MONGOLS—PHYSICAL AND MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS.
The following physical characteristics of the Mongolian race, by a gentleman who resided many years among the Bouriats in Trans-baikal, are equally applicable to the tribes in Mongolia proper, and to some extent also to the Chinese.
"The high cheek-bones; the oblique, elongated eye, dark and piercing; the flat nose, with compressed nostrils; the strong black straight hair; the large protuberant ears; the small sharp chin; the want of beard in the men, till late in life; the general gravity of expression, and cautious, inquisitive mode of address, are so many marks of this tribe of men, never to be mistaken, and never to be found so strongly developed in any other."[20]
There is nothing noble or generous in the Mongol character, and those tribes who have afforded the widest field for observation, are said to be naturally servile to superiors and tyrannical to inferiors.
Their meanness is remarkable. They are not too proud to beg the smallest trifle, and a man well blessed with this world's goods thinks it no disgrace to receive alms.
The habits they have inherited qualify them admirably for the lazy nomad life which they lead. But they have no heart for work in the sense of regular, steady occupation. Fatigue and privation they make no account of, but it goes quite against the grain with them to do a day's work. They sadly lack energy and enterprise, and are easily discouraged. The Mongols proper are seldom tempted to leave the beaten track of their pastoral life, and even the Bouriats, who live amongst Russians, and have incentives to exertion, show little disposition to depart in anything from their traditional mode of life. The Russian government has tried to make them farmers, but with very little success. Every Bouriat family is compelled by law to cultivate a few acres of ground. Government supplies them with seed, generally rye, on condition that an equal quantity be returned to the government granary the following year, or its equivalent in money paid. They are subject to bad seasons in those regions. A backward, dry spring, with no rain before June, is of not unfrequent occurrence; in such seasons the crops don't ripen before the autumn frosts come, and the year's labour is lost. The seed corn must, nevertheless, be delivered back to the granary, and the Bouriat agriculturist loses heart.
The cardinal virtue of the Mongol tribes is hospitality, which is as freely exhibited to perfect strangers, as to neighbours, from whom a return may be expected. Indeed, the nomad life would be intolerable without this mutual good-feeling and readiness to assist, to feed, and to shelter travellers. The absence of trades, and of the amenities of settled communities, renders the Mongol people mutually dependent, and hospitality becomes simply a necessity among them. At the pitching and striking of tents, at sheep-shearing and felt-making, the assistance of neighbours is required by all in turn. When cattle stray, the neighbours help to catch them. When a Mongol is on a journey in the desert, he is dependent on the hospitality of the families whose tents he may pass on his way, and he will always be welcome. The Mongols are also attracted to each other's quarters to hear news, or for the mere satisfaction of talking. In such a sparsely peopled country, this feeling makes a stranger all the more welcome.
Although rather addicted to petty pilfering, the Mongols are, in a general way, honest. At any rate, they will not betray a trust committed to them. The fidelity of servants is universal, and theft, robbery, and assault, are of rare occurrence among them. Their most prevalent vice is drunkenness; and, although drinking, and even smoking, are prohibited by the sacerdotal law, the living example of the priests is more powerful than the dead letter of the law. Those Mongols who wander to the frontier of China or Russia, supply themselves with tobacco, and distribute it to their friends in the desert. Every one carries a pipe with a small brass bowl, like the Chinese. A steel and flint are invariably attached to the tobacco-pouch. The Mongols also take snuff, using a stone bottle, with an ivory spoon attached to the stopper, after the Chinese fashion. Chinese liquor they use very sparingly, and only on great occasions of bargaining or merry-making. They use a spirit of their own very extensively, and as it is made out of milk, an article which is very abundant among pastoral people, their supply of the spirit is almost unlimited. They call it ir'chi, or in the Bouriat dialect araki, a name applied by the Mongols to all liquors indiscriminately. It is better known to Europeans by the name of kumiss. The following account of the mode in which the spirit is distilled from milk is interesting: "The milk, previously soured and fermented, is put into a large iron kettle, over which is inverted a wooden dish, fitted to the edge of the former, and luted with cow-dung. One end of a bent wooden tube is inserted into a hole in the inverted dish, and at the other end is placed a cast-iron pot to receive the liquid as it comes over. When the fire has made the contents of the kettle boil, the vapour is condensed within the tube, and passes into the receiving vessel in the form of ardent spirit."[21] The spirit is fit to drink whenever it is made, and as it is more than usually plentiful when the pastures are richest, that is the season of the greatest excesses. Any sort of milk may be used, but mare's milk is said to make the most approved liquor. The Mongols are inclined to be uproarious in their cups; and squabbles often occur, but they seldom come to anything very serious.
The morality of the Mongols is about a fair average of that of the rest of mankind, perhaps purer than that of more civilised countries. Their customs admit of polygamy, but it is too expensive to be very common, as each wife has to be in a manner bought of her father for a certain number of oxen, horses, or camels. They have a strong objection to marrying within their own families, or tribes, considering all the descendants of one father or head of a tribe as brothers and sisters, however distant their actual relationship may be. "So universal is this custom," says the writer already quoted, "that I never knew or heard of an instance of its being violated."
The lamas are all celibats, but seeing this class numbers one fourth or one fifth of the male population, it might safely be predicated of them that their vows are not strictly kept. As a matter of fact, the celibacy of the lamas is in very many instances a merely nominal thing. The lama may not marry, but he can take to himself a "disciple;" children will be born to him in the natural course of events, and no great public scandal will be excited thereby. Hence a standing joke among the laity is to ask tenderly for the health of Mrs. Lama.
The Mongol women are childishly fond of small ornaments for their hair. Any kind of tinsel, or small glass ware, is highly valued by them. Before marriage, the women wear their hair disposed in plaits which hang straight down. Ornaments of coral, or other articles, are suspended from the plaits. After marriage the hair is collected into two thick ties, one at each side, falling down over the front of the shoulders, and adorned according to the fancy or means of the wearer. They wear a kind of tiara round the head, which is ornamented with coral, glass, strings of mock pearls, or any kind of gaudy trinkets they can pick up. They also wear sometimes, instead of the ordinary cap, a coronet of soft fur, fastened round the head, and projecting over the brow, which gives them, at first sight, a rakish appearance.
The Mongols, one and all, evince great regard for decency in their dress and habits. Their inner garments consist of cotton trousers, tightly fastened by a scarf round the waist, and a long flowing robe of the same material. These are generally of blue. The long sheepskin is kept in reserve for night-work, or cold days. They never appear uncovered outside of their tents, even in hot weather. In this respect they contrast remarkably with all other natives in hot climates with whom I am acquainted.
In physical development, the Mongols do not rank very high. They are in stature below the middle height, but moderately stout. Short necks are common, but many thin, scraggy necks are also met with. They do not get corpulent like the Chinese. They look healthy and robust. Their muscular energy is rather low, which may be due to their avoiding all regular work, and partly perhaps to their exclusively animal diet.
Wrestling is one of their favourite amusements, and the trained wrestlers are proud of their skill in the art. A square-built lama challenged me to wrestle with him at Tsagan-tuguruk. There was a great concourse of people present, and to have declined the contest would have been as bad as a defeat. I therefore determined to risk the trial. I soon found that being totally ignorant of the art, I had to act solely on the defensive. After some ineffectual attempts the lama threw me. I had a firm hold of him, however, and we both came down together, the lama under. Having come out of the ordeal better than I expected, I had no wish to try another round, and the lama also had enough. It was my turn to challenge then, and considering that the honour of my country required it, I offered to box my antagonist, which honour he respectfully declined. This incident exhibited to me the muscular weakness of one of the best-made men I met among the Mongols.
But their weakest point is their legs, which are rarely exercised. The Mongols begin from their earliest years to ride on horseback. If they have but to go a few hundred yards, they will ride if possible, in preference to walking. They walk with the gait of a duck; indeed, were their legs good—which they are not—the heavy shapeless leather boots they wear would prove an effectual bar to walking. These boots come up near the knee, are made of nearly uniform size, so that the largest feet will go easily into any of their boots. Thick stockings are also used, and the foot has ample play with all that. They are nearly all bow-legged, a circumstance that might be explained by their constant habit of riding, or by the pressure that is put on them when infants to make them sit cross-legged, were it not frequently developed in children before the age when nurses begin to cross their legs. The phenomenon may nevertheless be the indirect result of both these causes. The habits of the tribes being fixed and uniform for many ages, the bow-legged tendency which these habits are calculated to produce, may have been gradually impressed on the race as a permanent feature, by the mystery of hereditary influence. Thus the peculiarity, although originally accidental, would become permanent and constitutional. The Mongol is rarely seen standing upright. He is either sitting on horseback, or crouching in a tent.
The Mongols are rather dark-complexioned; the face and hands, which are constantly exposed to sun and weather, are deeply bronzed; the skin is very coarse; the covered parts of the body are much lighter than the exposed parts, but among the men there is nothing like a white skin. The whitest of them are yellowish. During our ablutions the whiteness of our skins was a subject of constant remark among the Mongols, although the skin of our faces became, by constant exposure to the sun while in Mongolia, as dark as that of the Mongols themselves. The Mongols, nevertheless, have often a ruddy complexion, but it is uncommon among the men. The women are much fairer than the men, and are much less exposed to the sun, being mostly in the tents attending to household duties. Their faces, although rough and weather-beaten more or less, have all a "roseate hue." Old women frequently become pasty white in the face. Their children are born fair skinned, and with brownish hair, which gradually becomes darker as they grow up. Shades of brown are however not unfrequent even in adults, and a tendency to curl is sometimes observable. Their eyes are seldom quite black, but run on various shades of brown. The white of the eye is usually "bloodshot" in middle-aged men, probably from two causes, exposure to wind and weather, and the argol smoke of their tent fires. They live, without any inconvenience, in an atmosphere of sharp biting smoke, which our eyes could not tolerate. The small eyes of the Mongols are shaded by heavy wrinkled eyelids, which, in many instances, are permanently contracted, giving the eye a peculiarly keen expression, as it peers out from under the mass of soft muscle that surrounds it. This feature is entirely absent in children, and is no doubt produced in adults by exposure to glare and the habit of straining after distant objects in a dry sandy country.
The almost entire absence of beard is a remarkable feature in the Mongolians. As regards this and other marks of race, it may be useful to compare the Mongols with their near neighbours the Chinese. The two races have a sufficient number of broad characteristics in common to warrant their classification under one great type of mankind. But their differences are also well marked, and are deserving of attention. The northern districts of China are not very different from Mongolia in point of climate. Both have a short but hot summer, and an extremely rigorous winter, differing only in degree. Both climates are dry. The northern Chinese assimilate more closely than any other of their countrymen to the Mongol habit of life. They eat animal food rather extensively, and drink strong liquor freely. Yet in physical development they are further removed from the Mongols in some features than even the southern Chinese who live on rice, fish, and vegetables. In the matter of beards, which led to this comparison, the northern Chinese are in a marked degree more hairy than their southern compatriots, and these again than the natives of Mongolia. In none of them is the beard developed till towards middle life; yet they all attain the age of puberty earlier than Europeans. The beef-eaters of northern China are tall, muscular, and robust, as much superior to the Mongols as they are to their own countrymen who lead a different life. But with their animal diet the northern Chinese eat copiously of vegetable and farinaceous food, while the Mongols live almost exclusively on mutton.
The regularity of habits which prevail in settled populations may also have its influence in the general physical development of the people. The nomads have certain qualities cultivated to excess, and others almost entirely unused. The animal instincts are naturally found highly developed amongst the Mongols. The sense of sight is very acute in them; they are sensitive to indications of changes of weather, and so with various other instincts which to these wandering tribes supply the wants of a more artificial life, and enable them to exist in a state of nature. Individuality is in a great measure lost among such people. The habits and education of each individual among them are identical. Their pursuits are all the same. The very same faculties, both physical and mental, are kept in exercise among the whole tribe, and that through many generations, so that they have become hereditary, and indelibly imprinted on the race. A Mongol who was not a good horseman would be as anomalous as one that was inhospitable. The uniformity of life among the members of these nomad tribes, while it keeps back many faculties, the exercise of which is necessary to the existence of civilised people, also renders the type of whole tribes constant, so that no one individual differs greatly in external features from another. In civilised communities, where the division of labour has become so indispensable as to be in itself one great criterion of civilisation, a variety of types are evolved even in a single lifetime. A tailor can never be mistaken for a blacksmith, nor a soldier for a sailor; but tribes whose habits compel each family to be independent, as it were, of all the rest of the world, whose wants are limited by the means of supplying them, and among whom different occupations are almost unknown, do necessarily present a remarkable uniformity. It would be unsound to generalise too freely, and there are of course the individual distinctions of physiognomy as well marked as among other races, but these differences are more limited in their scope. Some trades are known to the Mongols, such as felt-making, tanning and dressing skins, iron, copper, and silver work, saddle-making, &c. In more settled parts they also make harness, carts, and sledges; and printing from blocks, after the manner of the Chinese and Japanese, is also known among them. These arts are most cultivated among the Bouriats in Siberia, who, by their contact with the Russians, and from the nature of the country they inhabit, are thrown more in the way of artificial life than the desert tribes.
To the casual observer, at least, the Mongols do not present the same individual differences as their neighbours, the Chinese. In complexion they are nearly all alike, although the skin seems to get darker as the face becomes wrinkled with age, which might seem to favour the idea that the brownish skin of the Mongols is due as much to their habits as to their descent, or the effects of climate. But the causes which influence colour are very obscure. In Siberia, where Sclavonic races have been settled for nearly two centuries, living side by side with Mongol tribes, and exposed to the same climatic influences, these show no signs of variation from the complexion of their ancestors, as it is exhibited by their European representatives. Again, the Portuguese settlers in Macao, who degenerate very rapidly, become in two or three generations much darker in the skin than the native Chinese. It is not the smoky atmosphere of their tents that darkens the skin of the Mongols, for in that case, the women, who are more exposed to it, would be darker than the men, the reverse of which is the case. A comparison with the Japanese again would seem to show that exposure exercises at the most an insignificant effect in darkening the skin. The Japanese live much within doors, and are careful to protect themselves from the sun when they stir abroad by means of broad-brimmed hats and umbrellas. Great differences of complexion exist among them, whether regarded as individuals or classes; but it is safe to say they are on the whole quite as dark as the Mongols. The contrast between men and women is singularly marked, the women having fair clear complexions, often rosy. Yet the Japanese women are a good deal out of doors, and are fairer skinned than the Chinese women, who are only blanched by confinement to the house and exclusion from light and air.
The Mongols, although deficient in muscular energy, and incapacitated for sustained activity, are nevertheless gifted with great powers of endurance. I have already noticed their capacity for enduring prolonged fasts, and their ability to go several days and nights without sleep, with equal impunity. The sudden and important changes to which their climate is subject, are also borne without any great suffering. From a hot summer, they are plunged, with but slight gradations, into an extremely rigorous winter, when the temperature falls very low, and is accompanied by keen cutting winds, that sweep over the steppes with merciless fury, and from which they have no better protection than their tents.
The Mongol tribes stand low in the scale of mental capacity. Scattered over vast deserts, remote from civilised man, they are ignorant by necessity. Their intellectual faculties have no stimulus to exertion. Their aims in life, and their whole worldly ambition, are limited to flocks and herds. While there is grass enough to feed the sheep, and sheep enough to feed the men, they have little else to disturb their quiet equanimity. Thus they lead an idle careless life, free from thought and everything that might disturb the negative happiness they enjoy. This kind of existence is truly a low form, having more affinity with the animal than the mental side of human nature, while at the same time it is to be observed that they are almost entire strangers to the varied emotions that fill up the existence of a civilised being; so that both their intellectual and moral qualities are dwarfed and partially destroyed. The prostrate mental condition of the people predisposes them to the domination of superior minds, and when their highly superstitious tendencies are considered, it is not surprising that they are among the most priest-ridden races in the world. It is not easy to say why these people should be more easily imposed upon than others, excepting that ignorance is always found to go hand-in-hand with this mental weakness. The wild solitary life of the desert is also, no doubt, eminently favourable to belief in the supernatural and mysterious.
A man who frequently passes days and nights with no society, except the howling waste below, and the deep blue sky above, has his imagination set free from the trammels of the world of fact. He has no resources but in the spirit-world, and it is not unnatural that his fancy should people the air with superior intelligences, whose voices are heard in the desert winds or the rustling leaves of the forest. Under these conditions of life, the poor nomads are in a proper frame of mind to become the thralls of any one who will undertake to interpret for them the spiritual mysteries on which their imagination runs riot. The lamas fill this office, and are treated with unbounded respect by the masses. The religion of the Mongols is Bhuddism, a superstition which numbers more votaries than any other existing religion, true or false. But the fact is, they are Bhuddists only in name; that is to say, the laity are almost wholly ignorant of the doctrines of Bhuddism. Even the lamas have but vague and confused ideas about it. Their prayers are conned by rote, and these priests are generally ignorant of the Thibetan language in which they are written.
The Mongol religion may indeed be called Lamaism, its leading doctrine being faith, implicit and absolute, in the authoritative teaching of the lamas, and that not in any well-digested system of belief settled and fixed by the united wisdom of the sect, but in such interpretation of spiritual matters as any individual lama may choose to give. The gods are deified lamas. The Dalai Lama of Thibet is a god incarnate, as is also the Lama king of the Mongols; and even the ordinary lamas, whose name is legion, are considered as off-shoots from deity in a sense that entitles them to the worship of common mortals. The abstruse doctrines of the metempsychosis and the future state, are studied by the recluses who live in the retirement of the great monasteries, and spend their time in prayer and meditation. But the every-day lama, although he carries a pocketful of musty papers, in which the eighteen hells and twenty-six heavens are elucidated, cares little for these things. He has more practical matters to attend to than meditating on the Bhuddist notion of bliss consummated by absorption into Bhudda—complete repose—in other words, annihilation. His written liturgies are a powerful spell by which he maintains his moral influence over the people, and it is none the less powerful that neither party fully comprehends their meaning. More regard is paid to the quantity than to the quality of their prayers, and to facilitate their devotions an ingenious machine is in common use, consisting of a roller containing a string of prayers. This is sometimes turned by hand, and sometimes it is attached to a windmill! So long as it is turned round by some means, the efficacy of the prayers is considered the same. No doubt it is. The petitions are long-winded and multifarious.
The following, from one of the lama liturgies, is a specimen:
"From the fear of the king, from the fear of robbers, from the fear of fire, from the fear of water, from the fear of loss, from the fear of enemies, from the fear of famine; of thunder, of untimely death, earthquakes, thunderbolts, of the king's judgment, of the tengri, of the loo, of wild beasts, &c., keep me and all men in safety."[22]
The general drift of their religious observances is towards securing immunity from the "ills that flesh is heir to," rather than towards providing for a future state. Both objects are aimed at, but the materialistic greatly preponderates. Medical knowledge is of course at a low ebb among these wandering people. The lamas are their physicians. When a child or a horse is taken ill, the ignorant people are taught to believe that an evil spirit is present, which can only be exorcised by the incantations of a lama. In every doubt and difficulty a lama is consulted. He is at once a detective officer, justice of the peace, priest and physician. His blessing is at all times efficacious. His power over disease is unquestioned. There is virtue for good or evil in all his acts. His authority to declare what is right and what is wrong is never doubted. The punishments he may inflict for violation of his precepts are borne patiently. In a word, the lamas are the beginning and the end, at once the ministers and the objects of religion to the simple Mongols. Their persons are held sacred, and they wear a sacred dress consisting of a red cotton garment with a collar of black velvet, and a cap of peculiar shape. Their heads are shaven all over, which is a sufficient distinction from the laymen, who shave the head only in front of the crown, wearing a tail like the Chinese. Wherever a lama goes he is received with open arms, and assumes the place of honour in any tent which he may deign to enter. The priestly tyranny of these functionaries opens a wide door to the most heartless knavery, and dishonest lamas who oppress and eat up the people are very common. Were the lama order restricted to one class of people, it is possible their victims might rise in rebellion against their assumption of authority. But the lamas are drawn from every tribe and household. The second son of every family is generally set apart from his birth as a priest. In childhood and youth he is regarded as a superior being in his parental tent. The place of honour is assigned to him from the time he is able to sit cross-legged. When an opportunity offers, the little devotee repairs to a monastery, where he may learn the Thibetan characters and the rudiments of the lama prayers. Great numbers of lamas reside permanently in these monasteries, which are supported by contributions from the people, or endowed by the Emperor of China. The lama unattached receives no pay, and has therefore to support himself, as the rest of his countrymen do, by feeding sheep and cattle. His special services are paid for according to his cupidity or the wealth of his employers. Many of them grow rich on the spoils of their deluded votaries. Some others, of ultra-nomadic proclivities, keep no cattle and own no tents. They simply roam about where fancy directs, and live on the people whose tents they pass. These are not much respected, but are, nevertheless, hospitably entertained wherever they go.
The spread of Bhuddism eastward over Mongolia, China, and Japan, the deep hold it has taken on the people of those countries, to the extinction almost of pre-existing superstitions, are most remarkable phenomena. Looking at the degenerate form of the religion that has sprung up in Mongolia, and the ignorance of the people, tending strongly to adherence to the dogmas of their fathers, it seems wonderful that Bhuddism should have had vitality enough to supersede the ancient Shamanism.
The Bhuddistic doctrines, involved and obscure as they are, certainly filled up a blank that must have been felt even among the most unthinking races, for Shamanism had no reference to a future life. In this respect Bhuddism is more elevating than Shamanism, and when first introduced into a new country, it was probably in a purer form, and untarnished by the many abuses that have grown out of it in its subsequent history.
Among the Bouriats, Shamanism was almost universal as late as one hundred and fifty years ago. Up to that time it was the only superstition known to the northern nomads. The Shaman worship was directed to the material heavens and heavenly bodies—fire, earth and water, wild beasts and birds, and the malignant spirits of the air, called tengri. Its ritual consisted very little in prayers, but mainly of animal sacrifices. Some curious facts connected with the Shaman superstition are given by Mr. Swan in the "Scottish Congregational Magazine."
As a preventive against cattle being killed by lightning, a horse is devoted to the god of thunder—light grey or white being preferred. He is brought to the door of his owner's tent, and while the Shaman ceremonies are going on, a cup of milk is placed on his back. When the ceremonies are concluded, the horse is cast loose, the milk falls, and the animal is thenceforth sacred. No one may use him again, and, when he dies, his tail and mane are cut off and twisted into those of another horse, who, from that time, also becomes sacred to the god of thunder. They also had a ceremony of a scapegoat, which in its details coincided most singularly with that of the Levitical institution. The Shaman offerings usually consisted of three animals sacrificed at once—part of the flesh was eaten, and the rest, stuck on a pole, was consumed by crows or magpies.
Another strange practice of the Shamans, and one which is common also among the lamas, betrays the intellectual imbecility of the people who could tolerate and be deceived by it. To exorcise the evil spirit out of a sick person, an effigy of straw is made, and clothed in the garments of the patient. The priests proceed to kill the man of straw, then convey it away and burn it. The unsophisticated devil is supposed to be watching these proceedings, and to mistake the effigy for the sick person; so that when it is destroyed, this most accommodating spirit considers his own malignant purpose accomplished, and at once leaves the sick person, who thereupon recovers. It is even said that human victims are used for this purpose by the rich in Mongolia and Thibet.
The Shamans were simply sorcerers. Their ceremonies were wild fanatical ravings, and their ranks were usually filled by persons of diseased brains. The people generally were reluctant to become Shamans, and a severe illness was often held to be an intimation to the person affected of the desire of the Spirits that he or she should become a "medium."
The Bouriats learned Bhuddism from the Mongols, their kinsmen. About the beginning of the eighteenth century a mission was sent from Siberia to Thibet. The members of it returned as lamas and brought the paraphernalia of the new religion with them, built a temple, and set up Bhuddism. The Shamans were then gradually superseded by the lamas in the districts of Trans-baikal—sacrifices gave place to prayers—and a purely materialist superstition to one which recognised the necessity of providing against a future existence.
When, and under what circumstances, the Mongols proper embraced Bhuddism, is not so easy to determine. The Chinese received it in the first, and the Japanese in the sixth century of the Christian era; but it does not appear to have been known to the Mongols before the time of Genghis. It was probably during the wandering career of the hordes under his leadership, that the lamas insinuated themselves into influence over the untutored shepherds. The higher culture which they had acquired, even by their partial education, would mark them in the eyes of the rude Tartars as a superior order of magicians; and their ascendancy over the Mongol intellects would be natural and easy.
There are traditions of Lamaism in the district of the Ortous before the time of Genghis, but as that part of the desert had frequently been incorporated with China, the existence of Bhuddist monasteries there is not inconsistent with the supposition that the Mongol tribes became Bhuddists only after the wars of Genghis.
It would appear that Mohammedanism also was introduced into China by means of the armies of Genghis, which traversed Asia in every direction from the Great Wall of China to the Volga.
The Bhuddism, or Lamaism, of the Mongols, serves the important purpose of binding the tribes together by one common bond of union. The adoration they are taught to pay to their Dalai Lama is such as to give that personage a power over them greater, probably, than is exercised by any crowned head over his people. The Dalai Lama is the Pope of the Mongols. He is a valuable ally to the Chinese Emperor, and would be a dangerous enemy. When Russia comes to carry out any aggressive design in Mongolia, the Great Lama of the Kalkas will be the instrument used; and the Consular establishment at Urga, if it succeeds in gaining over the Lama king to the Russian views, will not have been kept up in vain. To conciliate this dignitary the Chinese Emperors liberally endow monasteries, and support and encourage Lamaism in every way possible;—but the Russian Emperors will find no difficulty in securing the attachment of the Lama when their plans are matured.
The Mongol people, though in a sense slaves or serfs to their chiefs, really enjoy every liberty. They pay tithes to their lords of the produce of their herds, but there is no exaction, and no apparent discontent. The forty-eight chieftains enjoy the Chinese title of wang, i.e., prince, or king, and though tributary to the Emperor, they receive from him more than they pay. Their allegiance is, in reality, purchased by the Chinese court, and they are certainly faithful to their salt.