Siberia and the Exile System/Volume 2/Chapter III
CHAPTER III
A VISIT TO THE SELENGÍNSK LAMASERY
THE latter part of our stay in the city of Irkútsk was devoted mainly to preparations for the journey that we were about to make through the little-known territory of the Trans-Baikál. We anticipated that this would be a very hard experience. The region that we purposed to explore was wilder and lonelier than any part of Siberia we had seen except the Altái; the convict mines, which we wished to inspect, were scattered over a rough, mountainous country thousands of square miles in extent, lying between the head-waters of the Amúr and the frontier of Mongolia; most of these mines were off the regular post roads, and were not laid down on the maps; we anticipated great difficulty in obtaining permission to visit them, and still greater difficulty in actually reaching them; and finally, we were about to plunge into this wilderness of the Trans-Baikál at the beginning of a semi-arctic winter, when storms and bitter cold would be added to the hardships with which we were already familiar. Owing to the fact that the territory of the Trans-Baikál had shortly before been detached from the governor-generalship of Eastern Siberia and annexed to the governor-generalship of the Amúr, we could not get in Irkútsk any assurance that permission to visit the mines would be granted us. In reply to my questions upon the subject Count Ignátief and Acting-Governor Petróf merely said, "The Trans-Baikál is out of our jurisdiction; for permission to visit the mines you will have to apply to Governor-general Korf or to Governor Barabásh."
As both of the officials last named were at that time in Khabarófka, on the lower Amúr, nearly 1500 miles beyond the mines and 2000 miles from Irkútsk, the prospect of getting their permission did not seem to be very bright. We determined, however, to go ahead without permission, 
ROUTE FROM IRKÚTSK TO KIÁKHTA. trusting to be saved, by luck and our own wits, from any serious trouble. Instead of proceeding directly to the mines, we decided to make a detour to the southward from Vérkhni Údinsk, for the purpose of visiting Kiákhta, the Mongolian frontier-town of Maimáchin, and the great Buddhist lamasery of Goose Lake. We were tired of prisons and the exile system; we had had misery enough for a while; and it seemed to me that we should be in better condition to bear the strain of the mines if we could turn our thoughts temporarily into other channels and travel a little, as boys say, "for fun." I was anxious, moreover, to see something of that corrupted form of the Buddhistic religion called Lamaism, which prevails so extensively in the Trans-Baikál, and which is there localized and embodied in the peculiar monastic temples known to the Russians as datsáns, or lamaseries. The lamasery of Goose Lake had been described to us in Irkútsk as one of the most interesting and important of these temples, for the reason that it was the residence of the Khambá Láma, or Grand Lama of Eastern Siberia. It was distant only thirty versts from the village of Selengínsk, through which we must necessarily pass on our way to Kiákhta; we could visit it without much trouble, and we decided, therefore, to make it our first objective point.
There are two routes by which it is possible to go from Irkútsk into the Trans-Baikál. The first and most direct of them follows the river Angará for about forty miles to its source in Lake Baikál, and then crosses that lake to the village of Boyárskaya. The second and longer route leads to Boyárskaya by a picturesque "cornice road," carried with much engineering skill entirely around the southern end of the lake, high above the water, on the slopes and cliffs of the circumjacent mountains. The "round-the-lake" route, on account of the beauty of its scenery, would probably have been our choice had it been open to us; but recent floods had swept away a number of bridges near the southwestern extremity of the lake, and thus for the time had put a stop to all through travel. There remained nothing for us to do, therefore, but to cross the lake by steamer.
In view of the near approach of winter, we decided to leave our heavy tárantás in Irkútsk for sale, and to travel, until snow should fall, in the ordinary wheel vehicles of the country, transferring our baggage from one conveyance to another at every post-station. This course of procedure is known in Siberia as traveling na perekladníkh, or "on transfers," and a more wretched, exasperating, body-bruising, and heart-breaking system of transportation does not anywhere exist. If we could have anticipated one-tenth part of the misery that we were to endure as a result of traveling "on transfers" in the Trans-Baikál, we should never have made the fatal mistake of leaving our roomy and comparatively comfortable tárantás in Irkútsk.
Thursday afternoon, September 24th, we ordered horses, stowed away our baggage in the small, springless vehicle that was sent to us from the post-station, seated ourselves insecurely on the uneven surface made by furs, satchels, bread-bags, tea-boxes, felt boots, and the photographic apparatus, bade good-by to Lieutenant Schuetze, Mr. Bukófski, and Zhan, who had assembled in the courtyard to see us off, and finally, with a measured jangling of two or three discordant bells from the wooden arch over the thill-horse's back, rode out of the city and up the right bank of the Angará, on our way to Lake Baikál, the lamasery of Gusínnoí Ózera, Kiákhta, and the convict mines.
The weather was warm and sunshiny; there was a faint, soft autumnal haze in the air; and the foliage of the deciduous trees, although touched with color by the frost, had not yet fallen. Flowers still lingered here and there in sheltered places, and occasionally a yellow butterfly zigzagged lazily across the road ahead of us. The farmer's grain had everywhere been harvested, the last hay had been stacked, and in the courtyards of many of the village houses we noticed quantities of tobacco or hemp plant spread out in the sunshine to dry.
About half way between Irkútsk and the first post-station we met a man driving a team of four horses harnessed to a vehicle that looked like a menagerie-wagon, or a closed wild-beast cage. I asked our driver what it was, and he replied that he presumed it was the Siberian tiger that was to be brought to Irkútsk for exhibition from some place on the Amúr. A living tiger captured in Siberia seemed to us a novelty worthy of attention; and directing our driver to stop and wait for us, we ran back and asked the tiger's keeper if he would not open the cage and let us see the animal. He good-humoredly consented, and as we pressed eagerly up to the side of the wagon he took down the wide, thin boards that masked the iron grating. We heard a hoarse, angry snarl, and then before we had time to step back a huge, tawny beast striped with black threw himself against the frail bars with such tremendous violence and ferocity that the wagon fairly rocked on its wheels, and we thought for a single breathless instant that he was coming through like a three-hundred-pound missile from a catapult. The grating of half-inch iron, however, was stronger and more firmly secured than it seemed to be; and although it was bent a little by the shock, it did not give way. The keeper seized a long, heavy iron bar and belabored the tiger with it through the grating until he finally lay down in one corner of the cage, snarling sullenly and fiercely like an enraged cat. I could not learn from the keeper the weight nor the dimensions of this tiger, but he seemed to me to be a splendid beast, quite as large as any specimen I had ever seen. He had been captured by some Russian peasants in the valley of the Amúr — one of the very few places on the globe where the tropical tiger meets the arctic reindeer.
The distance from Irkútsk to Lake Baikál is only forty miles; and as the road along the Angará was smooth and in good condition, we made rapid progress. The farther we went to the eastward, the higher and more picturesque became the banks of the river. On the last station they assumed an almost mountainous character, and along one side of the deep gorge formed by them the narrow, sinuous road was carried at a height of fifty or sixty feet above the water in an artificial cutting, bordered for miles at a time by a substantial guard-rail.
As it grew dark a cold, dense fog began to drift down the gorge from the lake; now hiding everything from sight except a short stretch of road hung apparently in misty mid-air, and then opening in great ragged rents, or gaps, through which loomed the dim but exaggerated outlines of the dark, craggy heights on the opposite shore. The surface of Lake Baikál is more than 400 feet higher than the city of Irkútsk, and the river Angará, through which the lake discharges into the arctic ocean, falls that 400 feet in a distance of 40 miles, making a current that is everywhere extremely swift, and that runs in some places at the rate of 12 or 15 miles an hour. Steamers ply back and forth between the city and the lake, but they are six or eight hours in struggling up-stream, while they come down in about two. At the outlet, where the current is swiftest, the river never entirely freezes over, and it does not close opposite Irkútsk until some time in January, although the thermometer frequently goes to forty degrees below zero in December. The Angará is in all respects a peculiar and original river. Instead of coming into existence as a brook, it is born a mile wide with a current like a mill-race. Although its water, even in the hottest midsummer weather, is icy cold, it is the very last river in Siberia to freeze. It chills the adventurous bather to the bone in August, and then in the coldest weather of December steams as if it were boiling. Finally, it overflows its banks, not in the spring, when other rivers overflow theirs, but in early winter, when all other streams are locked in ice.
We reached the coast of Lake Baikál, at the village of Lístvinichnaya, about nine o'clock Thursday evening. A raw, chilly wind, laden with moisture, was blowing off the water, and the cell-like room to which we were shown in the small log hotel opposite the steamer-landing was so cold that as soon as possible we went to bed in our caps, boots, and heavy sheepskin overcoats. The words "went to bed" are, of course, to be understood figuratively. As a matter of fact, we simply lay down on the floor. We did not see a civilized bed in the Trans-Baikál, and I slept in all my clothing more than three-fourths of the time from the 1st of October to the 20th of March.
The steamer did not sail Friday until noon, and we therefore had ample time to study and sketch the lake port of Lístvinichnaya. It was a small village of perhaps a hundred insignificant log houses, scattered thinly along a single street, which extended for a mile or two up and down the lake between a range of high wooded hills and the water. The only harbor that the place could boast was a small semi-inclosure made by a low breakwater, within which a side-wheel steamer called the Platon was lying quietly at anchor. The blue water of the lake was hardly more than rippled by a gentle north-easterly breeze, and far away beyond it could be seen a long line of snow-covered mountains in the
Trans-Baikál. I was a little surprised to find the lake so narrow. Although it has a length of nearly 400 miles, its width at Lístvinichnaya is only 20 miles, and its average width not much more than 30. The opposite coast can therefore be seen from the steamer-landing with great distinctness; and as it is very high and mountainous, it can be traced by the eye for a distance of 60 or 70 miles. Mr. Frost spent the greater part of Friday morning in making sketches of the village and the lake, while I returned to the hotel, after a short walk along the shore, and devoted myself to letter-writing. About half-past ten Frost came in and reported that the steamer Buriát with the mails from Irkútsk was in sight, that the Platon had made fast to the wharf, and that it was time to go on board. We walked down to the landing, engaged the only first-class stateroom on the steamer, had our baggage transferred to it, and then waited an hour and a half for the mails from the Buriát. They came on board at last; and the Platon, backing slowly out of the encircling arm of the breakwater, started up the lake.
Our fellow-passengers did not number more than twenty or thirty, and most of them seemed to be traveling third class on deck. The only persons who interested me were three or four Chinese traders, in their characteristic national dress, who spoke funny "pigeon Russian," and who were on their way to Kiákhta with about a thousand pounds of medicinal deer-horns.
The eastern coast of the lake, as we steamed slowly northward, became lower, less mountainous, and less picturesque, and before dark the high, snow-covered peaks that we had seen from Lístvinichnaya vanished in the distance behind us. We arrived off Boyárskaya about six o'clock in the evening, but to our great disappointment were unable to land. A strong breeze was blowing down the lake, it was very dark, and the sea was so high that the captain could not get alongside the unsheltered wharf. He made three unsuccessful attempts, and then ran out into the lake and
anchored. We spent a very uncomfortable night on narrow benches in our prison cell of a stateroom, while the small steamer rolled and plunged on the heavy sea, and we were more than glad when morning finally dawned and the Platon ran up to her wharf. But we did not know what the Trans-Baikál had in store for us. In less than forty-eight hours we should have been glad to get back on board that same steamer, and should have regarded our prison-cell stateroom as the lap of luxury.
We went ashore, of course, without breakfast; the weather was damp and chilly, with a piercing north-easterly wind; the wretched village of Boyárskaya contained no hotel; the post-station was cold, dirty, 
AN EAST-SIBERIAN TELÉGA. and full of travelers lying asleep on benches or on the mud-incrusted plank floor; there were no horses to carry us away from the place; and the outlook was discouraging generally. We were in a blue chill from hunger and cold before we could even find shelter. We succeeded at last in hiring "free" horses from a young peasant on the wharf; and after drinking tea and eating a little bread in his log cabin, we piled our baggage up in the shallow box of a small, springless teléga, climbed up on top of it, and set out for Selengínsk.
On a bad, rough road an East-Siberian teléga of the type shown in the illustration on this page will simply jolt a man's soul out in less than twenty-four hours. Before we had traveled sixty miles in the Trans-Baikál I was so exhausted that I could hardly sit upright; my head and spine ached so violently, and had become so sensitive to shock, that every jolt was as painful as a blow from a club; I had tried to save my head by supporting my body on my bent arms until my arms no longer had any strength; and when we reached the post-station of Ílinskaya, at half-past ten o'clock Saturday night, I felt worse than at any time since crossing the Uráls. After drinking tea and eating a little bread, which was all that we could get, we immediately went to bed, Frost lying on the floor near the oven, while I took a wooden bench beside the window. After a long struggle with parasitic vermin, I finally sank into a doze. I was almost immediately awakened by the arrival of an under-officer traveling on a Government padarózhnaya. Candles were lighted; the officer paced back and forth in our room, talking loudly with the station-master about the condition of the roads; and sleep, of course, was out of the question. In half an hour he went on with fresh horses, the lights were again put out, and we composed ourselves for slumber. In twenty minutes the post arrived from Irkutsk. The transferring of twelve teléga-loads of mailbags from one set of vehicles to another, and the changing of about thirty horses, caused a general hubbub which lasted another hour. Every time the door was opened there was a rush of cold air into the overheated room, and we alternated between a state of fever and a state of chill. About half-past one o'clock in the morning the post finally got away, with much shouting and jangling of bells, the lights were put out, and the station again quieted down. We had hardly closed our eyes when the door was thrown wide open, and somebody stalked in shouting lustily in the dark for the station-master. This party of travelers proved to be a man, his wife, and a small baby with the croup. The woman improvised a bed for the infant on two chairs, and then she and her husband proceeded to drink tea. The hissing of the samovár, the rattling of dishes, the loud conversation, and the croupy coughing of the child kept us awake until about four o'clock, when this party also went on and the lights were once more extinguished. All the bedbugs in the house had by this time ascertained my situation, and in order to escape them I went and lay down on the floor beside Frost. In the brief interval of quiet that followed I almost succeeded in getting to sleep, but at half-past four there was another rush of cold air from the door, and in came two corpulent merchants from the lower Amúr on their way to Irkútsk. They ordered the samovár, drank tea, smoked cigarettes, and discussed methods of gold-mining until half-past five, when, as there were no
horses, they began to consider the question of taking a nap. They had just decided that they would lie down for a while when the jangling of horse-bells in the courtyard announced another arrival, and in came a white-bearded old man with a shot-gun. Where he was going I don't know; but when he ordered the samovár and began an animated conversation with the two merchants about gristmills I said to Frost, with a groan, "It's no use. I have n't had a wink of sleep, I've been tormented by bedbugs, I've taken cold from the incessant opening of that confounded door and have a sharp pain through one lung, and I am going to get up and drink tea." It was then broad daylight. The white-bearded old man with the shot-gun invited us to take tea with him, and said he had seen us on the steamer. We talked about the newly discovered Mongolian gold placer known as the "Chinese California," which was then attracting the attention of the Siberian public, and under the stimulating influence of social intercourse and hot tea I began to feel a little less miserable and dejected.
About half-past ten o'clock Sunday morning we finally obtained horses, put our baggage into another rough, shallow teléga, and resumed our journey. The night had been cold, and a white frost lay on the grass just outside the village; but as the sun rose higher and higher the air lost its chill, and at noon we were riding without our overcoats. About ten versts from Ílinskaya the road turned more to the southward and ran up the left bank of the Selengá River, through the picturesque valley shown in the illustration on opposite page. The bold bluff on the right was a solid mass of canary-colored birches, with here and there a dull-red poplar; the higher and more remote mountains on the left, although not softened by foliage, were
… bathed in the tenderest purple of distance,
And tinted and shadowed by pencils of air;
while in the foreground, between the bluff and the mountains, lay the broad, tranquil river, like a Highland lake, reflecting in its clear depths the clumps of colored trees on its banks and the soft rounded outlines of its wooded islands. The valley of the Selengá between Ílinskaya and Vérkhni Údinsk seemed to me to be warmer and more fertile than any part of the Trans-Baikál that we had yet seen. The air was filled all the afternoon with a sweet autumnal fragrance like that of ripe pippins; the hillsides were still sprinkled with flowers, among which I noticed asters, forget-me-nots, and the beautiful lemon-yellow alpine poppy; the low meadows adjoining the river were dotted with haystacks and were neatly fenced; and the log houses and barns of the Buriát farmers, scattered here and there throughout the valley, gave to the landscape a familiar and home-like aspect.
If we had felt well, and had had a comfortable vehicle, we should have enjoyed this part of our journey very much; but as the result of sleeplessness, insufficient food, and constant jolting, we had little capacity left for the enjoyment of anything. We passed the town of Vérkhni Údinsk at a distance of two or three miles late Sunday afternoon, and reached Múkhinskoe, the next station on the Kiákhta road, about seven o'clock in the evening. Mr. Frost seemed to be comparatively fresh and strong; but I was feeling very badly, with a pain through one lung, a violent headache, great prostration, and a pulse so weak as to be hardly perceptible at the wrist. I did not feel able to endure another jolt nor to ride another yard; and although we had made only thirty-three miles that day we decided to stop for the night. Since landing in the Trans-Baikál we had had nothing to eat except bread, but at Múkhinskoe the station-master's wife gave us a good supper of meat, potatoes, and eggs. This, together with a few hours of troubled sleep which the fleas and bedbugs permitted us to get near morning, so revived our strength that on Monday we rode seventy miles, and just before midnight reached the village of Selengínsk, near which was situated the lamasery of Goose Lake.
On the rough plank floor of the cold and dirty post-station house in Selengínsk we passed another wretched night. I was by this time in such a state of physical exhaustion that in spite of bedbugs and of the noise made by the arrival and departure of travelers I lost consciousness in a sort of stupor for two or three hours. When I awoke,
however, at daybreak I found one eye closed and my face generally so disfigured by bedbug-bites that I was ashamed to call upon the authorities or even to show myself in the street. Cold applications finally reduced the inflammation, and about ten o'clock I set out in search of the Buriát chief of police, Khainúief Munkú, who had been recommended to us as a good Russiau and Buriát interpreter, and a man well acquainted with the lamasery that we desired to visit. I found Khainúief at the office of the district isprávnik, where he was apparently getting his orders for the day from the isprávnik's secretary. He proved to be a tall, athletic, heavily built Buriát, about sixty years of age, with a round head, closely cut iron-gray hair, a thick bristly mustache, small, half-closed Mongol eyes, and a strong, swarthy, hard-featured, and rather brutal face. He was dressed in a long, loose Buriát gown of some coarse grayish material, girt about the waist with a sash, and turned back and faced at the wrists with silk. His head was partly covered with a queer Mongol felt hat, shaped like a deep pie-dish, and worn with a sort of devil-may-care tilt to one side. The portrait of him on page 73 is from a photograph, and would give a very good idea of the man if the face were a little harder, sterner, and more brutal.
I introduced myself to the isprávnik's secretary, exhibited my open letters, and stated my business. "This is Khainúief Munkú," said the secretary, indicating the Buriát officer; "he can go to the lamasery with you if he likes."
As I looked more closely at the hard-featured, bullet-headed chief of police, it became apparent to me that he had been drinking; but he had, nevertheless, the full possession of his naturally bright faculties, and the severe judicial gravity of his demeanor as he coolly defrauded me out of six or eight rúbles in making the necessary arrangements for horses excited my sincere admiration. For his services as interpreter and for the use of three horses I paid him seventeen rúbles, which was more than the amount of his monthly salary. The money, however, was well invested, since he furnished us that day with much more than seventeen rúbles' worth of entertainment.
About an hour after my return to the post-station, Khainúief, in a peculiar clumsy gig called a sidéika, drove into the courtyard. He was transfigured and glorified almost beyond recognition. He had on a long, loose, ultramarine-blue silk gown with circular watered figures in it, girt about the waist with a scarlet sash and a light-blue silken scarf, and falling thence to his heels over coarse cow-hide boots. A dishpan-shaped hat of bright red felt was secured to his large round head by means of a colored string tied under his chin, and from this red hat dangled two long narrow streamers of sky-blue silk ribbon. He had taken six or eight more drinks, and was evidently in the best of spirits. The judicial gravity of his demeanor had given place to a grotesque middle-age friskiness, and he looked like an intoxicated Tatár prize-fighter masquerading in the gala dress of some color-loving peasant girl. I had never seen such an extraordinary chief of police in my life, and could not help wondering what sort of a reception would be given by his Serene Highness the Grand Lama to such an interpreter.
In a few moments the ragged young Buriát wlhom Khainúief had engaged to take us to the lamasery made his appearance with three shaggy Buriát horses and a rickety old pavóska not half big enough to hold us. I asked Khainúief if we should carry provisions with us, and he replied that we need not; that we should be fed at the lamasery "But," he added, with a grin and a leer of assumed cunning, "if you have any insanity drops don't fail to take them along; insanity drops are always useful."
When we had put into the paróska our blankets, sheepskin overcoats, the bread-bag, and my largest liquor-flask, Frost and I took seats at the rear end of the vehicle with our legs stretched out on the bottom, and Khainúief, who weighed at least two hundred pounds, sat on our feet. Not one of us was comfortable; but Frost and I had ceased to expect comfort in an East-Siberian vehicle, while Khainúief had been so cheered and inebriated by the events of the morning, and was in such an exalté mental condition, that mere physical discomfort had no influence upon him whatever. He talked incessantly; but noticing after a time that we were disposed to listen rather than to reply, and imagining that our silence must be due to the overawing effect of his power and glory, he said to me with friendly and reassuring condescension, "You need n't remember that I am the chief of police; you can treat me and talk to me just as if I were a private individual."
I thanked him for his generous attempt to put us at our ease in his august presence, and he rattled on with all sorts of nonsense to show us how gracefully he could drop the mantle of a dread and mighty chief of police and condescend to men of low degree.
About five versts from the town we stopped for a moment to change positions, and Khainúief suggested that this would be a good time to try the "insanity drops." I gave him my flask, and after he had poured a little of the raw vódka into the palm of his hand and thrown it to the four cardinal points of the compass as a libation to his gods, he drank two cupfuls, wiped his wet, bristly mustache on the tail of his ultramarine blue silk gown, and remarked with cool impudence, "Prostáya kabáchnaya!" [Common gin-mill stuff!] I could not remember the Russian equivalent for the English proverb about looking a gift-horse in the mouth, but I suggested to Khainúief that it was not necessary to poison himself with a second cupful after he had discovered that it was nothing but "common gin-mill stuff." I noticed that poor as the stuff might be he did not waste any more of it on his north-south-east-and-west gods. The raw, fiery spirit had less effect upon him than I anticipated, but it noticeably increased the range of his self-assertion and self-manifestation. He nearly frightened the life out of our wretched driver by the fierceness with which he shouted "Yábo! Yábo!" [Faster! faster!], and when the poor driver could not make his horses go any faster, Khainúief sprang upon him, apparently in a towering rage, seized him by the throat, shook him, choked him, and then, leaving him half dead from fright, turned to us with a bland, self-satisfied smile on his hard, weather-beaten old face, as if to say, "That's the way I do it! You see what terror I inspire!" He looked very hard at every Buriát we passed, as if he suspected him of being a thief, shouted in a commanding, tyrannical voice at most of them, greeted the Chinese with a loud "How!" to show his familiarity with foreign languages and customs, and finally, meeting a picturesquely dressed and rather pretty Buriát woman riding into town astride on horseback, he made her dismount and tie her horse to a tree in order that he might kiss her. The woman seemed to be half embarrassed and half amused by this remarkable performance; but Khainúief, removing his red dish-pan hat with its long blue streamers, kissed her with "ornamental earnestness" and with a grotesque imitation of stately courtesy, and then, allowing her to climb back into her saddle without the least assistance, he turned to us with a comical air of triumph and smiling self-conceit which seemed to say, "There, what do you think of that? That's the kind of man I am! You can't make a pretty woman get off her horse just to kiss you." He seemed to think that we were regarding all his actions and achievements with envious admiration, and as he became more and more elated with a consciousness of appearing to advantage, his calls for "insanity drops" became more and more frequent. I began to fear at last that before we should reach the lamasery he would render himself absolutely incapable of any service requiring judgment and tact, and that as soon as the Grand Lama should discover his condition he would order him to be ducked in the lake. But I little knew the Selengínsk chief of police.
The road that we followed from Selengínsk to the lamasery ran in a northwesterly direction up a barren, stony valley between two ranges of low brownish hills, and the scenery along it seemed to me to be monotonous and uninteresting. I did not notice anything worthy of attention until we reached the crest of a high divide about twenty versts from Selengínsk and looked down into the valley of Goose Lake. There, between us and a range of dark blue mountains in the northwest, lay a narrow sheet of tranquil water, bounded on the left by a grassy steppe, and extending to the right as far as a projecting shoulder of the ridge would allow us to trace it. The shores of this lake were low and bare, the grass of the valley had turned yellow from frost or drought, there were no trees to be seen except on the higher slopes of the distant mountains, and the whole region had an appearance of sterility and desolation that suggested one of the steppes of the upper Írtish. On the other side of the lake, and near its western extremity, we could just make out from our distant point of view a large white building surrounded by a good-sized Buriát village of scattered log houses. It was the lamasery of Gusínnoi Ózera.
At sight of the sacred building, Khainúief, who was partly intoxicated at ten o'clock in the morning, and who had been taking "insanity drops" at short intervals ever since, became perceptibly more sober and serious; and when, half an hour later, we forded a deep stream near the western end of the lake, he alighted from the pavóska and asked us to wait while he took a cold bath. In about five minutes he reappeared perfectly sober, and resuming the severe judicial gravity of demeanor that characterized him as a Russian official, he proceeded to warn us that it would be necessary to treat the Grand Lama with profound respect. He seemed to be afraid that we, as Christians and foreigners, would look upon Khambá Lamá as a mere idolatrous barbarian, and would fail to treat him with proper deference and courtesy. I told him that we were accustomed to meet ecclesiastical authorities of the highest rank, and that we knew perfectly well how to behave towards them. Feeling reassured on this point, Khainúief proceeded to consider the probable attitude of the Grand Lama towards us, and the statements that should be made to that high dignitary concerning us.
"How are you magnified?" he asked me suddenly, after a short reflective pause. He might as well have asked me, "How are you electrified?" or "How are you galvanized?" so far as the conveyance of any definite idea to my mind was concerned. I made no reply.
"What are you called in addition to your name?" he repeated, varying the form of his question. "What is your chin [rank]?" "We have no chin in our country," said Mr. Frost; "we are simply private American citizens."
"Then you are not nobles?"
"No."
"You have no titles?"
"Not a title."
"You are not in the service of your Government?"
"No."
"Then for what purpose are you traveling in Siberia?"
"Merely for our own amusement."
"Then you must be rich?"
"No; we are not rich."
Khainúief was disappointed. He could not get any glory out of introducing to the Grand Lama two insignificant foreigners who had neither rank, title, nor position, who were confessedly poor, and who were not even traveling in the service of their Government.
"Well," he said, after a few moments' consideration, "when the Grand Lama asks you who you are and what your business is in Siberia, you may say to him whatever you like; but I shall translate that you are high chinóvniks — deputies, if not ambassadors — sent out by the Government of the great American — what did you say it was, republic? — of the great American republic, to make a survey of Siberia and report upon it; and that it is not impossible that your Government may conclude to buy the country from our Góssudar."
"All right," I said laughing, "I don't care how you translate what I say to the Grand Lama; only don't expect me to help you out if you get into trouble."
Khainúief's face assumed again for a moment the expression of drunken cunning, self-conceit, and "friskiness" that it had worn earlier in the day, and it was evident that the mischievous-schoolboy half of the man looked forward with delight to the prospect of being able to play off two insignificant foreign travelers upon the Grand Lama for "high chinóvniks" and "deputies, if not ambassadors, of the great American republic."
As we drove into the little village of brown log houses that surrounded the lamasery, Khainúief became preternaturally grave, removed his blue-streamered red hat, and assumed an air of subdued, almost apprehensive, reverence. One might have supposed this behavior to be an expression of his profound respect for the sacred character of the place; but in reality it was nothing more than a necessary prelude to the little comedy that he purposed to play. He desired to show even the monks whom we passed in the street that he, the great Selengínsk chief of police, did not presume to smile, to speak, or to wear his hat in the majestic presence of the two Lord High Commissioners from the great American republic.
We drove directly to the house of the Grand Lama, in front of which we were met and received by four or five shaven-headed Buddhist acolytes in long brown gowns girt about the waist with dark sashes. Khainúief, still bare-headed, sprung out of the pavóska, assisted me to alight with the most exaggerated manifestations of respect, and supported me up the steps as carefully and reverently as if an accidental stumble on my part would be little short of a great national calamity. Every motion that he made seemed to say to the Buriát monks and acolytes, "This man with the bedbug-bitten face, rumpled shirt, and short-tailed jacket does n't look very imposing, but he 's a high chinóvnik in disguise. You see how I have to behave towards him? It would be as much as my life is worth to put on my hat until he deigns to order it."
The house of the Grand Lama was a plain but rather large one-story log building, the main part of which was divided in halves by a central hall. We were shown into an icy-cold reception-room, furnished with an India-shawl pattern carpet of Siberian manufacture, a low couch covered with blue rep-silk, and a few heavy Russian tables and chairs. On the walls hung roller pictures of various holy temples in Mongolia and Thibet, life-size portraits by native artists of eminent Buddhist lamas and saints, coarse colored lithographs of Alexander II. and Alexander III., and a small card photograph of the Emperor William of Germany.
Khainúief presently came in and seated himself quietly on a chair near the door like a recently corrected schoolboy. There was not a trace nor a suggestion in his demeanor of the half-intoxicated, frisky, self-conceited Tatar prize-fighter who had made the Buriát woman get off her horse to kiss him. His eyes looked heavy and dull and showed the effects of the "insanity drops," but his manner and his self-control were perfect. He did not venture to address a word to us unless he was spoken to, and even then his voice was low and deferential. Once in a while, when none of the brown-gowned acolytes were in the room, his assumed mask of reverential seriousness would suddenly break up into a grin of cunning and drollery, and making a significant gesture with his hand to his mouth he would wink at me, as if to say, "I'm only pretending to be stupid. I wish I had some insanity drops."
All the acolytes and servants in the place spoke, when they spoke at all, in low whispers, as if there were a dead body in the house, or as if the Grand Lama were asleep and it would be a terrible thing if he should be accidentally awakened. The room into which we were at first shown was so damp and cellar-like that we were soon in a shiver. Noticing that we were cold, Khainúief respectfully suggested that we go into the room on the other side of the hall, which had a southern exposure and had been warmed a little by the sun. This was a plainer, barer apartment, with unpainted woodwork and furniture; but it was much more cheerful and comfortable than the regular reception-room.
We waited for the Grand Lama at least half an hour. At the expiration of that time Khainúief, who had been making a reconnaissance, came rushing back, saying, "Idyót!" [He's coming!] In a moment the door opened, and as we rose hastily to our feet the Grand Lama entered. He wore a striking and gorgeous costume, consisting of a superb long gown of orange silk shot with gold thread, bordered with purple velvet, and turned back and faced at the wrists with ultramarine-blue satin so as to make wide cuffs. Over this beautiful yellow gown was thrown a splendid red silk scarf a yard wide and five yards long, hanging in soft folds from the left shoulder and gathered up about the waist. On his head he wore a high, pointed, brimless hat of orange felt, the extended sides of which fell down over his shoulders like the ends of a Russian bashlík, and were lined with heavy gold-thread embroidery. From a cord about his waist hung a large, flat, violet-velvet bag, which had a curiously wrought bronze stopper and which looked like a cloth bottle. Every part of the costume was made of the finest material, and the general effect of the yellow gown and hat, the dark-blue facings, the red scarf, and the violet bag was extremely brilliant and striking. The wearer of this rich ecclesiastical dress was a Buriát about sixty years of age, of middle height and erect figure, with a beardless, somewhat wrinkled, but strong and kindly face. He represented the northern Mongol rather than the Chinese type, and
After we had drunk tea, which was served from a samovár in Russian style, I asked Khambá Lamá whether we should be permitted to inspect the temple. He replied that as soon as he had heard — through Khainúief of course — that such distinguished guests had come to call upon him he had given orders for a short thanksgiving service in the temple in order that we might see it. He regretted that he could not participate in this service himself, on account of recent illness; but Khainúief would go with us and see that we were provided with seats. We then saluted each other with profound bows, the Grand Lama withdrew to his own apartment, and Khainúief, Mr. Frost, and I set out for the temple.
An East-Siberian lamasery is always, strictly speaking, a monastic establishment. It is situated in some lonely place, as far away as possible from any village or settlement, and consists generally of a temple, or place of worship, and from 50 to 150 log houses for the accommodation of the lamas, students, and acolytes, and for the temporary shelter of pilgrims, who come to the lamasery in great
numbers on certain festival occasions. At the time of our visit three-fourths of the houses in the Goose Lake lamasery seemed to be empty. The datsán, or temple proper, stood in the middle of a large grassy inclosure formed by a high board fence. In plan it was nearly square, while in front elevation it resembled somewhat a three-story pyramid. It seemed to be made of brick covered with white stucco, and there was a great deal of minute ornamentation in red and black along the cornices and over the portico. A good idea of its general outline may be obtained from the small sketch on this page, which was made from a photograph.
Upon entering this building from the portico on the first floor we found ourselves in a spacious but rather dimly lighted hall, the dimensions of which I estimated at 80 feet by 65. Large round columns draped with scarlet cloth supported the ceiling; the walls were almost entirely hidden by pictures of holy places, portraits of saints, and bright festooned draperies; while colored banners, streamers, and beautiful oriental lanterns hung everywhere in great profusion. The temple was so crowded with peculiar details that one could not reduce his observations to anything like order, nor remember half of the things that the eye noted; but the general effect of the whole was very striking, even to a person familiar with the interiors of Greek and Roman Catholic cathedrals. The impression made upon my mind by the decorations was that of great richness and beauty, both in color and in form. Across the end of the temple opposite the door ran a richly carved lattice-work screen, or partition, in front of which, equidistant one from another, were three large chairs or thrones. These thrones were covered with old-gold silk, were piled high with yellow cushions, and were intended for the Grand Lama, the Sheretúi, or chief lama of the datsán, and his assistant. The throne of the Grand Lama was vacant, but the other two were occupied when we entered the temple. In front of these thrones, in two parallel lines, face to face, sat seventeen lamas with crossed legs on long, high divans covered with cushions and yellow felt. Opposite each one, in the aisle formed by the divans, stood a small red table on which lay two or three musical instruments. The lamas were all dressed alike in orange silk gowns, red silk scarfs, and yellow helmet-shaped hats faced with red. On each side of the door as we entered was an enormous drum — almost as large as a hogshead — and the two lamas nearest us were provided with iron trumpets at least eight feet long and ten inches in diameter at the larger end. Both drums and trumpets were supported on wooden frames. Chairs were placed for us in the central aisle between the two lines of lamas, and we took our seats.
The scene at the beginning of the service was far more strange and impressive than I had expected it to be. The partial gloom of the temple, the high yellow thrones of the presiding dignitaries, the richness and profusion of the decorations, the colossal drums, the gigantic trumpets, the somber crowd of students and acolytes in black gowns at one end of the room, and the two brilliant lines of orange and crimson lamas at the other made up a picture the strange barbaric splendor of which surpassed anything of
the kind that I have ever witnessed. For a moment after we took our seats there was a perfect stillness. Then the Sheretúi shook a little globular rattle, and in response to the signal there burst forth a tremendous musical uproar, made by the clashing of cymbals, the deep-toned boom of the immense drums, the jangling of bells, the moaning of conch-shells, the tooting of horns, the liquid tinkle of triangles, and the hoarse bellowing of the great iron trumpets. It was not melody, it was not music; it was simply a tremendous instrumental uproar. It continued for about a minute, and then, as it suddenly ceased, the seventeen lamas began a peculiar, wild, rapid chant, in a deep, low monotone. The voices were exactly in accord, the time was perfect, and the end of every line or stanza was marked by the clashing of cymbals and the booming of the colossal drums. This chanting continued for three or four minutes, and then it was interrupted by another orchestral charivari which would have leveled the walls of Jericho without any supernatural intervention. I had never heard such an infernal tumult of sound. Chanting, interrupted at intervals by the helter-skelter playing of twenty or thirty different instruments, made up the "thanksgiving" temple service, which lasted about fifteen minutes. It was interesting, but it was quite long enough.
Mr. Frost and I then walked around the temple, accompanied by the Sheretúi and Khainúief. Behind the lattice-work screen there were three colossal idols in the conventional sitting posture of the Buddhists, and in front of each of them were lighted tapers of butter, porcelain bowls of rice, wheat, and millet, artificial paper flowers, fragrant burning pastils, and bronze bowls of consecrated water. Against the walls, all around this part of the temple, were bookcases with glass doors in which were thousands of the small figures known to the Christian world as "idols" and called by the Buriáts burkháns. I could not ascertain the reason for keeping so great a number of these figures in the lamasery, nor could I ascertain what purpose they served. They presented an almost infinite variety of types and faces; many of them were obviously symbolical, and all seemed to be representative in some way either of canonized mortals or of supernatural spirits, powers, or agencies. According to the information furnished me by Khainúief, these burkháns, or idols, occupy in the lamaistic system of religious belief the same place that images or pictures of saints fill in the Russian system. From the appearance, however, of many of the idols in the lamasery collection, I concluded that a burkhán might represent an evil as well as a beneficent spiritual power. The word burkhán has long been used all over Mongolia in the general sense of a sacred or supernatural being.[1] Dr. Erman believes that "the Mongolian burkhán is identical with the Indian Buddha."[2] The burkháns in the lamasery of Goose Lake were crowded together on the shelves of the cases as closely as possible, and apparently no attempt had been made to arrange them in any kind of order. They varied in height from two inches to a foot, and were made generally of brass, bronze, or stone. In one corner of the kumírnia, or idol-room, stood a prayer-wheel, consisting of a large cylinder mounted on a vertical axis and supposed to be filled with written prayers or devotional formulas. I did not see it used, but in the Ónonski lamasery, which we visited a few weeks later, we found an enormous prayer-wheel which had a building to itself and which was in constant use.
From the idol-room we went into the upper stories of the temple, where there were more burkháns as well as a large collection of curious Mongolian and Thibetan books. If we had not been told that the objects last named were books, we never should have recognized them. They were rectangular sheets of thin Chinese paper twelve or fourteen inches in length by about four in width, pressed together between two thin strips of wood or pasteboard, and bound round with flat silken cords or strips of bright-colored cloth. They looked a little like large, well-filled bill-files tied with ribbons or crimson braid. The leaves were printed only on one side, and the characters were arranged in vertical columns. In a few of the volumes that I examined an attempt apparently had been made to illuminate, with red and yellow ink or paint, the initial characters and the beginnings of chapters, but the work had been coarsely and clumsily done.
From the principal temple of the lamasery we were taken to a chapel or smaller building in the same inclosure to see the great image of Máidera, one of the most highly venerated burkháns in the lamaistic pantheon. It proved to be a colossal human figure in a sitting posture, skilfully carved out of wood and richly overlaid with colors and gold. I estimated its height at thirty-five feet. It stood in the center of a rather narrow but high-domed chapel, hung round with banners, streamers, and lanterns, and really was a very imposing object. Tapers and incense were burning upon an altar covered with silken drapery which stood directly in front of the great idol, and upon the same altar were offerings in the shape of flowers made out of hardened butter or wax, and a large number of bronze or porcelain bowls filled with millet, rice, wheat, oil, honey, or consecrated water. Some of these bowls were open so that their contents could be seen, while others were covered with napkins of red, blue, or yellow silk. Here, as in the great temple, the partial gloom was lighted up by the brilliant coloring of the decorations and draperies, and by the splendid orange and crimson dresses of the attendant lamas.
From the chapel of Máidera we were conducted to a third building in another part of the same inclosure, where we found ourselves in the presence of the sacred white elephant. I had always associated the white elephant with Siam, and was not a little surprised to find a very good imitation of that animal in an East-Siberian lamasery. The elephant of Goose Lake had been skilfully carved by some Buriát or Mongol lama out of hard wood, and had then been painted white, equipped with suitable trappings, and mounted on four low wheels. The sculptured elephant was somewhat smaller than the living animal, and his tusks had been set at an angle that would have surprised a naturalist; but in view of the fact that the native artist probably never had seen an elephant, the resemblance of the copy to the
original was fairly close. The white elephant is harnessed, as shown in the above illustration, to a large four-wheel wagon, on which stands a beautiful and delicately carved shrine, made in imitation of a two-story temple. On the occasion of the great annual festival of the lamaists in July a small image of one of the high gods is put into this shrine, and then the elephant and the wagon are drawn in triumphal procession around the lamasery to the music of drums, trumpets, conch-shells, cymbals, and gongs, and with an escort of perhaps three hundred brilliantly costumed lamas. While we were examining the white elephant, Khainúief came to me and said that Khambá Lamá, in view of the fact that we were the first foreigners who had ever visited the lamasery, had ordered an exhibition to be given for us of the sacred "dance of the burkháns." I strongly suspected that we were indebted for all these favors to Khainúief's unrivaled skill as a translator of truth into fiction; but if we had been introduced to the Grand Lama as "deputies, if not ambassadors, from the great American republic," it was in no sense our fault, and there was no reason why we should not accept the courtesies offered us.
When we returned to the great temple we found that everything was in readiness for the dance. It was to take place out of doors on the grass in front of the datsán, where seats had already been prepared for the musicians and for the Sheretúi and his assistant. The big drums and the eight-foot iron trumpets were brought out, the presiding lamas seated themselves cross-legged on piles of flat yellow cushions in their chairs, and we took the positions assigned to us. At the sounding of a small rattle twelve or fifteen of the strangest, wildest-looking figures I had ever seen rushed out into the open space in front of the temple, and to the crashing, booming accompaniment of cymbals and big iron trumpets began a slow, rhythmical, leaping dance. Four or five of the dancers had on enormous black helmet masks representing grinning Mongolian demons, and from their heads radiated slender rods to which were affixed small colored flags. Two figures had human skulls or death's-heads on their shoulders, one man's body had the head and antlers of a marál, or Siberian stag, and another was surmounted by the head and horns of a bull. Three
When we returned to the house of the Grand Lama we found ready a very good and well-cooked dinner, with fruit cordial and madeira to cheer the "ambassadors," and plenty of vódka to inebriate Khainúief. After dinner I had a long talk with the Grand Lama about my native country, geography, and the shape of the earth. It seemed very strange to find anywhere on the globe, in the nineteenth century, an educated man and high ecclesiastical dignitary who had never even heard of America, and who did not feel at all sure that the world is round. The Grand Lama was such a man.
"You have been in many countries," he said to me through the interpreter, "and have talked with the wise men of the West; what is your opinion with regard to the shape of the earth?"
"I think," I replied, "that it is shaped like a great ball."
"I have heard so before," said the Grand Lama, looking thoughtfully away into vacancy. "The Russian officers whom I have met have told me that the world is round. Such a belief is contrary to the teachings of our old Thibetan books, but I have observed that the Russian wise men predict eclipses accurately; and if they can tell beforehand when the sun and the moon are to be darkened, they probably know something about the shape of the earth. Why do you think that the earth is round?"
"I have many reasons for thinking so," I answered; "but perhaps the best and strongest reason is that I have been around it."
This statement seemed to give the Grand Lama a sort of mental shock.
"How have you been around it?" he inquired. "What do you mean by 'around it'? How do you know that you have been around it?"
"I turned my back upon my home," I replied, "and traveled many months in the course taken by the sun. I crossed wide continents and great oceans. Every night the sun set before my face and every morning it rose behind my back. The earth always seemed flat, but I could not find anywhere an end nor an edge; and at last, when I had traveled more than thirty thousand versts, I found myself again in my own country and returned to my home from a direction exactly opposite to that which I had taken in leaving it. If the world was flat, do you think I could have done this?"
"It is very strange," said the Grand Lama, after a thoughtful pause of a moment. "Where is your country? How far is it beyond St. Petersburg?"
"My country is farther from St. Petersburg than St. Petersburg is from here," I replied. "It lies nearly under our feet; and if we could go directly through the earth, that would be the shortest way to reach it."
"Are your countrymen walking around there heads downward under our feet?" asked the Grand Lama with evident interest and surprise, but without any perceptible change in his habitually impassive face.
"Yes," I replied; "and to them we seem to be sitting heads downward here."
The Grand Lama then asked me to describe minutely the route that we had followed in coming from America to Siberia, and to name the countries through which we had passed. He knew that Germany adjoined Russia on the west, he had heard of British India and of England, — probably through Thibet, — and he had a vague idea of the extent and situation of the Pacific Ocean; but of the Atlantic and of the continent that lies between the two great oceans he knew nothing.
After a long talk, in the course of which we discussed the sphericity of the earth from every possible point of view, the Grand Lama seemed to be partly or wholly convinced of the truth of that doctrine, and said, with a sigh, "It is not in accordance with the teachings of our books; but the Russians must be right."
It is a somewhat remarkable fact that Dr. Erman, one of the few foreigners who had seen the lamasery of Goose Lake previous to our visit, had an almost precisely similar conversation concerning the shape of the earth with the man who was then (in 1828) Grand Lama. Almost sixty years elapsed between Dr. Erman's visit and ours, but the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth continued throughout that period to trouble ecclesiastical minds in this remote East-Siberian lamasery; and it is not improbable that sixty years hence some traveler from the western world may be asked by some future Grand Lama to give his reasons for believing the world to be a sphere.
About five o'clock in the afternoon, after exchanging photographs with the Grand Lama, thanking him for his courtesy and hospitality, and bidding him a regretful good-by, we were lifted carefully into our old pavóska by the anxious, respectful, and bare-headed Khainúief in the presence of a crowd of black-robed acolytes and students, and began our journey back to Selengínsk.