautiful, tender, almost girlish lips.  But in his eyes
+there was such cold cruelty that it was quite unpleasant to look at
+his otherwise fine face.  When he left the room, our host told me
+that he was Captain Veseloffsky, the adjutant of General Rezukhin,
+who was fighting against the Bolsheviki in the north of Mongolia.
+They had just that day arrived for a conference with Baron Ungern.
+
+After luncheon Colonel Kazagrandi invited me to his yurta and began
+discussing events in western Mongolia, where the situation had
+become very tense.
+
+"Do you know Dr. Gay?" Kazagrandi asked me.  "You know he helped me
+to form my detachment but Urga accuses him of being the agent of
+the Soviets."
+
+I made all the defences I could for Gay.  He had helped me and had
+been exonerated by Kolchak.
+
+"Yes, yes, and I justified Gay in such a manner," said the Colonel,
+"but Rezukhin, who has just arrived today, has brought letters of
+Gay's to the Bolsheviki which were seized in transit.  By order of
+Baron Ungern, Gay and his family have today been sent to the
+headquarters of Rezukhin and I fear that they will not reach this
+destination."
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"They will be executed on the road!" answered Colonel Kazagrandi.
+
+"What are we to do?" I responded.  "Gay cannot be a Bolshevik,
+"because he is too well educated and too clever for it."
+
+"I don't know; I don't know!" murmured the Colonel with a
+despondent gesture.  "Try to speak with Rezukhin."
+
+I decided to proceed at once to Rezukhin but just then Colonel
+Philipoff entered and began talking about the errors being made in
+the training of the soldiers.  When I had donned my coat, another
+man came in.  He was a small sized officer with an old green
+Cossack cap with a visor, a torn grey Mongol overcoat and with his
+right hand in a black sling tied around his neck.  It was General
+Rezukhin, to whom I was at once introduced.  During the
+conversation the General very politely and very skilfully inquired
+about the lives of Philipoff and myself during the last three
+years, joking and laughing with discretion and modesty.  When he
+soon took his leave, I availed myself of the chance and went out
+with him.
+
+He listened very attentively and politely to me and afterwards, in
+his quiet voice, said:
+
+"Dr. Gay is the agent of the Soviets, disguised as a White in order
+the better to see, hear and know everything.  We are surrounded by
+our enemies.  The Russian people are demoralized and will undertake
+any treachery for money.  Such is Gay.  Anyway, what is the use of
+discussing him further?  He and his family are no longer alive.
+Today my men cut them to pieces five kilometres from here."
+
+In consternation and fear I looked at the face of this small,
+dapper man with such soft voice and courteous manners.  In his eyes
+I read such hate and tenacity that I understood at once the
+trembling respect of all the officers whom I had seen in his
+presence.  Afterwards in Urga I learned more of this General
+Rezukhin distinguished by his absolute bravery and boundless
+cruelty.  He was the watchdog of Baron Ungern, ready to throw
+himself into the fire and to spring at the throat of anyone his
+master might indicate.
+
+Only four days then had elapsed before "my acquaintances" died "by
+a long knife," so that one part of the prediction had been thus
+fulfilled.  And now I have to await Death's threat to me.  The
+delay was not long.  Only two days later the Chief of the Asiatic
+Division of Cavalry arrived--Baron Ungern von Sternberg.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+"DEATH FROM THE WHITE MAN WILL STAND BEHIND YOU"
+
+
+"The terrible general, the Baron," arrived quite unexpectedly,
+unnoticed by the outposts of Colonel Kazagrandi.  After a talk with
+Kazagrandi the Baron invited Colonel N. N. Philipoff and me into
+his presence.  Colonel Kazagrandi brought the word to me.  I wanted
+to go at once but was detained about half an hour by the Colonel,
+who then sped me with the words:
+
+"Now God help you!  Go!"
+
+It was a strange parting message, not reassuring and quite
+enigmatical.  I took my Mauser and also hid in the cuff of my coat
+my cyanide of potassium.  The Baron was quartered in the yurta of
+the military doctor.  When I entered the court, Captain Veseloffsky
+came up to me.  He had a Cossack sword and a revolver without its
+holster beneath his girdle.  He went into the yurta to report my
+arrival.
+
+"Come in," he said, as he emerged from the tent.
+
+At the entrance my eyes were struck with the sight of a pool of
+blood that had not yet had time to drain down into the ground--an
+ominous greeting that seemed to carry the very voice of one just
+gone before me.  I knocked.
+
+"Come in!" was the answer in a high tenor.  As I passed the
+threshold, a figure in a red silk Mongolian coat rushed at me with
+the spring of a tiger, grabbed and shook my hand as though in
+flight across my path and then fell prone on the bed at the side of
+the tent.
+
+"Tell me who you are!  Hereabouts are many spies and agitators," he
+cried out in an hysterical voice, as he fixed his eyes upon me.  In
+one moment I perceived his appearance and psychology.  A small head
+on wide shoulders; blonde hair in disorder; a reddish bristling
+moustache; a skinny, exhausted face, like those on the old
+Byzantine ikons.  Then everything else faded from view save a big,
+protruding forehead overhanging steely sharp eyes.  These eyes were
+fixed upon me like those of an animal from a cave.  My observations
+lasted for but a flash but I understood that before me was a very
+dangerous man ready for an instant spring into irrevocable action.
+Though the danger was evident, I felt the deepest offence.
+
+"Sit down," he snapped out in a hissing voice, as he pointed to a
+chair and impatiently pulled at his moustache.  I felt my anger
+rising through my whole body and I said to him without taking the
+chair:
+
+"You have allowed yourself to offend me, Baron.  My name is well
+enough known so that you cannot thus indulge yourself in such
+epithets.  You can do with me as you wish, because force is on your
+side, but you cannot compel me to speak with one who gives me
+offence."
+
+At these words of mine he swung his feet down off the bed and with
+evident astonishment began to survey me, holding his breath and
+pulling still at his moustache.  Retaining my exterior calmness, I
+began to glance indifferently around the yurta, and only then I
+noticed General Rezukhin.  I bowed to him and received his silent
+acknowledgment.  After that I swung my glance back to the Baron,
+who sat with bowed head and closed eyes, from time to time rubbing
+his brow and mumbling to himself.
+
+Suddenly he stood up and sharply said, looking past and over me:
+
+"Go out!  There is no need of more. . . ."
+
+I swung round and saw Captain Veseloffsky with his white, cold
+face.  I had not heard him enter.  He did a formal "about face" and
+passed out of the door.
+
+"'Death from the white man' has stood behind me," I thought; "but
+has it quite left me?"
+
+The Baron stood thinking for some time and then began to speak in
+jumbled, unfinished phrases.
+
+"I ask your pardon. . . .  You must understand there are so many
+traitors!  Honest men have disappeared.  I cannot trust anybody.
+All names are false and assumed; documents are counterfeited.  Eyes
+and words deceive. . . .  All is demoralized, insulted by
+Bolshevism.  I just ordered Colonel Philipoff cut down, he who
+called himself the representative of the Russian White
+Organization.  In the lining of his garments were found two secret
+Bolshevik codes. . . .  When my officer flourished his sword over
+him, he exclaimed:  'Why do you kill me, Tavarische?'  I cannot
+trust anybody. . . ."
+
+He was silent and I also held my peace.
+
+"I beg your pardon!" he began anew.  "I offended you; but I am not
+simply a man, I am a leader of great forces and have in my head so
+much care, sorrow and woe!"
+
+In his voice I felt there was mingled despair and sincerity.  He
+frankly put out his hand to me.  Again silence.  At last I
+answered:
+
+"What do you order me to do now, for I have neither counterfeit nor
+real documents?  But many of your officers know me and in Urga I
+can find many who will testify that I could be neither agitator
+nor. . ."
+
+"No need, no need!" interrupted the Baron.  "All is clear, all is
+understood!  I was in your soul and I know all.  It is the truth
+which Hutuktu Narabanchi has written about you.  What can I do for
+you?"
+
+I explained how my friend and I had escaped from Soviet Russia in
+the effort to reach our native land and how a group of Polish
+soldiers had joined us in the hope of getting back to Poland; and I
+asked that help be given us to reach the nearest port.
+
+"With pleasure, with pleasure. . . .  I will help you all," he
+answered excitedly.  "I shall drive you to Urga in my motor car.
+Tomorrow we shall start and there in Urga we shall talk about
+further arrangements."
+
+Taking my leave, I went out of the yurta.  On arriving at my
+quarters, I found Colonel Kazagrandi in great anxiety walking up
+and down my room.
+
+"Thanks be to God!" he exclaimed and crossed himself.
+
+His joy was very touching but at the same time I thought that the
+Colonel could have taken much more active measures for the
+salvation of his guest, if he had been so minded.  The agitation of
+this day had tired me and made me feel years older.  When I looked
+in the mirror I was certain there were more white hairs on my head.
+At night I could not sleep for the flashing thoughts of the young,
+fine face of Colonel Philipoff, the pool of blood, the cold eyes of
+Captain Veseloffsky, the sound of Baron Ungern's voice with its
+tones of despair and woe, until finally I sank into a heavy stupor.
+I was awakened by Baron Ungern who came to ask pardon that he could
+not take me in his motor car, because he was obliged to take
+Daichin Van with him.  But he informed me that he had left
+instructions to give me his own white camel and two Cossacks as
+servants.  I had no time to thank him before he rushed out of my
+room.
+
+Sleep then entirely deserted me, so I dressed and began smoking
+pipe after pipe of tobacco, as I thought:  "How much easier to
+fight the Bolsheviki on the swamps of Seybi and to cross the snowy
+peaks of Ulan Taiga, where the bad demons kill all the travelers
+they can!  There everything was simple and comprehensible, but here
+it is all a mad nightmare, a dark and foreboding storm!"  I felt
+some tragedy, some horror in every movement of Baron Ungern, behind
+whom paced this silent, white-faced Veseloffsky and Death.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE HORROR OF WAR!
+
+
+At dawn of the following morning they led up the splendid white
+camel for me and we moved away.  My company consisted of the two
+Cossacks, two Mongol soldiers and one Lama with two pack camels
+carrying the tent and food.  I still apprehended that the Baron had
+it in mind not to dispose of me before my friends there in Van Kure
+but to prepare this journey for me under the guise of which it
+would be so easy to do away with me by the road.  A bullet in the
+back and all would be finished.  Consequently I was momentarily
+ready to draw my revolver and defend myself.  I took care all the
+time to have the Cossacks either ahead of me or at the side.  About
+noon we heard the distant honk of a motor car and soon saw Baron
+Ungern whizzing by us at full speed.  With him were two adjutants
+and Prince Daichin Van.  The Baron greeted me very kindly and
+shouted:
+
+"Shall see you again in Urga!"
+
+"Ah!" I thought, "evidently I shall reach Urga.  So I can be at
+ease during my trip, and in Urga I have many friends beside the
+presence there of the bold Polish soldiers whom I had worked with
+in Uliassutai and who had outdistanced me in this journey."
+
+After the meeting with the Baron my Cossacks became very attentive
+to me and sought to distract me with stories.  They told me about
+their very severe struggles with the Bolsheviki in Transbaikalia
+and Mongolia, about the battle with the Chinese near Urga, about
+finding communistic passports on several Chinese soldiers from
+Moscow, about the bravery of Baron Ungern and how he would sit at
+the campfire smoking and drinking tea right on the battle line
+without ever being touched by a bullet.  At one fight seventy-four
+bullets entered his overcoat, saddle and the boxes by his side and
+again left him untouched.  This is one of the reasons for his great
+influence over the Mongols.  They related how before the battle he
+had made a reconnaissance in Urga with only one Cossack and on his
+way back had killed a Chinese officer and two soldiers with his
+bamboo stick or tashur; how he had no outfit save one change of
+linen and one extra pair of boots; how he was always calm and
+jovial in battle and severe and morose in the rare days of peace;
+and how he was everywhere his soldiers were fighting.
+
+I told them, in turn, of my escape from Siberia and with chatting
+thus the day slipped by very quickly.  Our camels trotted all the
+time, so that instead of the ordinary eighteen to twenty miles per
+day we made nearly fifty.  My mount was the fastest of them all.
+He was a huge white animal with a splendid thick mane and had been
+presented to Baron Ungern by some Prince of Inner Mongolia with two
+black sables tied on the bridle.  He was a calm, strong, bold giant
+of the desert, on whose back I felt myself as though perched on the
+tower of a building.  Beyond the Orkhon River we came across the
+first dead body of a Chinese soldier, which lay face up and arms
+outstretched right in the middle of the road.  When we had crossed
+the Burgut Mountains, we entered the Tola River valley, farther up
+which Urga is located.  The road was strewn with the overcoats,
+shirts, boots, caps and kettles which the Chinese had thrown away
+in their flight; and marked by many of their dead.  Further on the
+road crossed a morass, where on either side lay great mounds of the
+dead bodies of men, horses and camels with broken carts and
+military debris of every sort.  Here the Tibetans of Baron Ungern
+had cut up the escaping Chinese baggage transport; and it was a
+strange and gloomy contrast to see the piles of dead besides the
+effervescing awakening life of spring.  In every pool wild ducks of
+different kinds floated about; in the high grass the cranes
+performed their weird dance of courtship; on the lakes great flocks
+of swans and geese were swimming; through the swampy places like
+spots of light moved the brilliantly colored pairs of the Mongolian
+sacred bird, the turpan or "Lama goose"; on the higher dry places
+flocks of wild turkey gamboled and fought as they fed; flocks of
+the salga partridge whistled by; while on the mountain side not far
+away the wolves lay basking and turning in the lazy warmth of the
+sun, whining and occasionally barking like playful dogs.
+
+Nature knows only life.  Death is for her but an episode whose
+traces she rubs out with sand and snow or ornaments with luxuriant
+greenery and brightly colored bushes and flowers.  What matters it
+to Nature if a mother at Chefoo or on the banks of the Yangtse
+offers her bowl of rice with burning incense at some shrine and
+prays for the return of her son that has fallen unknown for all
+time on the plains along the Tola, where his bones will dry beneath
+the rays of Nature's dissipating fire and be scattered by her winds
+over the sands of the prairie?  It is splendid, this indifference
+of Nature to death, and her greediness for life!
+
+On the fourth day we made the shores of the Tola well after
+nightfall.  We could not find the regular ford and I forced my
+camel to enter the stream in the attempt to make a crossing without
+guidance.  Very fortunately I found a shallow, though somewhat
+miry, place and we got over all right.  This is something to be
+thankful for in fording a river with a camel; because, when your
+mount finds the water too deep, coming up around his neck, he does
+not strike out and swim like a horse will do but just rolls over on
+his side and floats, which is vastly inconvenient for his rider.
+Down by the river we pegged our tent.
+
+Fifteen miles further on we crossed a battlefield, where the third
+great battle for the independence of Mongolia had been fought.
+Here the troops of Baron Ungern clashed with six thousand Chinese
+moving down from Kiakhta to the aid of Urga.  The Chinese were
+completely defeated and four thousand prisoners taken.  However,
+these surrendered Chinese tried to escape during the night.  Baron
+Ungern sent the Transbaikal Cossacks and Tibetans in pursuit of
+them and it was their work which we saw on this field of death.
+There were still about fifteen hundred unburied and as many more
+interred, according to the statements of our Cossacks, who had
+participated in this battle.  The killed showed terrible sword
+wounds; everywhere equipment and other debris were scattered about.
+The Mongols with their herds moved away from the neighborhood and
+their place was taken by the wolves which hid behind every stone
+and in every ditch as we passed.  Packs of dogs that had become
+wild fought with the wolves over the prey.
+
+At last we left this place of carnage to the cursed god of war.
+Soon we approached a shallow, rapid stream, where the Mongols
+slipped from their camels, took off their caps and began drinking.
+It was a sacred stream which passed beside the abode of the Living
+Buddha.  From this winding valley we suddenly turned into another
+where a great mountain ridge covered with dark, dense forest loomed
+up before us.
+
+"Holy Bogdo-Ol!" exclaimed the Lama.  "The abode of the Gods which
+guard our Living Buddha!"
+
+Bogdo-Ol is the huge knot which ties together here three mountain
+chains: Gegyl from the southwest, Gangyn from the south, and Huntu
+from the north.  This mountain covered with virgin forest is the
+property of the Living Buddha.  The forests are full of nearly all
+the varieties of animals found in Mongolia, but hunting is not
+allowed.  Any Mongol violating this law is condemned to death,
+while foreigners are deported.  Crossing the Bogdo-Ol is forbidden
+under penalty of death.  This command was transgressed by only one
+man, Baron Ungern, who crossed the mountain with fifty Cossacks,
+penetrated to the palace of the Living Buddha, where the Pontiff of
+Urga was being held under arrest by the Chinese, and stole him.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+IN THE CITY OF LIVING GODS, OF 30,000 BUDDHAS AND 60,000 MONKS
+
+
+At last before our eyes the abode of the Living Buddha!  At the
+foot of Bogdo-Ol behind white walls rose a white Tibetan building
+covered with greenish-blue tiles that glittered under the sunshine.
+It was richly set among groves of trees dotted here and there with
+the fantastic roofs of shrines and small palaces, while further
+from the mountain it was connected by a long wooden bridge across
+the Tola with the city of monks, sacred and revered throughout all
+the East as Ta Kure or Urga.  Here besides the Living Buddha live
+whole throngs of secondary miracle workers, prophets, sorcerers and
+wonderful doctors.  All these people have divine origin and are
+honored as living gods.  At the left on the high plateau stands an
+old monastery with a huge, dark red tower, which is known as the
+"Temple Lamas City," containing a gigantic bronze gilded statue of
+Buddha sitting on the golden flower of the lotus; tens of smaller
+temples, shrines, obo, open altars, towers for astrology and the
+grey city of the Lamas consisting of single-storied houses and
+yurtas, where about 60,000 monks of all ages and ranks dwell;
+schools, sacred archives and libraries, the houses of Bandi and the
+inns for the honored guests from China, Tibet, and the lands of the
+Buriat and Kalmuck.
+
+Down below the monastery is the foreign settlement where the
+Russian, foreign and richest Chinese merchants live and where the
+multi-colored and crowded oriental bazaar carries forward its
+bustling life.  A kilometre away the greyish enclosure of Maimachen
+surrounds the remaining Chinese trading establishments, while
+farther on one sees a long row of Russian private houses, a
+hospital, church, prison and, last of all, the awkward four-storied
+red brick building that was formerly the Russian Consulate.
+
+We were already within a short distance of the monastery, when I
+noticed several Mongol soldiers in the mouth of a ravine nearby,
+dragging back and concealing in the ravine three dead bodies.
+
+"What are they doing?" I asked.
+
+The Cossacks only smiled without answering.  Suddenly they
+straightened up with a sharp salute.  Out of the ravine came a
+small, stocky Mongolian pony with a short man in the saddle.  As he
+passed us, I noticed the epaulets of a colonel and the green cap
+with a visor.  He examined me with cold, colorless eyes from under
+dense brows.  As he went on ahead, he took off his cap and wiped
+the perspiration from his bald head.  My eyes were struck by the
+strange undulating line of his skull.  It was the man "with the
+head like a saddle," against whom I had been warned by the old
+fortune teller at the last ourton outside Van Kure!
+
+"Who is this officer?" I inquired.
+
+Although he was already quite a distance in front of us, the
+Cossacks whispered:  "Colonel Sepailoff, Commandant of Urga City."
+
+Colonel Sepailoff, the darkest person on the canvas of Mongolian
+events!  Formerly a mechanician, afterwards a gendarme, he had
+gained quick promotion under the Czar's regime.  He was always
+nervously jerking and wriggling his body and talking ceaselessly,
+making most unattractive sounds in his throat and sputtering with
+saliva all over his lips, his whole face often contracted with
+spasms.  He was mad and Baron Ungern twice appointed a commission
+of surgeons to examine him and ordered him to rest in the hope he
+could rid the man of his evil genius.  Undoubtedly Sepailoff was a
+sadist.  I heard afterwards that he himself executed the condemned
+people, joking and singing as he did his work.  Dark, terrifying
+tales were current about him in Urga.  He was a bloodhound,
+fastening his victims with the jaws of death.  All the glory of the
+cruelty of Baron Ungern belonged to Sepailoff.  Afterwards Baron
+Ungern once told me in Urga that this Sepailoff annoyed him and
+that Sepailoff could kill him just as well as others.  Baron Ungern
+feared Sepailoff, not as a man, but dominated by his own
+superstition, because Sepailoff had found in Transbaikalia a witch
+doctor who predicted the death of the Baron if he dismissed
+Sepailoff.  Sepailoff knew no pardon for Bolshevik nor for any one
+connected with the Bolsheviki in any way.  The reason for his
+vengeful spirit was that the Bolsheviki had tortured him in prison
+and, after his escape, had killed all his family.  He was now
+taking his revenge.
+
+I put up with a Russian firm and was at once visited by my
+associates from Uliassutai, who greeted me with great joy because
+they had been much exercised about the events in Van Kure and Zain
+Shabi.  When I had bathed and spruced up, I went out with them on
+the street.  We entered the bazaar.  The whole market was crowded.
+To the lively colored groups of men buying, selling and shouting
+their wares, the bright streamers of Chinese cloth, the strings of
+pearls, the earrings and bracelets gave an air of endless
+festivity; while on another side buyers were feeling of live sheep
+to see whether they were fat or not, the butcher was cutting great
+pieces of mutton from the hanging carcasses and everywhere these
+sons of the plain were joking and jesting.  The Mongolian women in
+their huge coiffures and heavy silver caps like saucers on their
+heads were admiring the variegated silk ribbons and long chains of
+coral beads; an imposing big Mongol attentively examined a small
+herd of splendid horses and bargained with the Mongol zahachine or
+owner of the horses; a skinny, quick, black Tibetan, who had come
+to Urga to pray to the Living Buddha or, maybe, with a secret
+message from the other "God" in Lhasa, squatted and bargained for
+an image of the Lotus Buddha carved in agate; in another corner a
+big crowd of Mongols and Buriats had collected and surrounded a
+Chinese merchant selling finely painted snuff-bottles of glass,
+crystal, porcelain, amethyst, jade, agate and nephrite, for one of
+which made of a greenish milky nephrite with regular brown veins
+running through it and carved with a dragon winding itself around a
+bevy of young damsels the merchant was demanding of his Mongol
+inquirers ten young oxen; and everywhere Buriats in their long red
+coats and small red caps embroidered with gold helped the Tartars
+in black overcoats and black velvet caps on the back of their heads
+to weave the pattern of this Oriental human tapestry.  Lamas formed
+the common background for it all, as they wandered about in their
+yellow and red robes, with capes picturesquely thrown over their
+shoulders and caps of many forms, some like yellow mushrooms,
+others like the red Phrygian bonnets or old Greek helmets in red.
+They mingled with the crowd, chatting serenely and counting their
+rosaries, telling fortunes for those who would hear but chiefly
+searching out the rich Mongols whom they could cure or exploit by
+fortune telling, predictions or other mysteries of a city of 60,000
+Lamas.  Simultaneously religious and political espionage was being
+carried out.  Just at this time many Mongols were arriving from
+Inner Mongolia and they were continuously surrounded by an
+invisible but numerous network of watching Lamas.  Over the
+buildings around floated the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian
+national flags with a single one of the Stars and Stripes above a
+small shop in the market; while over the nearby tents and yurtas
+streamed the ribbons, the squares, the circles and triangles of the
+princes and private persons afflicted or dying from smallpox and
+leprosy.  All were mingled and mixed in one bright mass strongly
+lighted by the sun.  Occasionally one saw the soldiers of Baron
+Ungern rushing about in long blue coats; Mongols and Tibetans in
+red coats with yellow epaulets bearing the swastika of Jenghiz Khan
+and the initials of the Living Buddha; and Chinese soldiers from
+their detachment in the Mongolian army.  After the defeat of the
+Chinese army two thousand of these braves petitioned the Living
+Buddha to enlist them in his legions, swearing fealty and faith to
+him.  They were accepted and formed into two regiments bearing the
+old Chinese silver dragons on their caps and shoulders.
+
+As we crossed this market, from around a corner came a big motor
+car with the roar of a siren.  There was Baron Ungern in the yellow
+silk Mongolian coat with a blue girdle.  He was going very fast but
+recognized me at once, stopping and getting out to invite me to go
+with him to his yurta.  The Baron lived in a small, simply arranged
+yurta, set up in the courtyard of a Chinese hong.  He had his
+headquarters in two other yurtas nearby, while his servants
+occupied one of the Chinese fang-tzu.  When I reminded him of his
+promise to help me to reach the open ports, the General looked at
+me with his bright eyes and spoke in French:
+
+"My work here is coming to an end.  In nine days I shall begin the
+war with the Bolsheviki and shall go into the Transbaikal.  I beg
+that you will spend this time here.  For many years I have lived
+without civilized society.  I am alone with my thoughts and I would
+like to have you know them, speaking with me not as the 'bloody mad
+Baron,' as my enemies call me, nor as the 'severe grandfather,'
+which my officers and soldiers call me, but as an ordinary man who
+has sought much and has suffered even more."
+
+The Baron reflected for some minutes and then continued:
+
+"I have thought about the further trip of your group and I shall
+arrange everything for you, but I ask you to remain here these nine
+days."
+
+What was I to do?  I agreed.  The Baron shook my hand warmly and
+ordered tea.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+A SON OF CRUSADERS AND PRIVATEERS
+
+
+"Tell me about yourself and your trip," he urged.  In response I
+related all that I thought would interest him and he appeared quite
+excited over my tale.
+
+"Now I shall tell you about myself, who and what I am!  My name is
+surrounded with such hate and fear that no one can judge what is
+the truth and what is false, what is history and what myth.  Some
+time you will write about it, remembering your trip through
+Mongolia and your sojourn at the yurta of the 'bloody General.'"
+
+He shut his eyes, smoking as he spoke, and tumbling out his
+sentences without finishing them as though some one would prevent
+him from phrasing them.
+
+"The family of Ungern von Sternberg is an old family, a mixture of
+Germans with Hungarians--Huns from the time of Attila.  My warlike
+ancestors took part in all the European struggles.  They
+participated in the Crusades and one Ungern was killed under the
+walls of Jerusalem, fighting under Richard Coeur de Lion.  Even the
+tragic Crusade of the Children was marked by the death of Ralph
+Ungern, eleven years old.  When the boldest warriors of the country
+were despatched to the eastern border of the German Empire against
+the Slavs in the twelfth century, my ancestor Arthur was among
+them, Baron Halsa Ungern Sternberg.  Here these border knights
+formed the order of Monk Knights or Teutons, which with fire and
+sword spread Christianity among the pagan Lithuanians, Esthonians,
+Latvians and Slavs.  Since then the Teuton Order of Knights has
+always had among its members representatives of our family.  When
+the Teuton Order perished in the Grunwald under the swords of the
+Polish and Lithuanian troops, two Barons Ungern von Sternberg were
+killed there.  Our family was warlike and given to mysticism and
+asceticism.
+
+"During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries several Barons von
+Ungern had their castles in the lands of Latvia and Esthonia.  Many
+legends and tales lived after them.  Heinrich Ungern von Sternberg,
+called 'Ax,' was a wandering knight.  The tournaments of France,
+England, Spain and Italy knew his name and lance, which filled the
+hearts of his opponents with fear.  He fell at Cadiz 'neath the
+sword of a knight who cleft both his helmet and his skull.  Baron
+Ralph Ungern was a brigand knight between Riga and Reval.  Baron
+Peter Ungern had his castle on the island of Dago in the Baltic
+Sea, where as a privateer he ruled the merchantmen of his day.
+
+"In the beginning of the eighteenth century there was also a well-
+known Baron Wilhelm Ungern, who was referred to as the 'brother of
+Satan' because he was an alchemist.  My grandfather was a privateer
+in the Indian Ocean, taking his tribute from the English traders
+whose warships could not catch him for several years.  At last he
+was captured and handed to the Russian Consul, who transported him
+to Russia where he was sentenced to deportation to the Transbaikal.
+I am also a naval officer but the Russo-Japanese War forced me to
+leave my regular profession to join and fight with the Zabaikal
+Cossacks.  I have spent all my life in war or in the study and
+learning of Buddhism.  My grandfather brought Buddhism to us from
+India and my father and I accepted and professed it.  In
+Transbaikalia I tried to form the order of Military Buddhists for
+an uncompromising fight against the depravity of revolution."
+
+He fell into silence and began drinking cup after cup of tea as
+strong and black as coffee.
+
+"Depravity of revolution! . . .  Has anyone ever thought of it
+besides the French philosopher, Bergson, and the most learned Tashi
+Lama in Tibet?"
+
+The grandson of the privateer, quoting scientific theories, works,
+the names of scientists and writers, the Holy Bible and Buddhist
+books, mixing together French, German, Russian and English,
+continued:
+
+"In the Buddhistic and ancient Christian books we read stern
+predictions about the time when the war between the good and evil
+spirits must begin.  Then there must come the unknown 'Curse' which
+will conquer the world, blot out culture, kill morality and destroy
+all the people.  Its weapon is revolution.  During every revolution
+the previously experienced intellect-creator will be replaced by
+the new rough force of the destroyer.  He will place and hold in
+the first rank the lower instincts and desires.  Man will be
+farther removed from the divine and the spiritual.  The Great War
+proved that humanity must progress upward toward higher ideals; but
+then appeared that Curse which was seen and felt by Christ, the
+Apostle John, Buddha, the first Christian martyrs, Dante, Leonardo
+da Vinci, Goethe and Dostoyevsky.  It appeared, turned back the
+wheel of progress and blocked our road to the Divinity.  Revolution
+is an infectious disease and Europe making the treaty with Moscow
+deceived itself and the other parts of the world.  The Great Spirit
+put at the threshold of our lives Karma, who knows neither anger
+nor pardon.  He will reckon the account, whose total will be
+famine, destruction, the death of culture, of glory, of honor and
+of spirit, the death of states and the death of peoples.  I see
+already this horror, this dark, mad destruction of humanity."
+
+The door of the yurta suddenly swung open and an adjutant snapped
+into a position of attention and salute.
+
+"Why do you enter a room by force?" the General exclaimed in anger.
+
+"Your Excellency, our outpost on the border has caught a Bolshevik
+reconnaissance party and brought them here."
+
+The Baron arose.  His eyes sparkled and his face contracted with
+spasms.
+
+"Bring them in front of my yurta!" he ordered.
+
+All was forgotten--the inspired speech, the penetrating voice--all
+were sunk in the austere order of the severe commander.  The Baron
+put on his cap, caught up the bamboo tashur which he always carried
+with him and rushed from the yurta.  I followed him out.  There in
+front of the yurta stood six Red soldiers surrounded by the
+Cossacks.
+
+The Baron stopped and glared sharply at them for several minutes.
+In his face one could see the strong play of his thoughts.
+Afterwards he turned away from them, sat down on the doorstep of
+the Chinese house and for a long time was buried in thought.  Then
+he rose, walked over to them and, with an evident show of
+decisiveness in his movements, touched all the prisoners on the
+shoulder with his tashur and said:  "You to the left and you to the
+right!" as he divided the squad into two sections, four on the
+right and two on the left.
+
+"Search those two!  They must be commissars!" commanded the Baron
+and, turning to the other four, asked:  "Are you peasants mobilized
+by the Bolsheviki?"
+
+"Just so, Your Excellency!" cried the frightened soldiers.
+
+"Go to the Commandant and tell him that I have ordered you to be
+enlisted in my troops!"
+
+On the two to the left they found passports of Commissars of the
+Communist Political Department.  The General knitted his brows and
+slowly pronounced the following:
+
+"Beat them to death with sticks!"
+
+He turned and entered the yurta.  After this our conversation did
+not flow readily and so I left the Baron to himself.
+
+After dinner in the Russian firm where I was staying some of
+Ungern's officers came in.  We were chatting animatedly when
+suddenly we heard the horn of an automobile, which instantly threw
+the officers into silence.
+
+"The General is passing somewhere near," one of them remarked in a
+strangely altered voice.
+
+Our interrupted conversation was soon resumed but not for long.
+The clerk of the firm came running into the room and exclaimed:
+"The Baron!"
+
+He entered the door but stopped on the threshold.  The lamps had
+not yet been lighted and it was getting dark inside, but the Baron
+instantly recognized us all, approached and kissed the hand of the
+hostess, greeted everyone very cordially and, accepting the cup of
+tea offered him, drew up to the table to drink.  Soon he spoke:
+
+"I want to steal your guest," he said to the hostess and then,
+turning to me, asked:  "Do you want to go for a motor ride?  I
+shall show you the city and the environs."
+
+Donning my coat, I followed my established custom and slipped my
+revolver into it, at which the Baron laughed.
+
+"Leave that trash behind!  Here you are in safety.  Besides you
+must remember the prediction of Narabanchi Hutuktu that Fortune
+will ever be with you."
+
+"All right," I answered, also with a laugh.  "I remember very well
+this prediction.  Only I do not know what the Hutuktu thinks
+'Fortune' means for me.  Maybe it is death like the rest after my
+hard, long trip, and I must confess that I prefer to travel farther
+and am not ready to die."
+
+We went out to the gate where the big Fiat stood with its intruding
+great lights.  The chauffeur officer sat at the wheel like a statue
+and remained at salute all the time we were entering and seating
+ourselves.
+
+"To the wireless station!" commanded the Baron.
+
+We veritably leapt forward.  The city swarmed, as earlier, with the
+Oriental throng, but its appearance now was even more strange and
+miraculous.  In among the noisy crowd Mongol, Buriat and Tibetan
+riders threaded swiftly; caravans of camels solemnly raised their
+heads as we passed; the wooden wheels of the Mongol carts screamed
+in pain; and all was illumined by splendid great arc lights from
+the electric station which Baron Ungern had ordered erected
+immediately after the capture of Urga, together with a telephone
+system and wireless station.  He also ordered his men to clean and
+disinfect the city which had probably not felt the broom since the
+days of Jenghiz Khan.  He arranged an auto-bus traffic between
+different parts of the city; built bridges over the Tola and
+Orkhon; published a newspaper; arranged a veterinary laboratory and
+hospitals; re-opened the schools; protected commerce, mercilessly
+hanging Russian and Mongolian soldiers for pillaging Chinese firms.
+
+In one of these cases his Commandant arrested two Cossacks and a
+Mongol soldier who had stolen brandy from one of the Chinese shops
+and brought them before him.  He immediately bundled them all into
+his car, drove off to the shop, delivered the brandy back to the
+proprietor and as promptly ordered the Mongol to hang one of the
+Russians to the big gate of the compound.  With this one swung he
+commanded:  "Now hang the other!" and this had only just been
+accomplished when he turned to the Commandant and ordered him to
+hang the Mongol beside the other two.  That seemed expeditious and
+just enough until the Chinese proprietor came in dire distress to
+the Baron and plead with him:
+
+"General Baron!  General Baron!  Please take those men down from my
+gateway, for no one will enter my shop!"
+
+After the commercial quarter was flashed past our eyes, we entered
+the Russian settlement across a small river.  Several Russian
+soldiers and four very spruce-looking Mongolian women stood on the
+bridge as we passed.  The soldiers snapped to salute like immobile
+statues and fixed their eyes on the severe face of their Commander.
+The women first began to run and shift about and then, infected by
+the discipline and order of events, swung their hands up to salute
+and stood as immobile as their northern swains.  The Baron looked
+at me and laughed:
+
+"You see the discipline!  Even the Mongolian women salute me."
+
+Soon we were out on the plain with the car going like an arrow,
+with the wind whistling and tossing the folds of our coats and
+caps.  But Baron Ungern, sitting with closed eyes, repeated:
+"Faster! Faster!"  For a long time we were both silent.
+
+"And yesterday I beat my adjutant for rushing into my yurta and
+interrupting my story," he said.
+
+"You can finish it now," I answered.
+
+"And are you not bored by it?  Well, there isn't much left and this
+happens to be the most interesting.  I was telling you that I
+wanted to found an order of military Buddhists in Russia.  For
+what?  For the protection of the processes of evolution of humanity
+and for the struggle against revolution, because I am certain that
+evolution leads to the Divinity and revolution to bestiality.  But
+I worked in Russia!  In Russia, where the peasants are rough,
+untutored, wild and constantly angry, hating everybody and
+everything without understanding why.  They are suspicious and
+materialistic, having no sacred ideals.  Russian intelligents live
+among imaginary ideals without realities.  They have a strong
+capacity for criticising everything but they lack creative power.
+Also they have no will power, only the capacity for talking and
+talking.  With the peasants, they cannot like anything or anybody.
+Their love and feelings are imaginary.  Their thoughts and
+sentiments pass without trace like futile words.  My companions,
+therefore, soon began to violate the regulations of the Order.
+Then I introduced the condition of celibacy, the entire negation of
+woman, of the comforts of life, of superfluities, according to the
+teachings of the Yellow Faith; and, in order that the Russian might
+be able to live down his physical nature, I introduced the
+limitless use of alcohol, hasheesh and opium.  Now for alcohol I
+hang my officers and soldiers; then we drank to the 'white fever,'
+delirium tremens.  I could not organize the Order but I gathered
+round me and developed three hundred men wholly bold and entirely
+ferocious.  Afterward they were heroes in the war with Germany and
+later in the fight against the Bolsheviki, but now only a few
+remain."
+
+"The wireless, Excellency!" reported the chauffeur.
+
+"Turn in there!" ordered the General.
+
+On the top of a flat hill stood the big, powerful radio station
+which had been partially destroyed by the retreating Chinese but
+reconstructed by the engineers of Baron Ungern.  The General
+perused the telegrams and handed them to me.  They were from
+Moscow, Chita, Vladivostok and Peking.  On a separate yellow sheet
+were the code messages, which the Baron slipped into his pocket as
+he said to me:
+
+"They are from my agents, who are stationed in Chita, Irkutsk,
+Harbin and Vladivostok.  They are all Jews, very skilled and very
+bold men, friends of mine all.  I have also one Jewish officer,
+Vulfovitch, who commands my right flank.  He is as ferocious as
+Satan but clever and brave. . . .  Now we shall fly into space."
+
+Once more we rushed away, sinking into the darkness of night.  It
+was a wild ride.  The car bounded over small stones and ditches,
+even taking narrow streamlets, as the skilled chauffeur only seemed
+to guide it round the larger rocks.  On the plain, as we sped by, I
+noticed several times small bright flashes of fire which lasted but
+for a second and then were extinguished.
+
+"The eyes of wolves," smiled my companion.  "We have fed them to
+satiety from the flesh of ourselves and our enemies!" he quietly
+interpolated, as he turned to continue his confession of faith.
+
+"During the War we saw the gradual corruption of the Russian army
+and foresaw the treachery of Russia to the Allies as well as the
+approaching danger of revolution.  To counteract this latter a plan
+was formed to join together all the Mongolian peoples which had not
+forgotten their ancient faiths and customs into one Asiatic State,
+consisting of autonomous tribal units, under the moral and
+legislative leadership of China, the country of loftiest and most
+ancient culture.  Into this State must come the Chinese, Mongols,
+Tibetans, Afghans, the Mongol tribes of Turkestan, Tartars,
+Buriats, Kirghiz and Kalmucks.  This State must be strong,
+physically and morally, and must erect a barrier against revolution
+and carefully preserve its own spirit, philosophy and individual
+policy.  If humanity, mad and corrupted, continues to threaten the
+Divine Spirit in mankind, to spread blood and to obstruct moral
+development, the Asiatic State must terminate this movement
+decisively and establish a permanent, firm peace.  This propaganda
+even during the War made splendid progress among the Turkomans,
+Kirghiz, Buriats and Mongols. . . .  "Stop!" suddenly shouted the
+Baron.
+
+The car pulled up with a jerk.  The General jumped out and called
+me to follow.  We started walking over the prairie and the Baron
+kept bending down all the time as though he were looking for
+something on the ground.
+
+"Ah!" he murmured at last, "He has gone away. . . ."
+
+I looked at him in amazement.
+
+"A rich Mongol formerly had his yurta here.  He was the outfitter
+for the Russian merchant, Noskoff.  Noskoff was a ferocious man as
+shown by the name the Mongols gave him--'Satan.'  He used to have
+his Mongol debtors beaten or imprisoned through the instrumentality
+of the Chinese authorities.  He ruined this Mongol, who lost
+everything and escaped to a place thirty miles away; but Noskoff
+found him there, took all that he had left of cattle and horses and
+left the Mongol and his family to die of hunger.  When I captured
+Urga, this Mongol appeared and brought with him thirty other Mongol
+families similarly ruined by Noskoff.  They demanded his death. . . .
+So I hung 'Satan' . . ."
+
+Anew the motor car was rushing along, sweeping a great circle on
+the prairie, and anew Baron Ungern with his sharp, nervous voice
+carried his thoughts round the whole circumference of Asian life.
+
+"Russia turned traitor to France, England and America, signed the
+Brest-Litovsk Treaty and ushered in a reign of chaos.  We then
+decided to mobilize Asia against Germany.  Our envoys penetrated
+Mongolia, Tibet, Turkestan and China.  At this time the Bolsheviki
+began to kill all the Russian officers and we were forced to open
+civil war against them, giving up our Pan-Asiatic plans; but we
+hope later to awake all Asia and with their help to bring peace and
+God back to earth.  I want to feel that I have helped this idea by
+the liberation of Mongolia."
+
+He became silent and thought for a moment.
+
+"But some of my associates in the movement do not like me because
+of my atrocities and severity," he remarked in a sad voice.  "They
+cannot understand as yet that we are not fighting a political party
+but a sect of murderers of all contemporary spiritual culture.  Why
+do the Italians execute the 'Black Hand' gang?  Why are the
+Americans electrocuting anarchistic bomb throwers? and I am not
+allowed to rid the world of those who would kill the soul of the
+people?  I, a Teuton, descendant of crusaders and privateers, I
+recognize only death for murderers! . . .  Return!" he commanded
+the chauffeur.
+
+An hour and a half later we saw the electric lights of Urga.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+THE CAMP OF MARTYRS
+
+
+Near the entrance to the town, a motor car stood before a small
+house.
+
+"What does that mean?" exclaimed the Baron.  "Go over there!"
+
+Our car drew up beside the other.  The house door opened sharply,
+several officers rushed out and tried to hide.
+
+"Stand!" commanded the General.  "Go back inside."  They obeyed and
+he entered after them, leaning on his tashur.  As the door remained
+open, I could see and hear everything.
+
+"Woe to them!" whispered the chauffeur.  "Our officers knew that
+the Baron had gone out of the town with me, which means always a
+long journey, and must have decided to have a good time.  He will
+order them beaten to death with sticks."
+
+I could see the end of the table covered with bottles and tinned
+things.  At the side two young women were seated, who sprang up at
+the appearance of the General.  I could hear the hoarse voice of
+Baron Ungern pronouncing sharp, short, stern phrases.
+
+"Your native land is perishing. . . .  The shame of it is upon all
+you Russians . . . and you cannot understand it . . . nor feel
+it. . . .  You need wine and women. . . .  Scoundrels!  Brutes! . . .
+One hundred fifty tashur for every man of you."
+
+The voice fell to a whisper.
+
+"And you, Mesdames, do you not realize the ruin of your people?
+No?  For you it is of no moment.  And have you no feeling for your
+husbands at the front who may even now be killed?  You are not
+women. . . .  I honor woman, who feels more deeply and strongly
+than man; but you are not women! . . .  Listen to me, Mesdames.
+Once more and I will hang you. . . ."
+
+He came back to the car and himself sounded the horn several times.
+Immediately Mongol horsemen galloped up.
+
+"Take these men to the Commandant.  I will send my orders later."
+
+On the way to the Baron's yurta we were silent.  He was excited and
+breathed heavily, lighting cigarette after cigarette and throwing
+them aside after but a single puff or two.
+
+"Take supper with me," he proposed.
+
+He also invited his Chief of Staff, a very retiring, oppressed but
+splendidly educated man.  The servants spread a Chinese hot course
+for us followed by cold meat and fruit compote from California with
+the inevitable tea.  We ate with chopsticks.  The Baron was greatly
+distraught.
+
+Very cautiously I began speaking of the offending officers and
+tried to justify their actions by the extremely trying
+circumstances under which they were living.
+
+"They are rotten through and through, demoralized, sunk into the
+depths," murmured the General.
+
+The Chief of Staff helped me out and at last the Baron directed him
+to telephone the Commandant to release these gentlemen.
+
+The following day I spent with my friends, walking a great deal
+about the streets and watching their busy life.  The great energy
+of the Baron demanded constant nervous activity from himself and
+every one round him.  He was everywhere, seeing everything but
+never, interfering with the work of his subordinate administrators.
+Every one was at work.
+
+In the evening I was invited by the Chief of Staff to his quarters,
+where I met many intelligent officers.  I related again the story
+of my trip and we were all chatting along animatedly when suddenly
+Colonel Sepailoff entered, singing to himself.  All the others at
+once became silent and one by one under various pretexts they
+slipped out.  He handed our host some papers and, turning to us,
+said:
+
+"I shall send you for supper a splendid fish pie and some hot
+tomato soup."
+
+As he left, my host clasped his head in desperation and said:
+
+"With such scum of the earth are we now forced after this
+revolution to work!"
+
+A few minutes later a soldier from Sepailoff brought us a tureen
+full of soup and the fish pie.  As the soldier bent over the table
+to set the dishes down, the Chief motioned me with his eyes and
+slipped to me the words:  "Notice his face."
+
+When the man went out, my host sat attentively listening until the
+sounds of the man's steps ceased.
+
+"He is Sepailoff's executioner who hangs and strangles the
+unfortunate condemned ones."
+
+Then, to my amazement, he began to pour out the soup on the ground
+beside the brazier and, going out of the yurta, threw the pie over
+the fence.
+
+"It is Sepailoff's feast and, though it may be very tasty, it may
+also be poison.  In Sepailoff's house it is dangerous to eat or
+drink anything."
+
+Distinctly oppressed by these doings, I returned to my house.  My
+host was not yet asleep and met me with a frightened look.  My
+friends were also there.
+
+"God be thanked!" they all exclaimed.  "Has nothing happened to
+you?"
+
+"What is the matter?" I asked.
+
+"You see," began the host, "after your departure a soldier came
+from Sepailoff and took your luggage, saying that you had sent him
+for it; but we knew what it meant--that they would first search it
+and afterwards. . . ."
+
+I at once understood the danger.  Sepailoff could place anything he
+wanted in my luggage and afterwards accuse me.  My old friend, the
+agronome, and I started at once for Sepailoff's, where I left him
+at the door while I went in and was met by the same soldier who had
+brought the supper to us.  Sepailoff received me immediately.  In
+answer to my protest he said that it was a mistake and, asking me
+to wait for a moment, went out.  I waited five, ten, fifteen
+minutes but nobody came.  I knocked on the door but no one answered
+me.  Then I decided to go to Baron Ungern and started for the exit.
+The door was locked.  Then I tried the other door and found that
+also locked.  I had been trapped!  I wanted at once to whistle to
+my friend but just then noticed a telephone on the wall and called
+up Baron Ungern.  In a few minutes he appeared together with
+Sepailoff.
+
+"What is this?" he asked Sepailoff in a severe, threatening voice;
+and, without waiting for an answer, struck him a blow with his
+tashur that sent him to the floor.
+
+We went out and the General ordered my luggage produced.  Then he
+brought me to his own yurta.
+
+"Live here, now," he said.  "I am very glad of this accident," he
+remarked with a smile, "for now I can say all that I want to."
+
+This drew from me the question:
+
+"May I describe all that I have heard and seen here?"
+
+He thought a moment before replying:  "Give me your notebook."
+
+I handed him the album with my sketches of the trip and he wrote
+therein:  "After my death, Baron Ungern."
+
+"But I am older than you and I shall die before you," I remarked.
+
+He shut his eyes, bowed his head and whispered:
+
+"Oh, no!  One hundred thirty days yet and it is finished; then . . .
+Nirvana!  How wearied I am with sorrow, woe and hate!"
+
+We were silent for a long time.  I felt that I had now a mortal
+enemy in Colonel Sepailoff and that I should get out of Urga at the
+earliest possible moment.  It was two o'clock at night.  Suddenly
+Baron Ungern stood up.
+
+"Let us go to the great, good Buddha," he said with a countenance
+held in deep thought and with eyes aflame, his whole face
+contracted by a mournful, bitter smile.  He ordered the car
+brought.
+
+Thus lived this camp of martyrs, refugees pursued by events to
+their tryst with Death, driven on by the hate and contempt of this
+offspring of Teutons and privateers!  And he, martyring them, knew
+neither day nor night of peace.  Fired by impelling, poisonous
+thoughts, he tormented himself with the pains of a Titan, knowing
+that every day in this shortening chain of one hundred thirty links
+brought him nearer to the precipice called "Death."
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+BEFORE THE FACE OF BUDDHA
+
+
+As we came to the monastery we left the automobile and dipped into
+the labyrinth of narrow alleyways until at last we were before the
+greatest temple of Urga with the Tibetan walls and windows and its
+pretentious Chinese roof.  A single lantern burned at the entrance.
+The heavy gate with the bronze and iron trimmings was shut.  When
+the General struck the big brass gong hanging by the gate,
+frightened monks began running up from all directions and, seeing
+the "General Baron," fell to the earth in fear of raising their
+heads.
+
+"Get up," said the Baron, "and let us into the Temple!"
+
+The inside was like that of all Lama temples, the same multi-
+colored flags with the prayers, symbolic signs and the images of
+holy saints; the big bands of silk cloth hanging from the ceiling;
+the images of the gods and goddesses.  On both sides of the
+approach to the altar were the low red benches for the Lamas and
+choir.  On the altar small lamps threw their rays on the gold and
+silver vessels and candlesticks.  Behind it hung a heavy yellow
+silk curtain with Tibetan inscriptions.  The Lamas drew the curtain
+aside.  Out of the dim light from the flickering lamps gradually
+appeared the great gilded statue of Buddha seated in the Golden
+Lotus.  The face of the god was indifferent and calm with only a
+soft gleam of light animating it.  On either side he was guarded by
+many thousands of lesser Buddhas brought by the faithful as
+offerings in prayer.  The Baron struck the gong to attract Great
+Buddha's attention to his prayer and threw a handful of coins into
+the large bronze bowl.  And then this scion of crusaders who had
+read all the philosophers of the West, closed his eyes, placed his
+hands together before his face and prayed.  I noticed a black
+rosary on his left wrist.  He prayed about ten minutes.  Afterwards
+he led me to the other end of the monastery and, during our
+passage, said to me:
+
+"I do not like this temple.  It is new, erected by the Lamas when
+the Living Buddha became blind.  I do not find on the face of the
+golden Buddha either tears, hopes, distress or thanks of the
+people.  They have not yet had time to leave these traces on the
+face of the god.  We shall go now to the old Shrine of Prophecies."
+
+This was a small building, blackened with age and resembling a
+tower with a plain round roof.  The doors stood open.  At both
+sides of the door were prayer wheels ready to be spun; over it a
+slab of copper with the signs of the zodiac.  Inside two monks, who
+were intoning the sacred sutras, did not lift their eyes as we
+entered.  The General approached them and said:
+
+"Cast the dice for the number of my days!"
+
+The priests brought two bowls with many dice therein and rolled
+them out on their low table.  The Baron looked and reckoned with
+them the sum before he spoke:
+
+"One hundred thirty!  Again one hundred thirty!"
+
+Approaching the altar carrying an ancient stone statue of Buddha
+brought all the way from India, he again prayed.  As day dawned, we
+wandered out through the monastery, visited all the temples and
+shrines, the museum of the medical school, the astrological tower
+and then the court where the Bandi and young Lamas have their daily
+morning wrestling exercises.  In other places the Lamas were
+practising with the bow and arrow.  Some of the higher Lamas
+feasted us with hot mutton, tea and wild onions.  After we returned
+to the yurta I tried to sleep but in vain.  Too many different
+questions were troubling me.  "Where am I?  In what epoch am I
+living?"  I knew not but I dimly felt the unseen touch of some
+great idea, some enormous plan, some indescribable human woe.
+
+After our noon meal the General said he wanted to introduce me to
+the Living Buddha.  It is so difficult to secure audience with the
+Living Buddha that I was very glad to have this opportunity offered
+me.  Our auto soon drew up at the gate of the red and white striped
+wall surrounding the palace of the god.  Two hundred Lamas in
+yellow and red robes rushed to greet the arriving "Chiang Chun,"
+General, with the low-toned, respectful whisper "Khan!  God of
+War!"  As a regiment of formal ushers they led us to a spacious
+great hall softened by its semi-darkness.  Heavy carved doors
+opened to the interior parts of the palace.  In the depths of the
+hall stood a dais with the throne covered with yellow silk
+cushions.  The back of the throne was red inside a gold framing; at
+either side stood yellow silk screens set in highly ornamented
+frames of black Chinese wood; while against the walls at either
+side of the throne stood glass cases filled with varied objects
+from China, Japan, India and Russia.  I noticed also among them a
+pair of exquisite Marquis and Marquises in the fine porcelain of
+Sevres.  Before the throne stood a long, low table at which eight
+noble Mongols were seated, their chairman, a highly esteemed old
+man with a clever, energetic face and with large penetrating eyes.
+His appearance reminded me of the authentic wooden images of the
+Buddhist holymen with eyes of precious stones which I saw at the
+Tokyo Imperial Museum in the department devoted to Buddhism, where
+the Japanese show the ancient statues of Amida, Daunichi-Buddha,
+the Goddess Kwannon and the jolly old Hotei.
+
+This man was the Hutuktu Jahantsi, Chairman of the Mongolian
+Council of Ministers, and honored and revered far beyond the
+bournes of Mongolia.  The others were the Ministers--Khans and the
+Highest Princes of Khalkha.  Jahantsi Hutuktu invited Baron Ungern
+to the place at his side, while they brought in a European chair
+for me.  Baron Ungern announced to the Council of Ministers through
+an interpreter that he would leave Mongolia in a few days and urged
+them to protect the freedom won for the lands inhabited by the
+successors of Jenghiz Khan, whose soul still lives and calls upon
+the Mongols to become anew a powerful people and reunite again into
+one great Mid-Asiatic State all the Asian kingdoms he had ruled.
+
+The General rose and all the others followed him.  He took leave of
+each one separately and sternly.  Only before Jahantsi Lama he bent
+low while the Hutuktu placed his hands on the Baron's head and
+blessed him.  From the Council Chamber we passed at once to the
+Russian style house which is the personal dwelling of the Living
+Buddha.  The house was wholly surrounded by a crowd of red and
+yellow Lamas; servants, councilors of Bogdo, officials, fortune
+tellers, doctors and favorites.  From the front entrance stretched
+a long red rope whose outer end was thrown over the wall beside the
+gate.  Crowds of pilgrims crawling up on their knees touch this end
+of the rope outside the gate and hand the monk a silken hatyk or a
+bit of silver.  This touching of the rope whose inner end is in the
+hand of the Bogdo establishes direct communication with the holy,
+incarnated Living God.  A current of blessing is supposed to flow
+through this cable of camel's wool and horse hair.  Any Mongol who
+has touched the mystic rope receives and wears about his neck a red
+band as the sign of his accomplished pilgrimage.
+
+I had heard very much about the Bogdo Khan before this opportunity
+to see him.  I had heard of his love of alcohol, which had brought
+on blindness, about his leaning toward exterior western culture and
+about his wife drinking deep with him and receiving in his name
+numerous delegations and envoys.
+
+In the room which the Bogdo used as his private study, where two
+Lama secretaries watched day and night over the chest that
+contained his great seals, there was the severest simplicity.  On a
+low, plain, Chinese lacquered table lay his writing implements, a
+case of seals given by the Chinese Government and by the Dalai Lama
+and wrapped in a cloth of yellow silk.  Nearby was a low easy
+chair, a bronze brazier with an iron stovepipe leading up from it;
+on the walls were the signs of the swastika, Tibetan and Mongolian
+inscriptions; behind the easy chair a small altar with a golden
+statue of Buddha before which two tallow lamps were burning; the
+floor was covered with a thick yellow carpet.
+
+When we entered, only the two Lama secretaries were there, for the
+Living Buddha was in the small private shrine in an adjoining
+chamber, where no one is allowed to enter save the Bogdo Khan
+himself and one Lama, Kanpo-Gelong, who cares for the temple
+arrangements and assists the Living Buddha during his prayers of
+solitude.  The secretary told us that the Bogdo had been greatly
+excited this morning.  At noon he had entered his shrine.  For a
+long time the voice of the head of the Yellow Faith was heard in
+earnest prayer and after his another unknown voice came clearly
+forth.  In the shrine had taken place a conversation between the
+Buddha on earth and the Buddha of heaven--thus the Lamas phrased it
+to us.
+
+"Let us wait a little," the Baron proposed.  "Perhaps he will soon
+come out."
+
+As we waited the General began telling me about Jahantsi Lama,
+saying that, when Jahantsi is calm, he is an ordinary man but, when
+he is disturbed and thinks very deeply, a nimbus appears about his
+head.
+
+After half an hour the Lama secretaries suddenly showed signs of
+deep fear and began listening closely by the entrance to the
+shrine.  Shortly they fell on their faces on the ground.  The door
+slowly opened and there entered the Emperor of Mongolia, the Living
+Buddha, His Holiness Bogdo Djebtsung Damba Hutuktu, Khan of Outer
+Mongolia.  He was a stout old man with a heavy shaven face
+resembling those of the Cardinals of Rome.  He was dressed in the
+yellow silken Mongolian coat with a black binding.  The eyes of the
+blind man stood widely open.  Fear and amazement were pictured in
+them.  He lowered himself heavily into the easy chair and
+whispered:  "Write!"
+
+A secretary immediately took paper and a Chinese pen as the Bogdo
+began to dictate his vision, very complicated and far from clear.
+He finished with the following words:
+
+"This I, Bogdo Hutuktu Khan, saw, speaking with the great wise
+Buddha, surrounded by the good and evil spirits.  Wise Lamas,
+Hutuktus, Kanpos, Marambas and Holy Gheghens, give the answer to my
+vision!"
+
+As he finished, he wiped the perspiration from his head and asked
+who were present.
+
+"Khan Chiang Chin Baron Ungern and a stranger," one of the
+secretaries answered on his knees.
+
+The General presented me to the Bogdo, who bowed his head as a sign
+of greeting.  They began speaking together in low tones.  Through
+the open door I saw a part of the shrine.  I made out a big table
+with a heap of books on it, some open and others lying on the floor
+below; a brazier with the red charcoal in it; a basket containing
+the shoulder blades and entrails of sheep for telling fortunes.
+Soon the Baron rose and bowed before the Bogdo.  The Tibetan placed
+his hands on the Baron's head and whispered a prayer.  Then he took
+from his own neck a heavy ikon and hung it around that of the
+Baron.
+
+"You will not die but you will be incarnated in the highest form of
+being.  Remember that, Incarnated God of War, Khan of grateful
+Mongolia!"  I understood that the Living Buddha blessed the "Bloody
+General" before death.
+
+
+During the next two days I had the opportunity to visit the Living
+Buddha three times together with a friend of the Bogdo, the Buriat
+Prince Djam Bolon.  I shall describe these visits in Part IV.
+
+Baron Ungern organized the trip for me and my party to the shore of
+the Pacific.  We were to go on camels to northern Manchuria,
+because there it was easy to avoid cavilling with the Chinese
+authorities so badly oriented in the international relationship
+with Poland.  Having sent a letter from Uliassutai to the French
+Legation at Peking and bearing with me a letter from the Chinese
+Chamber of Commerce, expressing thanks for the saving of Uliassutai
+from a pogrom, I intended to make for the nearest station on the
+Chinese Eastern Railway and from there proceed to Peking.  The
+Danish merchant E. V. Olufsen was to have traveled out with me and
+also a learned Lama Turgut, who was headed for China.
+
+Never shall I forget the night of May 19th to 20th of 1921!  After
+dinner Baron Ungern proposed that we go to the yurta of Djam Bolon,
+whose acquaintance I had made on the first day after my arrival in
+Urga.  His yurta was placed on a raised wooden platform in a
+compound located behind the Russian settlement.  Two Buriat
+officers met us and took us in.  Djam Bolon was a man of middle
+age, tall and thin with an unusually long face.  Before the Great
+War he had been a simple shepherd but had fought together with
+Baron Ungern on the German front and afterwards against the
+Bolsheviki.  He was a Grand Duke of the Buriats, the successor of
+former Buriat kings who had been dethroned by the Russian
+Government after their attempt to establish the Independence of the
+Buriat people.  The servants brought us dishes with nuts, raisins,
+dates and cheese and served us tea.
+
+"This is the last night, Djam Bolon!" said Baron Ungern.  "You
+promised me . . ."
+
+"I remember," answered the Buriat, "all is ready."
+
+For a long time I listened to their reminiscences about former
+battles and friends who had been lost.  The clock pointed to
+midnight when Djam Bolon got up and went out of the yurta.
+
+"I want to have my fortune told once more," said Baron Ungern, as
+though he were justifying himself.  "For the good of our cause it
+is too early for me to die. . . ."
+
+Djam Bolon came back with a little woman of middle years, who
+squatted down eastern style before the brazier, bowed low and began
+to stare at Baron Ungern.  Her face was whiter, narrower and
+thinner than that of a Mongol woman.  Her eyes were black and
+sharp.  Her dress resembled that of a gypsy woman.  Afterwards I
+learned that she was a famous fortune teller and prophet among the
+Buriats, the daughter of a gypsy woman and a Buriat.  She drew a
+small bag very slowly from her girdle, took from it some small bird
+bones and a handful of dry grass.  She began whispering at
+intervals unintelligible words, as she threw occasional handfuls of
+the grass into the fire, which gradually filled the tent with a
+soft fragrance.  I felt a distinct palpitation of my heart and a
+swimming in my head.  After the fortune teller had burned all her
+grass, she placed the bird bones on the charcoal and turned them
+over again and again with a small pair of bronze pincers.  As the
+bones blackened, she began to examine them and then suddenly her
+face took on an expression of fear and pain.  She nervously tore
+off the kerchief which bound her head and, contracted with
+convulsions, began snapping out short, sharp phrases.
+
+"I see . . . I see the God of War. . . .  His life runs out . . .
+horribly. . . .  After it a shadow . . . black like the night. . . .
+Shadow. . . .  One hundred thirty steps remain. . . .  Beyond
+darkness. . . .  Nothing . . . I see nothing. . . .  The God of War
+has disappeared. . . ."
+
+Baron Ungern dropped his head.  The woman fell over on her back
+with her arms stretched out.  She had fainted, but it seemed to me
+that I noticed once a bright pupil of one of her eyes showing from
+under the closed lashes.  Two Buriats carried out the lifeless
+form, after which a long silence reigned in the yurta of the Buriat
+Prince.  Baron Ungern finally got up and began to walk around the
+brazier, whispering to himself.  Afterwards he stopped and began
+speaking rapidly:
+
+"I shall die!  I shall die! . . . but no matter, no matter. . . .
+The cause has been launched and will not die. . . .  I know the
+roads this cause will travel.  The tribes of Jenghiz Khan's
+successors are awakened.  Nobody shall extinguish the fire in the
+heart of the Mongols!  In Asia there will be a great State from the
+Pacific and Indian Oceans to the shore of the Volga.  The wise
+religion of Buddha shall run to the north and the west.  It will be
+the victory of the spirit.  A conqueror and leader will appear
+stronger and more stalwart than Jenghiz Khan and Ugadai.  He will
+be more clever and more merciful than Sultan Baber and he will keep
+power in his hands until the happy day when, from his subterranean
+capital, shall emerge the King of the World.  Why, why shall I not
+be in the first ranks of the warriors of Buddhism?  Why has Karma
+decided so?  But so it must be!  And Russia must first wash herself
+from the insult of revolution, purifying herself with blood and
+death; and all people accepting Communism must perish with their
+families in order that all their offspring may be rooted out!"
+
+The Baron raised his hand above his head and shook it, as though he
+were giving his orders and bequests to some invisible person.
+
+Day was dawning.
+
+"My time has come!" said the General.  "In a little while I shall
+leave Urga."
+
+He quickly and firmly shook hands with us and said:
+
+"Good-bye for all time!  I shall die a horrible death but the world
+has never seen such a terror and such a sea of blood as it shall
+now see. . . ."
+
+The door of the yurta slammed shut and he was gone.  I never saw
+him again.
+
+"I must go also, for I am likewise leaving Urga today."
+
+"I know it," answered the Prince, "the Baron has left you with me
+for some purpose.  I will give you a fourth companion, the Mongol
+Minister of War.  You will accompany him to your yurta.  It is
+necessary for you. . . ."
+
+Djam Bolon pronounced this last with an accent on every word.  I
+did not question him about it, as I was accustomed to the mystery
+of this country of the mysteries of good and evil spirits.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+"THE MAN WITH A HEAD LIKE A SADDLE"
+
+
+After drinking tea at Djam Bolon's yurta I rode back to my quarters
+and packed my few belongings.  The Lama Turgut was already there.
+
+"The Minister of War will travel with us," he whispered.  "It is
+necessary."
+
+"All right," I answered, and rode off to Olufsen to summon him.
+But Olufsen unexpectedly announced that he was forced to spend some
+few days more in Urga--a fatal decision for him, for a month later
+he was reported killed by Sepailoff who remained as Commandant of
+the city after Baron Ungern's departure.  The War Minister, a
+stout, young Mongol, joined our caravan.  When we had gone about
+six miles from the city, we saw an automobile coming up behind us.
+The Lama shrunk up inside his coat and looked at me with fear.  I
+felt the now familiar atmosphere of danger and so opened my holster
+and threw over the safety catch of my revolver.  Soon the motor
+stopped alongside our caravan.  In it sat Sepailoff with a smiling
+face and beside him his two executioners, Chestiakoff and Jdanoff.
+Sepailoff greeted us very warmly and asked:
+
+"You are changing your horses in Khazahuduk?  Does the road cross
+that pass ahead?  I don't know the way and must overtake an envoy
+who went there."
+
+The Minister of War answered that we would be in Khazahuduk that
+evening and gave Sepailoff directions as to the road.  The motor
+rushed away and, when it had topped the pass, he ordered one of the
+Mongols to gallop forward to see whether it had not stopped
+somewhere near the other side.  The Mongol whipped his steed and
+sped away.  We followed slowly.
+
+"What is the matter?" I asked.  "Please explain!"
+
+The Minister told me that Djam Bolon yesterday received information
+that Sepailoff planned to overtake me on the way and kill me.
+Sepailoff suspected that I had stirred up the Baron against him.
+Djam Bolon reported the matter to the Baron, who organized this
+column for my safety.  The returning Mongol reported that the motor
+car had gone on out of sight.
+
+"Now," said the Minister, "we shall take quite another route so
+that the Colonel will wait in vain for us at Khazahuduk."
+
+We turned north at Undur Dobo and at night were in the camp of a
+local prince.  Here we took leave of our Minister, received
+splendid fresh horses and quickly continued our trip to the east,
+leaving behind us "the man with the head like a saddle" against
+whom I had been warned by the old fortune teller in the vicinity of
+Van Kure.
+
+After twelve days without further adventures we reached the first
+railway station on the Chinese Eastern Railway, from where I
+traveled in unbelievable luxury to Peking.
+
+        *        *        *        *        *        *
+
+Surrounded by the comforts and conveniences of the splendid hotel
+at Peking, while shedding all the attributes of traveler, hunter
+and warrior, I could not, however, throw off the spell of those
+nine days spent in Urga, where I had daily met Baron Ungern,
+"Incarnated God of War."  The newspapers carrying accounts of the
+bloody march of the Baron through Transbaikalia brought the
+pictures ever fresh to my mind.  Even now, although more than seven
+months have elapsed, I cannot forget those nights of madness,
+inspiration and hate.
+
+The predictions are fulfilled.  Approximately one hundred thirty
+days afterwards Baron Ungern was captured by the Bolsheviki through
+the treachery of his officers and, it is reported, was executed at
+the end of September.
+
+Baron R. F. Ungern von Sternberg. . . .  Like a bloody storm of
+avenging Karma he spread over Central Asia.  What did he leave
+behind him?  The severe order to his soldiers closing with the
+words of the Revelations of St. John:
+
+"Let no one check the revenge against the corrupter and slayer of
+the soul of the Russian people.  Revolution must be eradicated from
+the World.  Against it the Revelations of St. John have warned us
+thus:  'And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked
+with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a
+golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her
+fornication, and upon her forehead a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON
+THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE
+EARTH.  And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints,
+and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.'"
+
+It is a human document, a document of Russian and, perhaps, of
+world tragedy.
+
+But there remained another and more important trace.  In the Mongol
+yurtas and at the fires of Buriat, Mongol, Djungar, Kirkhiz,
+Kalmuck and Tibetan shepherds still speak the legend born of this
+son of crusaders and privateers:
+
+"From the north a white warrior came and called on the Mongols to
+break their chains of slavery, which fell upon our freed soil.
+This white warrior was the Incarnated Jenghiz Khan and he predicted
+the coming of the greatest of all Mongols who will spread the fair
+faith of Buddha and the glory and power of the offspring of
+Jenghiz, Ugadai and Kublai Khan.  So it shall be!"
+
+Asia is awakened and her sons utter bold words.
+
+It were well for the peace of the world if they go forth as
+disciples of the wise creators, Ugadai and Sultan Baber, rather
+than under the spell of the "bad demons" of the destructive
+Tamerlane.
+
+
+
+Part IV
+
+THE LIVING BUDDHA
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+IN THE BLISSFUL GARDEN OF A THOUSAND JOYS
+
+
+In Mongolia, the country of miracles and mysteries, lives the
+custodian of all the mysterious and unknown, the Living Buddha, His
+Holiness Djebtsung Damba Hutuktu Khan or Bogdo Gheghen, Pontiff of
+Ta Kure.  He is the incarnation of the never-dying Buddha, the
+representative of the unbroken, mysteriously continued line of
+spiritual emperors ruling since 1670, concealing in themselves the
+ever refining spirit of Buddha Amitabha joined with Chan-ra-zi or
+the "Compassionate Spirit of the Mountains."  In him is everything,
+even the Sun Myth and the fascination of the mysterious peaks of
+the Himalayas, tales of the Indian pagoda, the stern majesty of the
+Mongolian Conquerors--Emperors of All Asia--and the ancient, hazy
+legends of the Chinese sages; immersion in the thoughts of the
+Brahmans; the severities of life of the monks of the "Virtuous
+Order"; the vengeance of the eternally wandering warriors, the
+Olets, with their Khans, Batur Hun Taigi and Gushi; the proud
+bequests of Jenghiz and Kublai Khan; the clerical reactionary
+psychology of the Lamas; the mystery of Tibetan kings beginning
+from Srong-Tsang Gampo; and the mercilessness of the Yellow Sect of
+Paspa.  All the hazy history of Asia, of Mongolia, Pamir,
+Himalayas, Mesopotamia, Persia and China, surrounds the Living God
+of Urga.  It is little wonder that his name is honored along the
+Volga, in Siberia, Arabia, between the Tigris and Euphrates, in
+Indo-China and on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.
+
+During my stay in Urga I visited the abode of the Living Buddha
+several times, spoke with him and observed his life.  His favorite
+learned Marambas gave me long accounts of him.  I saw him reading
+horoscopes, I heard his predictions, I looked over his archives of
+ancient books and the manuscripts containing the lives and
+predictions of all the Bogdo Khans.  The Lamas were very frank and
+open with me, because the letter of the Hutuktu of Narabanchi won
+for me their confidence.
+
+The personality of the Living Buddha is double, just as everything
+in Lamaism is double.  Clever, penetrating, energetic, he at the
+same time indulges in the drunkenness which has brought on
+blindness.  When he became blind, the Lamas were thrown into a
+state of desperation.  Some of them maintained that Bogdo Khan must
+be poisoned and another Incarnate Buddha set in his place; while
+the others pointed out the great merits of the Pontiff in the eyes
+of Mongolians and the followers of the Yellow Faith.  They finally
+decided to propitiate the gods by building a great temple with a
+gigantic statue of Buddha.  However, this did not help the Bogdo's
+sight but the whole incident gave him the opportunity of hurrying
+on to their higher life those among the Lamas who had shown too
+much radicalism in their proposed method of solving his problem.
+
+He never ceases to ponder upon the cause of the church and of
+Mongolia and at the same time likes to indulge himself with useless
+trifles.  He amuses himself with artillery.  A retired Russian
+officer presented him with two old guns, for which the donor
+received the title of Tumbaiir Hun, that is, "Prince Dear-to-my-
+Heart."  On holidays these cannon were fired to the great amusement
+of the blind man.  Motorcars, gramophones, telephones, crystals,
+porcelains, pictures, perfumes, musical instruments, rare animals
+and birds; elephants, Himalayan bears, monkeys, Indian snakes and
+parrots--all these were in the palace of "the god" but all were
+soon cast aside and forgotten.
+
+To Urga come pilgrims and presents from all the Lamaite and
+Buddhist world.  Once the treasurer of the palace, the Honorable
+Balma Dorji, took me into the great hall where the presents were
+kept.  It was a most unique museum of precious articles.  Here were
+gathered together rare objects unknown to the museums of Europe.
+The treasurer, as he opened a case with a silver lock, said to me:
+
+"These are pure gold nuggets from Bei Kem; here are black sables
+from Kemchick; these the miraculous deer horns; this a box sent by
+the Orochons and filled with precious ginseng roots and fragrant
+musk; this a bit of amber from the coast of the 'frozen sea' and it
+weighs 124 lans (about ten pounds); these are precious stones from
+India, fragrant zebet and carved ivory from China."
+
+He showed the exhibits and talked of them for a long time and
+evidently enjoyed the telling.  And really it was wonderful!
+Before my eyes lay the bundles of rare furs; white beaver, black
+sables, white, blue and black fox and black panthers; small
+beautifully carved tortoise shell boxes containing hatyks ten or
+fifteen yards long, woven from Indian silk as fine as the webs of
+the spider; small bags made of golden thread filled with pearls,
+the presents of Indian Rajahs; precious rings with sapphires and
+rubies from China and India; big pieces of jade, rough diamonds;
+ivory tusks ornamented with gold, pearls and precious stones;
+bright clothes sewn with gold and silver thread; walrus tusks
+carved in bas-relief by the primitive artists on the shores of the
+Behring Sea; and much more that one cannot recall or recount.  In a
+separate room stood the cases with the statues of Buddha, made of
+gold, silver, bronze, ivory, coral, mother of pearl and from a rare
+colored and fragrant species of wood.
+
+"You know when conquerors come into a country where the gods are
+honored, they break the images and throw them down.  So it was more
+than three hundred years ago when the Kalmucks went into Tibet and
+the same was repeated in Peking when the European troops looted the
+place in 1900.  But do you know why this is done?  Take one of the
+statues and examine it."
+
+I picked up one nearest the edge, a wooden Buddha, and began
+examining it.  Inside something was loose and rattled.
+
+"Do you hear it?" the Lama asked.  "These are precious stones and
+bits of gold, the entrails of the god.  This is the reason why the
+conquerors at once break up the statues of the gods.  Many famous
+precious stones have appeared from the interior of the statues of
+the gods in India, Babylon and China."
+
+Some rooms were devoted to the library, where manuscripts and
+volumes of different epochs in different languages and with many
+diverse themes fill the shelves.  Some of them are mouldering or
+pulverizing away and the Lamas cover these now with a solution
+which partially solidifies like a jelly to protect what remains
+from the ravages of the air.  There also we saw tablets of clay
+with the cuneiform inscriptions, evidently from Babylonia; Chinese,
+Indian and Tibetan books shelved beside those of Mongolia; tomes of
+the ancient pure Buddhism; books of the "Red Caps" or corrupt
+Buddhism; books of the "Yellow" or Lamaite Buddhism; books of
+traditions, legends and parables.  Groups of Lamas were perusing,
+studying and copying these books, preserving and spreading the
+ancient wisdom for their successors.
+
+One department is devoted to the mysterious books on magic, the
+historical lives and works of all the thirty-one Living Buddhas,
+with the bulls of the Dalai Lama, of the Pontiff from Tashi Lumpo,
+of the Hutuktu of Utai in China, of the Pandita Gheghen of Dolo Nor
+in Inner Mongolia and of the Hundred Chinese Wise Men.  Only the
+Bogdo Hutuktu and Maramba Ta-Rimpo-Cha can enter this room of
+mysterious lore.  The keys to it rest with the seals of the Living
+Buddha and the ruby ring of Jenghiz Khan ornamented with the sign
+of the swastika in the chest in the private study of the Bogdo.
+
+The person of His Holiness is surrounded by five thousand Lamas.
+They are divided into many ranks from simple servants to the
+"Councillors of God," of which latter the Government consists.
+Among these Councillors are all the four Khans of Mongolia and the
+five highest Princes.
+
+Of all the Lamas there are three classes of peculiar interest,
+about which the Living Buddha himself told me when I visited him
+with Djam Bolon.
+
+"The God" sorrowfully mourned over the demoralized and sumptuous
+life led by the Lamas which decreased rapidly the number of fortune
+tellers and clairvoyants among their ranks, saying of it:
+
+"If the Jahantsi and Narabanchi monasteries had not preserved their
+strict regime and rules, Ta Kure would have been left without
+prophets and fortune tellers.  Barun Abaga Nar, Dorchiul-Jurdok and
+the other holy Lamas who had the power of seeing that which is
+hidden from the sight of the common people have gone with the
+blessing of the gods."
+
+This class of Lamas is a very important one, because every
+important personage visiting the monasteries at Urga is shown to
+the Lama Tzuren or fortune teller without the knowledge of the
+visitor for the study of his destiny and fate, which are then
+communicated to the Bogdo Hutuktu, so that with these facts in his
+possession the Bogdo knows in what way to treat his guest and what
+policy to follow toward him.  The Tzurens are mostly old men,
+skinny, exhausted and severe ascetics.  But I have met some who
+were young, almost boys.  They were the Hubilgan, "incarnate gods,"
+the future Hutuktus and Gheghens of the various Mongolian
+monasteries.
+
+The second class is the doctors or "Ta Lama."  They observe the
+actions of plants and certain products from animals upon people,
+preserve Tibetan medicines and cures, and study anatomy very
+carefully but without making use of vivisection and the scalpel.
+They are skilful bone setters, masseurs and great connoisseurs of
+hypnotism and animal magnetism.
+
+The third class is the highest rank of doctors, consisting chiefly
+of Tibetans and Kalmucks--poisoners.  They may be said to be
+"doctors of political medicine."  They live by themselves, apart
+from any associates, and are the great silent weapon in the hands
+of the Living Buddha.  I was informed that a large portion of them
+are dumb.  I saw one such doctor,--the very person who poisoned the
+Chinese physician sent by the Chinese Emperor from Peking to
+"liquidate" the Living Buddha,--a small white old fellow with a
+deeply wrinkled face, a curl of white hairs on his chin and with
+vivacious eyes that were ever shifting inquiringly about him.
+Whenever he comes to a monastery, the local "god" ceases to eat and
+drink in fear of the activities of this Mongolian Locusta.  But
+even this cannot save the condemned, for a poisoned cap or shirt or
+boots, or a rosary, a bridle, books or religious articles soaked in
+a poisonous solution will surely accomplish the object of the
+Bogdo-Khan.
+
+The deepest esteem and religious faithfulness surround the blind
+Pontiff.  Before him all fall on their faces.  Khans and Hutuktus
+approach him on their knees.  Everything about him is dark, full of
+Oriental antiquity.  The drunken blind man, listening to the banal
+arias of the gramophone or shaking his servants with an electric
+current from his dynamo, the ferocious old fellow poisoning his
+political enemies, the Lama keeping his people in darkness and
+deceiving them with his prophecies and fortune telling,--he is,
+however, not an entirely ordinary man.
+
+One day we sat in the room of the Bogdo and Prince Djam Bolon
+translated to him my story of the Great War.  The old fellow was
+listening very carefully but suddenly opened his eyes widely and
+began to give attention to some sounds coming in from outside the
+room.  His face became reverent, supplicant and frightened.
+
+"The Gods call me," he whispered and slowly moved into his private
+shrine, where he prayed loudly about two hours, kneeling immobile
+as a statue.  His prayer consists of conversation with the
+invisible gods, to whose questions he himself gave the answers.  He
+came out of the shrine pale and exhausted but pleased and happy.
+It was his personal prayer.  During the regular temple service he
+did not participate in the prayers, for then he is "God."  Sitting
+on his throne, he is carried and placed on the altar and there
+prayed to by the Lamas and the people.  He only receives the
+prayers, hopes, tears, woe and desperation of the people,
+immobilely gazing into space with his sharp and bright but blind
+eyes.  At various times in the service the Lamas robe him in
+different vestments, combinations of yellow and red, and change his
+caps.  The service always finishes at the solemn moment when the
+Living Buddha with the tiara on his head pronounces the pontifical
+blessing upon the congregation, turning his face to all four
+cardinal points of the compass and finally stretching out his hands
+toward the northwest, that is, to Europe, whither in the belief of
+the Yellow Faith must travel the teachings of the wise Buddha.
+
+After earnest prayers or long temple services the Pontiff seems
+very deeply shaken and often calls his secretaries and dictates his
+visions and prophecies, always very complicated and unaccompanied
+by his deductions.
+
+Sometimes with the words "Their souls are communicating," he puts
+on his white robes and goes to pray in his shrine.  Then all the
+gates of the palace are shut and all the Lamas are sunk in solemn,
+mystic fear; all are praying, telling their rosaries and whispering
+the orison:  "Om! Mani padme Hung!" or turning the prayer wheels
+with their prayers or exorcisings; the fortune tellers read their
+horoscopes; the clairvoyants write out their visions; while
+Marambas search the ancient books for explanations of the words of
+the Living Buddha.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+THE DUST OF CENTURIES
+
+
+Have you ever seen the dusty cobwebs and the mould in the cellars
+of some ancient castle in Italy, France or England?  This is the
+dust of centuries.  Perhaps it touched the faces, helmets and
+swords of a Roman Augustus, St. Louis, the Inquisitor, Galileo or
+King Richard.  Your heart is involuntarily contracted and you feel
+a respect for these witnesses of elapsed ages.  This same
+impression came to me in Ta Kure, perhaps more deep, more
+realistic.  Here life flows on almost as it flowed eight centuries
+ago; here man lives only in the past; and the contemporary only
+complicates and prevents the normal life.
+
+"Today is a great day," the Living Buddha once said to me, "the day
+of the victory of Buddhism over all other religions.  It was a long
+time ago--on this day Kublai Khan called to him the Lamas of all
+religions and ordered them to state to him how and what they
+believed.  They praised their Gods and their Hutuktus.  Discussions
+and quarrels began.  Only one Lama remained silent.  At last he
+mockingly smiled and said:
+
+"'Great Emperor!  Order each to prove the power of his Gods by the
+performance of a miracle and afterwards judge and choose.'
+
+"Kublai Khan so ordered all the Lamas to show him a miracle but all
+were silent, confused and powerless before him.
+
+"'Now,' said the Emperor, addressing the Lama who had tendered this
+suggestion, 'now you must prove the power of your Gods!'
+
+"The Lama looked long and silently at the Emperor, turned and gazed
+at the whole assembly and then quietly stretched out his hand
+toward them.  At this instant the golden goblet of the Emperor
+raised itself from the table and tipped before the lips of the Khan
+without a visible hand supporting it.  The Emperor felt the delight
+of a fragrant wine.  All were struck with astonishment and the
+Emperor spoke:
+
+"'I elect to pray to your Gods and to them all people subject to me
+must pray.  What is your faith?  Who are you and from where do you
+come?'
+
+"'My faith is the teaching of the wise Buddha.  I am Pandita Lama,
+Turjo Gamba, from the distant and glorious monastery of Sakkia in
+Tibet, where dwells incarnate in a human body the Spirit of Buddha,
+his Wisdom and his Power.  Remember, Emperor, that the peoples who
+hold our faith shall possess all the Western Universe and during
+eight hundred and eleven years shall spread their faith throughout
+the whole world.'
+
+"Thus it happened on this same day many centuries ago!  Lama Turjo
+Gamba did not return to Tibet but lived here in Ta Kure, where
+there was then only a small temple.  From here he traveled to the
+Emperor at Karakorum and afterwards with him to the capital of
+China to fortify him in the Faith, to predict the fate of state
+affairs and to enlighten him according to the will of God."
+
+The Living Buddha was silent for a time, whispered a prayer and
+then continued:
+
+"Urga, the ancient nest of Buddhism. . . .  With Jenghiz Khan on
+his European conquest went out the Olets or Kalmucks.  They
+remained there almost four hundred years, living on the plains of
+Russia.  Then they returned to Mongolia because the Yellow Lamas
+called them to light against the Kings of Tibet, Lamas of the 'red
+caps,' who were oppressing the people.  The Kalmucks helped the
+Yellow Faith but they realized that Lhasa was too distant from the
+whole world and could not spread our Faith throughout the earth.
+Consequently the Kalmuck Gushi Khan brought up from Tibet a holy
+Lama, Undur Gheghen, who had visited the 'King of the World.'  From
+that day the Bogdo Gheghen has continuously lived in Urga, a
+protector of the freedom of Mongolia and of the Chinese Emperors of
+Mongolian origin.  Undur Gheghen was the first Living Buddha in the
+land of the Mongols.  He left to us, his successors, the ring of
+Jenghiz Khan, which was sent by Kublai Khan to Dalai Lama in return
+for the miracle shown by the Lama Turjo Gamba; also the top of the
+skull of a black, mysterious miracle worker from India, using which
+as a bowl, Strongtsan, King of Tibet, drank during the temple
+ceremonies one thousand six hundred years ago; as well as an
+ancient stone statue of Buddha brought from Delhi by the founder of
+the Yellow Faith, Paspa."
+
+The Bogdo clapped his hands and one of the secretaries took from a
+red kerchief a big silver key with which he unlocked the chest with
+the seals.  The Living Buddha slipped his hand into the chest and
+drew forth a small box of carved ivory, from which he took out and
+showed to me a large gold ring set with a magnificent ruby carved
+with the sign of the swastika.
+
+"This ring was always worn on the right hand of the Khans Jenghiz
+and Kublai," said the Bogdo.
+
+When the secretary had closed the chest, the Bogdo ordered him to
+summon his favorite Maramba, whom he directed to read some pages
+from an ancient book lying on the table.  The Lama began to read
+monotonously.
+
+"When Gushi Khan, the Chief of all the Olets or Kalmucks, finished
+the war with the 'Red Caps' in Tibet, he carried out with him the
+miraculous 'black stone' sent to the Dalai Lama by the 'King of the
+World.'  Gushi Khan wanted to create in Western Mongolia the
+capital of the Yellow Faith; but the Olets at that time were at war
+with the Manchu Emperors for the throne of China and suffered one
+defeat after another.  The last Khan of the Olets, Amursana, ran
+away into Russia but before his escape sent to Urga the sacred
+'black stone.'  While it remained in Urga so that the Living Buddha
+could bless the people with it, disease and misfortune never
+touched the Mongolians and their cattle.  About one hundred years
+ago, however, some one stole the sacred stone and since then
+Buddhists have vainly sought it throughout the whole world.  With
+its disappearance the Mongol people began gradually to die."
+
+"Enough!" ordered Bogdo Gheghen.  "Our neighbors hold us in
+contempt.  They forget that we were their sovereigns but we
+preserve our holy traditions and we know that the day of triumph of
+the Mongolian tribes and the Yellow Faith will come.  We have the
+Protectors of the Faith, the Buriats.  They are the truest
+guardians of the bequests of Jenghiz Khan."
+
+So spoke the Living Buddha and so have spoken the ancient books!
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+THE BOOKS OF MIRACLES
+
+
+Prince Djam Bolon asked a Maramba to show us the library of the
+Living Buddha.  It is a big room occupied by scores of writers who
+prepare the works dealing with the miracles of all the Living
+Buddhas, beginning with Undur Gheghen and ending with those of the
+Gheghens and Hutuktus of the different Mongol monasteries.  These
+books are afterwards distributed through all the Lama Monasteries,
+temples and schools of Bandi.  A Maramba read two selections:
+
+". . . The beatific Bogdo Gheghen breathed on a mirror.
+Immediately as through a haze there appeared the picture of a
+valley in which many thousands of thousands of warriors fought one
+against another. . . ."
+
+"The wise and favored-of-the-gods Living Buddha burned incense in a
+brazier and prayed to the Gods to reveal the lot of the Princes.
+In the blue smoke all saw a dark prison and the pallid, tortured
+bodies of the dead Princes. . . ."
+
+A special book, already done into thousands of copies, dwelt upon
+the miracles of the present Living Buddha.  Prince Djam Bolon
+described to me some of the contents of this volume.
+
+"There exists an ancient wooden Buddha with open eyes.  He was
+brought here from India and Bogdo Gheghen placed him on the altar
+and began to pray.  When he returned from the shrine, he ordered
+the statue of Buddha brought out.  All were struck with amazement,
+for the eyes of the God were shut and tears were falling from them;
+from the wooden body green sprouts appeared; and the Bogdo said:
+
+"'Woe and joy are awaiting me.  I shall become blind but Mongolia
+will be free.'
+
+"The prophecy is fulfilled.  At another time, on a day when the
+Living Buddha was very much excited, he ordered a basin of water
+brought and set before the altar.  He called the Lamas and began to
+pray.  Suddenly the altar candles and lamps lighted themselves and
+the water in the basin became iridescent."
+
+Afterwards the Prince described to me how the Bogdo Khan tells
+fortunes with fresh blood, upon whose surface appear words and
+pictures; with the entrails of sheep and goats, according to whose
+distribution the Bogdo reads the fate of the Princes and knows
+their thoughts; with stones and bones from which the Living Buddha
+with great accuracy reads the lot of all men; and by the stars, in
+accordance with whose positions the Bogdo prepares amulets against
+bullets and disease.
+
+"The former Bogdo Khans told fortunes only by the use of the 'black
+stone,'" said the Maramba.  "On the surface of the stone appeared
+Tibetan inscriptions which the Bogdo read and thus learned the lot
+of whole nations."
+
+When the Maramba spoke of the black stone with the Tibetan legends
+appearing on it, I at once recalled that it was possible.  In
+southeastern Urianhai, in Ulan Taiga, I came across a place where
+black slate was decomposing.  All the pieces of this slate were
+covered with a special white lichen, which formed very complicated
+designs, reminding me of a Venetian lace pattern or whole pages of
+mysterious runes.  When the slate was wet, these designs
+disappeared; and then, as they were dried, the patterns came out
+again.
+
+Nobody has the right or dares to ask the Living Buddha to tell his
+fortune.  He predicts only when he feels the inspiration or when a
+special delegate comes to him bearing a request for it from the
+Dalai Lama or the Tashi Lama.  When the Russian Czar, Alexander I,
+fell under the influence of Baroness Kzudener and of her extreme
+mysticism, he despatched a special envoy to the Living Buddha to
+ask about his destiny.  The then Bogdo Khan, quite a young man,
+told his fortune according to the "black stone" and predicted that
+the White Czar would finish his life in very painful wanderings
+unknown to all and everywhere pursued.  In Russia today there
+exists a popular belief that Alexander I spent the last days of his
+life as a wanderer throughout Russia and Siberia under the
+pseudonym of Feodor Kusmitch, helping and consoling prisoners,
+beggars and other suffering people, often pursued and imprisoned by
+the police and finally dying at Tomsk in Siberia, where even until
+now they have preserved the house where he spent his last days and
+have kept his grave sacred, a place of pilgrimages and miracles.
+The former dynasty of Romanoff was deeply interested in the
+biography of Feodor Kusmitch and this interest fixed the opinion
+that Kusmitch was really the Czar Alexander I, who had voluntarily
+taken upon himself this severe penance.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+THE BIRTH OF THE LIVING BUDDHA
+
+
+The Living Buddha does not die.  His soul sometimes passes into
+that of a child born on the day of his death and sometimes
+transfers itself to another being during the life of the Buddha.
+This new mortal dwelling of the sacred spirit of the Buddha almost
+always appears in the yurta of some poor Tibetan or Mongol family.
+There is a reason of policy for this.  If the Buddha appears in the
+family of a rich prince, it could result in the elevation of a
+family that would not yield obedience to the clergy (and such has
+happened in the past), while on the other hand any poor, unknown
+family that becomes the heritor of the throne of Jenghiz Khan
+acquires riches and is readily submissive to the Lamas.  Only three
+or four Living Buddhas were of purely Mongolian origin; the
+remainder were Tibetans.
+
+One of the Councillors of the Living Buddha, Lama-Khan Jassaktu,
+told me the following:
+
+"In the monasteries at Lhasa and Tashi Lumpo they are kept
+constantly informed through letters from Urga about the health of
+the Living Buddha.  When his human body becomes old and the Spirit
+of Buddha strives to extricate itself, special solemn services
+begin in the Tibetan temples together with the telling of fortunes
+by astrology.  These rites indicate the specially pious Lamas who
+must discover where the Spirit of the Buddha will be re-incarnated.
+For this purpose they travel throughout the whole land and observe.
+Often God himself gives them signs and indications.  Sometimes the
+white wolf appears near the yurta of a poor shepherd or a lamb with
+two heads is born or a meteor falls from the sky.  Some Lamas take
+fish from the sacred lake Tangri Nor and read on the scales thereof
+the name of the new Bogdo Khan; others pick out stones whose cracks
+indicate to them where they must search and whom they must find;
+while others secrete themselves in narrow mountain ravines to
+listen to the voices of the spirits of the mountains, pronouncing
+the name of the new choice of the Gods.  When he is found, all the
+possible information about his family is secretly collected and
+presented to the Most Learned Tashi Lama, having the name of
+Erdeni, "The Great Gem of Learning," who, according to the runes of
+Rama, verifies the selection.  If he is in agreement with it, he
+sends a secret letter to the Dalai Lama, who holds a special
+sacrifice in the Temple of the "Spirit of the Mountains" and
+confirms the election by putting his great seal on this letter of
+the Tashi Lama.
+
+If the old Living Buddha be still alive, the name of his successor
+is kept a deep secret; if the Spirit of Buddha has already gone out
+from the body of Bogdo Khan, a special legation appears from Tibet
+with the new Living Buddha.  The same process accompanies the
+election of the Gheghen and Hutuktus in all the Lamaite monasteries
+in Mongolia; but confirmation of the election resides with the
+Living Buddha and is only announced to Lhasa after the event.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+A PAGE IN THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT LIVING BUDDHA
+
+
+The present Bogdo Khan of Outer Mongolia is a Tibetan.  He sprang
+from a poor family living in the neighborhood of Sakkia Kure in
+western Tibet.  From earliest youth he had a stormy, quite
+unaesthetic nature.  He was fired with the idea of the independence
+and glorification of Mongolia and the successors of Jenghiz Khan.
+This gave him at once a great influence among the Lamas, Princes
+and Khans of Mongolia and also with the Russian Government which
+always tried to attract him to their side.  He did not fear to
+arraign himself against the Manchu dynasty in China and always had
+the help of Russia, Tibet, the Buriats and Kirghiz, furnishing him
+with money, weapons, warriors and diplomatic aid.  The Chinese
+Emperors avoided open war with the Living God, because it might
+arouse the protests of the Chinese Buddhists.  At one time they
+sent to the Bogdo Khan a skilful doctor-poisoner.  The Living
+Buddha, however, at once understood the meaning of this medical
+attention and, knowing the power of Asiatic poisons, decided to
+make a journey through the Mongol monasteries and through Tibet.
+As his substitute he left a Hubilgan who made friends with the
+Chinese doctor and inquired from him the purposes and details of
+his arrival.  Very soon the Chinese died from some unknown cause
+and the Living Buddha returned to his comfortable capital.
+
+On another occasion danger threatened the Living God.  It was when
+Lhasa decided that the Bogdo Khan was carrying out a policy too
+independent of Tibet.  The Dalai Lama began negotiations with
+several Khans and Princes with the Sain Noion Khan and Jassaktu
+Khan leading the movement and persuaded them to accelerate the
+immigration of the Spirit of Buddha into another human form.  They
+came to Urga where the Bogdo Khan met them with honors and
+rejoicings.  A great feast was made for them and the conspirators
+already felt themselves the accomplishers of the orders of the
+Dalai Lama.  However, at the end of the feast, they had different
+feelings and died with them during the night.  The Living Buddha
+ordered their bodies sent with full honors to their families.
+
+The Bogdo Khan knows every thought, every movement of the Princes
+and Khans, the slightest conspiracy against himself, and the
+offender is usually kindly invited to Urga, from where he does not
+return alive.
+
+The Chinese Government decided to terminate the line of the Living
+Buddhas.  Ceasing to fight with the Pontiff of Urga, the Government
+contrived the following scheme for accomplishing its ends.
+
+Peking invited the Pandita Gheghen from Dolo Nor and the head of
+the Chinese Lamaites, the Hutuktu of Utai, both of whom do not
+recognize the supremacy of the Living Buddha, to come to the
+capital.  They decided, after consulting the old Buddhistic books,
+that the present Bogdo Khan was to be the last Living Buddha,
+because that part of the Spirit of Buddha which dwells in the Bogdo
+Khans can abide only thirty-one times in the human body.  Bogdo
+Khan is the thirty-first Incarnated Buddha from the time of Undur
+Gheghen and with him, therefore, the dynasty of the Urga Pontiffs
+must cease.  However, on hearing this the Bogdo Khan himself did
+some research work and found in the old Tibetan manuscripts that
+one of the Tibetan Pontiffs was married and his son was a natural
+Incarnated Buddha.  So the Bogdo Khan married and now has a son, a
+very capable and energetic young man, and thus the religious throne
+of Jenghiz Khan will not be left empty.  The dynasty of the Chinese
+emperors disappeared from the stage of political events but the
+Living Buddha continues to be a center for the Pan-Asiatic idea.
+
+The new Chinese Government in 1920 held the Living Buddha under
+arrest in his palace but at the beginning of 1921 Baron Ungern
+crossed the sacred Bogdo-Ol and approached the palace from the
+rear.  Tibetan riders shot the Chinese sentries with bow and arrow
+and afterwards the Mongols penetrated into the palace and stole
+their "God," who immediately stirred up all Mongolia and awakened
+the hopes of the Asiatic peoples and tribes.
+
+In the great palace of the Bogdo a Lama showed me a special casket
+covered with a precious carpet, wherein they keep the bulls of the
+Dalai and Tashi Lamas, the decrees of the Russian and Chinese
+Emperors and the Treaties between Mongolia, Russia, China and
+Tibet.  In this same casket is the copper plate bearing the
+mysterious sign of the "King of the World" and the chronicle of the
+last vision of the Living Buddha.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+THE VISION OF THE LIVING BUDDHA OF MAY 17, 1921
+
+
+"I prayed and saw that which is hidden from the eyes of the people.
+A vast plain was spread before me surrounded by distant mountains.
+An old Lama carried a basket filled with heavy stones.  He hardly
+moved.  From the north a rider appeared in white robes and mounted
+on a white horse.  He approached the Lama and said to him:
+
+"'Give me your basket.  I shall help you to carry them to the
+Kure.'
+
+"The Lama handed his heavy burden up to him but the rider could not
+raise it to his saddle so that the old Lama had to place it back on
+his shoulder and continue on his way, bent under its heavy weight.
+Then from the north came another rider in black robes and on a
+black horse, who also approached the Lama and said:
+
+"'Stupid!  Why do you carry these stones when they are everywhere
+about the ground?'
+
+"With these words he pushed the Lama over with the breast of his
+horse and scattered the stones about the ground.  When the stones
+touched the earth, they became diamonds.  All three rushed to raise
+them but not one of them could break them loose from the ground.
+Then the old Lama exclaimed:
+
+"'Oh Gods!  All my life I have carried this heavy burden and now,
+when there was left so little to go, I have lost it.  Help me,
+great, good Gods!'
+
+"Suddenly a tottering old man appeared.  He collected all the
+diamonds into the basket without trouble, cleaned the dust from
+them, raised the burden to his shoulder and started out, speaking
+with the Lama:
+
+"'Rest a while, I have just carried my burden to the goal and I am
+glad to help you with yours.'
+
+"They went on and were soon out of sight, while the riders began to
+fight.  They fought one whole day and then the whole night and,
+when the sun rose over the plain, neither was there, either alive
+or dead, and no trace of either remained.  This I saw, Bogdo
+Hutuktu Khan, speaking with the Great and Wise Buddha, surrounded
+by the good and bad demons!  Wise Lamas, Hutuktus, Kampos, Marambas
+and Holy Gheghens, give the answer to my vision!"
+
+This was written in my presence on May 17th, 1921, from the words
+of the Living Buddha just as he came out of his private shrine to
+his study.  I do not know what the Hutuktu and Gheghens, the
+fortune tellers, sorcerers and clairvoyants replied to him; but
+does not the answer seem clear, if one realizes the present
+situation in Asia?
+
+Awakened Asia is full of enigmas but it is also full of answers to
+the questions set by the destiny of humankind.  This great
+continent of mysterious Pontiffs, Living Gods, Mahatmas and readers
+of the terrible book of Karma is awakening and the ocean of
+hundreds of millions of human lives is lashed with monstrous waves.
+
+
+
+Part V
+
+MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES--THE KING OF THE WORLD
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+THE SUBTERRANEAN KINGDOM
+
+
+"Stop!" whispered my old Mongol guide, as we were one day crossing
+the plain near Tzagan Luk.  "Stop!"
+
+He slipped from his camel which lay down without his bidding.  The
+Mongol raised his hands in prayer before his face and began to
+repeat the sacred phrase:  "Om! Mani padme Hung!"  The other
+Mongols immediately stopped their camels and began to pray.
+
+"What has happened?" I thought, as I gazed round over the tender
+green grass, up to the cloudless sky and out toward the dreamy soft
+rays of the evening sun.
+
+The Mongols prayed for some time, whispered among themselves and,
+after tightening up the packs on the camels, moved on.
+
+"Did you see," asked the Mongol, "how our camels moved their ears
+in fear?  How the herd of horses on the plain stood fixed in
+attention and how the herds of sheep and cattle lay crouched close
+to the ground?  Did you notice that the birds did not fly, the
+marmots did not run and the dogs did not bark?  The air trembled
+softly and bore from afar the music of a song which penetrated to
+the hearts of men, animals and birds alike.  Earth and sky ceased
+breathing.  The wind did not blow and the sun did not move.  At
+such a moment the wolf that is stealing up on the sheep arrests his
+stealthy crawl; the frightened herd of antelopes suddenly checks
+its wild course; the knife of the shepherd cutting the sheep's
+throat falls from his hand; the rapacious ermine ceases to stalk
+the unsuspecting salga.  All living beings in fear are
+involuntarily thrown into prayer and waiting for their fate.  So it
+was just now.  Thus it has always been whenever the King of the
+World in his subterranean palace prays and searches out the destiny
+of all peoples on the earth."
+
+In this wise the old Mongol, a simple, coarse shepherd and hunter,
+spoke to me.
+
+Mongolia with her nude and terrible mountains, her limitless
+plains, covered with the widely strewn bones of the forefathers,
+gave birth to Mystery.  Her people, frightened by the stormy
+passions of Nature or lulled by her deathlike peace, feel her
+mystery.  Her "Red" and "Yellow Lamas" preserve and poetize her
+mystery.  The Pontiffs of Lhasa and Urga know and possess her
+mystery.
+
+On my journey into Central Asia I came to know for the first time
+about "the Mystery of Mysteries," which I can call by no other
+name.  At the outset I did not pay much attention to it and did not
+attach to it such importance as I afterwards realized belonged to
+it, when I had analyzed and connoted many sporadic, hazy and often
+controversial bits of evidence.
+
+The old people on the shore of the River Amyl related to me an
+ancient legend to the effect that a certain Mongolian tribe in
+their escape from the demands of Jenghiz Khan hid themselves in a
+subterranean country.  Afterwards a Soyot from near the Lake of
+Nogan Kul showed me the smoking gate that serves as the entrance to
+the "Kingdom of Agharti."  Through this gate a hunter formerly
+entered into the Kingdom and, after his return, began to relate
+what he had seen there.  The Lamas cut out his tongue in order to
+prevent him from telling about the Mystery of Mysteries.  When he
+arrived at old age, he came back to the entrance of this cave and
+disappeared into the subterranean kingdom, the memory of which had
+ornamented and lightened his nomad heart.
+
+I received more realistic information about this from Hutuktu Jelyb
+Djamsrap in Narabanchi Kure.  He told me the story of the semi-
+realistic arrival of the powerful King of the World from the
+subterranean kingdom, of his appearance, of his miracles and of his
+prophecies; and only then did I begin to understand that in that
+legend, hypnosis or mass vision, whichever it may be, is hidden not
+only mystery but a realistic and powerful force capable of
+influencing the course of the political life of Asia.  From that
+moment I began making some investigations.
+
+The favorite Gelong Lama of Prince Chultun Beyli and the Prince
+himself gave me an account of the subterranean kingdom.
+
+"Everything in the world," said the Gelong, "is constantly in a
+state of change and transition--peoples science, religions, laws
+and customs.  How many great empires and brilliant cultures have
+perished!  And that alone which remains unchanged is Evil, the tool
+of Bad Spirits.  More than sixty thousand years ago a Holyman
+disappeared with a whole tribe of people under the ground and never
+appeared again on the surface of the earth.  Many people, however,
+have since visited this kingdom, Sakkia Mouni, Undur Gheghen,
+Paspa, Khan Baber and others.  No one knows where this place is.
+One says Afghanistan, others India.  All the people there are
+protected against Evil and crimes do not exist within its bournes.
+Science has there developed calmly and nothing is threatened with
+destruction.  The subterranean people have reached the highest
+knowledge.  Now it is a large kingdom, millions of men with the
+King of the World as their ruler.  He knows all the forces of the
+world and reads all the souls of humankind and the great book of
+their destiny.  Invisibly he rules eight hundred million men on the
+surface of the earth and they will accomplish his every order."
+
+Prince Chultun Beyli added:  "This kingdom is Agharti.  It extends
+throughout all the subterranean passages of the whole world.  I
+heard a learned Lama of China relating to Bogdo Khan that all the
+subterranean caves of America are inhabited by the ancient people
+who have disappeared underground.  Traces of them are still found
+on the surface of the land.  These subterranean peoples and spaces
+are governed by rulers owing allegiance to the King of the World.
+In it there is not much of the wonderful.  You know that in the two
+greatest oceans of the east and the west there were formerly two
+continents.  They disappeared under the water but their people went
+into the subterranean kingdom.  In underground caves there exists a
+peculiar light which affords growth to the grains and vegetables
+and long life without disease to the people.  There are many
+different peoples and many different tribes.  An old Buddhist
+Brahman in Nepal was carrying out the will of the Gods in making a
+visit to the ancient kingdom of Jenghiz,--Siam,--where he met a
+fisherman who ordered him to take a place in his boat and sail with
+him upon the sea.  On the third day they reached an island where he
+met a people having two tongues which could speak separately in
+different languages.  They showed to him peculiar, unfamiliar
+animals, tortoises with sixteen feet and one eye, huge snakes with
+a very tasty flesh and birds with teeth which caught fish for their
+masters in the sea.  These people told him that they had come up
+out of the subterranean kingdom and described to him certain parts
+of the underground country."
+
+The Lama Turgut traveling with me from Urga to Peking gave me
+further details.
+
+"The capital of Agharti is surrounded with towns of high priests
+and scientists.  It reminds one of Lhasa where the palace of the
+Dalai Lama, the Potala, is the top of a mountain covered with
+monasteries and temples.  The throne of the King of the World is
+surrounded by millions of incarnated Gods.  They are the Holy
+Panditas.  The palace itself is encircled by the palaces of the
+Goro, who possess all the visible and invisible forces of the
+earth, of inferno and of the sky and who can do everything for the
+life and death of man.  If our mad humankind should begin a war
+against them, they would be able to explode the whole surface of
+our planet and transform it into deserts.  They can dry up the
+seas, transform lands into oceans and scatter the mountains into
+the sands of the deserts.  By his order trees, grasses and bushes
+can be made to grow; old and feeble men can become young and
+stalwart; and the dead can be resurrected.  In cars strange and
+unknown to us they rush through the narrow cleavages inside our
+planet.  Some Indian Brahmans and Tibetan Dalai Lamas during their
+laborious struggles to the peaks of mountains which no other human
+feet had trod have found there inscriptions carved on the rocks,
+footprints in the snow and the tracks of wheels.  The blissful
+Sakkia Mouni found on one mountain top tablets of stone carrying
+words which he only understood in his old age and afterwards
+penetrated into the Kingdom of Agharti, from which he brought back
+crumbs of the sacred learning preserved in his memory.  There in
+palaces of wonderful crystal live the invisible rulers of all pious
+people, the King of the World or Brahytma, who can speak with God
+as I speak with you, and his two assistants, Mahytma, knowing the
+purposes of future events, and Mahynga, ruling the causes of these
+events."
+
+"The Holy Panditas study the world and all its forces.  Sometimes
+the most learned among them collect together and send envoys to
+that place where the human eyes have never penetrated.  This is
+described by the Tashi Lama living eight hundred and fifty years
+ago.  The highest Panditas place their hands on their eyes and at
+the base of the brain of younger ones and force them into a deep
+sleep, wash their bodies with an infusion of grass and make them
+immune to pain and harder than stones, wrap them in magic cloths,
+bind them and then pray to the Great God.  The petrified youths lie
+with eyes and ears open and alert, seeing, hearing and remembering
+everything.  Afterwards a Goro approaches and fastens a long,
+steady gaze upon them.  Very slowly the bodies lift themselves from
+the earth and disappear.  The Goro sits and stares with fixed eyes
+to the place whither he has sent them.  Invisible threads join them
+to his will.  Some of them course among the stars, observe their
+events, their unknown peoples, their life and their laws.  They
+listen to their talk, read their books, understand their fortunes
+and woes, their holiness and sins, their piety and evil.  Some are
+mingled with flame and see the creature of fire, quick and
+ferocious, eternally fighting, melting and hammering metals in the
+depths of planets, boiling the water for geysers and springs,
+melting the rocks and pushing out molten streams over the surface
+of the earth through the holes in the mountains.  Others rush
+together with the ever elusive, infinitesimally small, transparent
+creatures of the air and penetrate into the mysteries of their
+existence and into the purposes of their life.  Others slip into
+the depths of the seas and observe the kingdom of the wise
+creatures of the water, who transport and spread genial warmth all
+over the earth, ruling the winds, waves and storms. . . .  In
+Erdeni Dzu formerly lived Pandita Hutuktu, who had come from
+Agharti.  As he was dying, he told about the time when he lived
+according to the will of the Goro on a red star in the east,
+floated in the ice-covered ocean and flew among the stormy fires in
+the depths of the earth."
+
+These are the tales which I heard in the Mongolian yurtas of
+Princes and in the Lamaite monasteries.  These stories were all
+related in a solemn tone which forbade challenge and doubt.
+
+Mystery. . . .
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+THE KING OF THE WORLD BEFORE THE FACE OF GOD
+
+
+During my stay in Urga I tried to find an explanation of this
+legend about the King of the World.  Of course, the Living Buddha
+could tell me most of all and so I endeavored to get the story from
+him.  In a conversation with him I mentioned the name of the King
+of the World.  The old Pontiff sharply turned his head toward me
+and fixed upon me his immobile, blind eyes.  Unwillingly I became
+silent.  Our silence was a long one and after it the Pontiff
+continued the conversation in such a way that I understood he did
+not wish to accept the suggestion of my reference.  On the faces of
+the others present I noticed expressions of astonishment and fear
+produced by my words, and especially was this true of the custodian
+of the library of the Bogdo Khan.  One can readily understand that
+all this only made me the more anxious to press the pursuit.
+
+As I was leaving the study of the Bogdo Hutuktu, I met the
+librarian who had stepped out ahead of me and asked him if he would
+show me the library of the Living Buddha and used a very simple,
+sly trick with him.
+
+"Do you know, my dear Lama," I said, "once I rode in the plain at
+the hour when the King of the World spoke with God and I felt the
+impressive majesty of this moment."
+
+To my astonishment the old Lama very quietly answered me:  "It is
+not right that the Buddhist and our Yellow Faith should conceal it.
+The acknowledgment of the existence of the most holy and most
+powerful man, of the blissful kingdom, of the great temple of
+sacred science is such a consolation to our sinful hearts and our
+corrupt lives that to conceal it from humankind is a sin. . . .
+Well, listen," he continued, "throughout the whole year the King of
+the World guides the work of the Panditas and Goros of Agharti.
+Only at times he goes to the temple cave where the embalmed body of
+his predecessor lies in a black stone coffin.  This cave is always
+dark, but when the King of the World enters it the walls are
+striped with fire and from the lid of the coffin appear tongues of
+flame.  The eldest Goro stands before him with covered head and
+face and with hands folded across his chest.  This Goro never
+removes the covering from his face, for his head is a nude skull
+with living eyes and a tongue that speaks.  He is in communion with
+the souls of all who have gone before.
+
+"The King of the World prays for a long time and afterwards
+approaches the coffin and stretches out his hand.  The flames
+thereon burn brighter; the stripes of fire on the walls disappear
+and revive, interlace and form mysterious signs from the alphabet
+vatannan.  From the coffin transparent bands of scarcely noticeable
+light begin to flow forth.  These are the thoughts of his
+predecessor.  Soon the King of the World stands surrounded by an
+auriole of this light and fiery letters write and write upon the
+walls the wishes and orders of God.  At this moment the King of the
+World is in contact with the thoughts of all the men who influence
+the lot and life of all humankind: with Kings, Czars, Khans,
+warlike leaders, High Priests, scientists and other strong men.  He
+realizes all their thoughts and plans.  If these be pleasing before
+God, the King of the World will invisibly help them; if they are
+unpleasant in the sight of God, the King will bring them to
+destruction.  This power is given to Agharti by the mysterious
+science of 'Om,' with which we begin all our prayers.  'Om' is the
+name of an ancient Holyman, the first Goro, who lived three hundred
+thirty thousand years ago.  He was the first man to know God and
+who taught humankind to believe, hope and struggle with Evil.  Then
+God gave him power over all forces ruling the visible world.
+
+"After his conversation with his predecessor the King of the World
+assembles the 'Great Council of God,' judges the actions and
+thoughts of great men, helps them or destroys them.  Mahytma and
+Mahynga find the place for these actions and thoughts in the causes
+ruling the world.  Afterwards the King of the World enters the
+great temple and prays in solitude.  Fire appears on the altar,
+gradually spreading to all the altars near, and through the burning
+flame gradually appears the face of God.  The King of the World
+reverently announces to God the decisions and awards of the
+'Council of God' and receives in turn the Divine orders of the
+Almighty.  As he comes forth from the temple, the King of the World
+radiates with Divine Light."
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+REALITY OR RELIGIOUS FANTASY?
+
+
+"Has anybody seen the King of the World?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, yes!" answered the Lama.  "During the solemn holidays of the
+ancient Buddhism in Siam and India the King of the World appeared
+five times.  He rode in a splendid car drawn by white elephants and
+ornamented with gold, precious stones and finest fabrics; he was
+robed in a white mantle and red tiara with strings of diamonds
+masking his face.  He blessed the people with a golden apple with
+the figure of a Lamb above it.  The blind received their sight, the
+dumb spoke, the deaf heard, the crippled freely moved and the dead
+arose, wherever the eyes of the King of the World rested.  He also
+appeared five hundred and forty years ago in Erdeni Dzu, he was in
+the ancient Sakkai Monastery and in the Narabanchi Kure.
+
+"One of our Living Buddhas and one of the Tashi Lamas received a
+message from him, written with unknown signs on golden tablets.  No
+one could read these signs.  The Tashi Lama entered the temple,
+placed the golden tablet on his head and began to pray.  With this
+the thoughts of the King of the World penetrated his brain and,
+without having read the enigmatical signs, he understood and
+accomplished the message of the King."
+
+"How many persons have ever been to Agharti?" I questioned him.
+
+"Very many," answered the Lama, "but all these people have kept
+secret that which they saw there.  When the Olets destroyed Lhasa,
+one of their detachments in the southwestern mountains penetrated
+to the outskirts of Agharti.  Here they learned some of the lesser
+mysterious sciences and brought them to the surface of our earth.
+This is why the Olets and Kalmucks are artful sorcerers and
+prophets.  Also from the eastern country some tribes of black
+people penetrated to Agharti and lived there many centuries.
+Afterwards they were thrust out from the kingdom and returned to
+the earth, bringing with them the mystery of predictions according
+to cards, grasses and the lines of the palm.  They are the
+Gypsies. . . .  Somewhere in the north of Asia a tribe exists
+which is now dying and which came from the cave of Agharti,
+skilled in calling back the spirits of the dead as they float
+through the air."
+
+The Lama was silent and afterwards, as though answering my
+thoughts, continued.
+
+"In Agharti the learned Panditas write on tablets of stone all the
+science of our planet and of the other worlds.  The Chinese learned
+Buddhists know this.  Their science is the highest and purest.
+Every century one hundred sages of China collect in a secret place
+on the shores of the sea, where from its depths come out one
+hundred eternally-living tortoises.  On their shells the Chinese
+write all the developments of the divine science of the century."
+
+As I write I am involuntarily reminded of a tale of an old Chinese
+bonze in the Temple of Heaven at Peking.  He told me that tortoises
+live more than three thousand years without food and air and that
+this is the reason why all the columns of the blue Temple of Heaven
+were set on live tortoises to preserve the wood from decay.
+
+"Several times the Pontiffs of Lhasa and Urga have sent envoys to
+the King of the World," said the Lama librarian, "but they could
+not find him.  Only a certain Tibetan leader after a battle with
+the Olets found the cave with the inscription:  'This is the gate
+to Agharti.'  From the cave a fine appearing man came forth,
+presented him with a gold tablet bearing the mysterious signs and
+said:
+
+"'The King of the World will appear before all people when the time
+shall have arrived for him to lead all the good people of the world
+against all the bad; but this time has not yet come.  The most evil
+among mankind have not yet been born.
+
+"Chiang Chun Baron Ungern sent the young Prince Pounzig to seek out
+the King of the World but he returned with a letter from the Dalai
+Lama from Lhasa.  When the Baron sent him a second time, he did not
+come back."
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+THE PROPHECY OF THE KING OF THE WORLD IN 1890
+
+
+The Hutuktu of Narabanchi related the following to me, when I
+visited him in his monastery in the beginning of 1921:
+
+"When the King of the World appeared before the Lamas, favored of
+God, in this monastery thirty years ago he made a prophecy for the
+coming half century.  It was as follows:
+
+"'More and more the people will forget their souls and care about
+their bodies.  The greatest sin and corruption will reign on the
+earth.  People will become as ferocious animals, thirsting for the
+blood and death of their brothers.  The 'Crescent' will grow dim
+and its followers will descend into beggary and ceaseless war.  Its
+conquerors will be stricken by the sun but will not progress upward
+and twice they will be visited with the heaviest misfortune, which
+will end in insult before the eye of the other peoples.  The crowns
+of kings, great and small, will fall . . . one, two, three, four,
+five, six, seven, eight. . . .  There will be a terrible battle
+among all the peoples.  The seas will become red . . . the earth
+and the bottom of the seas will be strewn with bones . . . kingdoms
+will be scattered . . . whole peoples will die . . . hunger,
+disease, crimes unknown to the law, never before seen in the world.
+The enemies of God and of the Divine Spirit in man will come.
+Those who take the hand of another shall also perish.  The
+forgotten and pursued shall rise and hold the attention of the
+whole world.  There will be fogs and storms.  Bare mountains shall
+suddenly be covered with forests.  Earthquakes will come. . . .
+Millions will change the fetters of slavery and humiliation for
+hunger, disease and death.  The ancient roads will be covered with
+crowds wandering from one place to another.  The greatest and most
+beautiful cities shall perish in fire . . . one, two, three. . . .
+Father shall rise against son, brother against brother and mother
+against daughter. . . .  Vice, crime and the destruction of body
+and soul shall follow. . . .  Families shall be scattered. . . .
+Truth and love shall disappear. . . .  From ten thousand men one
+shall remain; he shall be nude and mad and without force and the
+knowledge to build him a house and find his food. . . .  He will
+howl as the raging wolf, devour dead bodies, bite his own flesh and
+challenge God to fight. . . .  All the earth will be emptied.  God
+will turn away from it and over it there will be only night and
+death.  Then I shall send a people, now unknown, which shall tear
+out the weeds of madness and vice with a strong hand and will lead
+those who still remain faithful to the spirit of man in the fight
+against Evil.  They will found a new life on the earth purified by
+the death of nations.  In the fiftieth year only three great
+kingdoms will appear, which will exist happily seventy-one years.
+Afterwards there will be eighteen years of war and destruction.
+Then the peoples of Agharti will come up from their subterranean
+caverns to the surface of the earth.'"
+
+        *        *        *        *        *        *
+
+Afterwards, as I traveled farther through Eastern Mongolia and to
+Peking, I often thought:
+
+"And what if . . . ?  What if whole peoples of different colors,
+faiths and tribes should begin their migration toward the West?"
+
+And now, as I write these final lines, my eyes involuntarily turn
+to this limitless Heart of Asia over which the trails of my
+wanderings twine.  Through whirling snow and driving clouds of sand
+of the Gobi they travel back to the face of the Narabanchi Hutuktu
+as, with quiet voice and a slender hand pointing to the horizon, he
+opened to me the doors of his innermost thoughts:
+
+"Near Karakorum and on the shores of Ubsa Nor I see the huge,
+multi-colored camps, the herds of horses and cattle and the blue
+yurtas of the leaders.  Above them I see the old banners of Jenghiz
+Khan, of the Kings of Tibet, Siam, Afghanistan and of Indian
+Princes; the sacred signs of all the Lamaite Pontiffs; the coats of
+arms of the Khans of the Olets; and the simple signs of the north
+Mongolian tribes.  I do not hear the noise of the animated crowd.
+The singers do not sing the mournful songs of mountain, plain and
+desert.  The young riders are not delighting themselves with the
+races on their fleet steeds. . . .  There are innumerable crowds of
+old men, women and children and beyond in the north and west, as
+far as the eye can reach, the sky is red as a flame, there is the
+roar and crackling of fire and the ferocious sound of battle.  Who
+is leading these warriors who there beneath the reddened sky are
+shedding their own and others' blood?  Who is leading these crowds
+of unarmed old men and women?  I see severe order, deep religious
+understanding of purposes, patience and tenacity . . . a new great
+migration of peoples, the last march of the Mongols. . . ."
+
+Karma may have opened a new page of history!
+
+And what if the King of the World be with them?
+
+But this greatest Mystery of Mysteries keeps its own deep silence.
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+
+Agronome.--Russian for trained agriculturalist.
+
+Amour sayn.--Good-bye.
+
+Ataman.--Headman or chief of the Cossacks.
+
+Bandi.--Pupil or student of theological school in the Buddhist
+faith.
+
+Buriat.--The most civilized Mongol tribe, living in the valley of
+the Selenga in Transbaikalia.
+
+Chahars.--A warlike Mongolian tribe living along the Great Wall of
+China in Inner Mongolia.
+
+Chaidje.--A high Lamaite priest, but not an incarnate god.
+
+Cheka.--The Bolshevik Counter-Revolutionary Committee, the most
+relentless establishment of the Bolsheviki, organized for the
+persecution of the enemies of the Communistic government in Russia.
+
+Chiang Chun.--Chinese for "General"--Chief of all Chinese troops in
+Mongolia.
+
+Dalai Lama.--The first and highest Pontiff of the Lamaite or
+"Yellow Faith," living at Lhasa in Tibet.
+
+Djungar.--A West Mongolian tribe.
+
+Dugun.--Chinese commercial and military post.
+
+Dzuk.--Lie down!
+
+Fang-tzu.--Chinese for "house."
+
+Fatil.--A very rare and precious root much prized in Chinese and
+Tibetan medicines.
+
+Felcher.--Assistant of a doctor (surgeon).
+
+Gelong.--Lamaite priest having the right to offer sacrifices to
+God.
+
+Getul.--The third rank in the Lamaite monks.
+
+Goro.--The high priest of the King of the World.
+
+Hatyk.--An oblong piece of blue (or yellow) silk cloth, presented
+to honored guests, chiefs, Lamas and gods.  Also a kind of coin,
+worth from 25 to 50 cents.
+
+Hong.--A Chinese mercantile establishment.
+
+Hun.--The lowest rank of princes.
+
+Hunghutze.--Chinese brigand.
+
+Hushun.--A fenced enclosure, containing the houses, paddocks,
+stores, stables, etc., of Russian Cossacks in Mongolia.
+
+Hutuktu.--The highest rank of Lamaite monks; the form of any
+incarnated god; holy.
+
+Imouran.--A small rodent like a gopher.
+
+Izubr.--The American elk.
+
+Kabarga.--The musk antelope.
+
+Kalmuck.--A Mongolian tribe, which migrated from Mongolia under
+Jenghiz Khan (where they were known as the Olets or Eleuths), and
+now live in the Urals and on the shores of the Volga in Russia.
+
+Kanpo.--The abbot of a Lamaite monastery, a monk; also the first
+rank of "white" clergy (not monks).
+
+Kanpo-Gelong.--The highest rank of Gelongs (q.v.); an honorary
+title.
+
+Karma.--The Buddhist materialization of the idea of Fate, a
+parallel with the Greek and Roman Nemesis (Justice).
+
+Khan.--A king.
+
+Khayrus.--A kind of trout.
+
+Khirghiz.--The great Mongol nation living between the river Irtish
+in western Siberia, Lake Balhash and the Volga in Russia.
+
+Kuropatka.--A partridge.
+
+Lama.--The common name for a Lamaite priest.
+
+Lan.--A weight of silver or gold equivalent to about one-eleventh
+of a Russian pound, or 9/110ths of a pound avoirdupois.
+
+Lanhon.--A round bottle of clay.
+
+Maramba.--A doctor of theology.
+
+Merin.--The civil chief of police in every district of the Soyot
+country in Urianhai.
+
+"Om! Mani padme Hung!".--"Om" has two meanings.  It is the name of
+the first Goro and also means:  "Hail!"  In this connection:
+"Hail!  Great Lama in the Lotus Flower!"
+
+Mende.--Soyot greeting--"Good Day."
+
+Nagan-hushun.--A Chinese vegetable garden or enclosure in Mongolia.
+
+Naida.--A form of fire used by Siberian woodsmen.
+
+Noyon.--A Prince or Khan.  In polite address:  "Chief,"
+"Excellency."
+
+Obo.--The sacred and propitiatory signs in all the dangerous places
+in Urianhai and Mongolia.
+
+Olets.--Vid:  Kalmuck.
+
+Om.--The name of the first Goro (q.v.) and also of the mysterious,
+magic science of the Subterranean State.  It means, also:  "Hail!"
+
+Orochons.--A Mongolian tribe, living near the shores of the Amur
+River in Siberia.
+
+Oulatchen.--The guard for the post horses; official guide.
+
+Ourton.--A post station, where the travelers change horses and
+oulatchens.
+
+Pandita.--The high rank of Buddhist monks.
+
+Panti.--Deer horns in the velvet, highly prized as a Tibetan and
+Chinese medicine.
+
+Pogrom.--A wholesale slaughter of unarmed people; a massacre.
+
+Paspa.--The founder of the Yellow Sect, predominating now in the
+Lamaite faith.
+
+Sait.--A Mongolian governor.
+
+Salga.--A sand partridge.
+
+Sayn.--"Good day!"  "Good morning!"  "Good evening!"  All right;
+good.
+
+Taiga.--A Siberian word for forest.
+
+Taimen.--A species of big trout, reaching 120 pounds.
+
+Ta Lama.--Literally:  "the great priest," but it means now "a
+doctor of medicine."
+
+Tashur.--A strong bamboo stick.
+
+Turpan.--The red wild goose or Lama-goose.
+
+Tzagan.--White.
+
+Tzara.--A document, giving the right to receive horses and
+oulatchens at the post stations.
+
+Tsirik.--Mongolian soldiers mobilized by levy.
+
+Tzuren.--A doctor-poisoner.
+
+Ulan.--Red.
+
+Urga.--The name of the capital of Mongolia; (2) a kind of Mongolian
+lasso.
+
+Vatannen.--The language of the Subterranean State of the King of
+the World.
+
+Wapiti.--The American elk.
+
+Yurta.--The common Mongolian tent or house, made of felt.
+
+Zahachine.--A West Mongolian wandering tribe.
+
+Zaberega.--The ice-mountains formed along the shores of a river in
+spring.
+
+Zikkurat.--A high tower of Babylonish style.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext Beasts, Men and Gods, by F. Ossendowski
+
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