All good lamas esteem it an honour to be able to say they have made a pilgrimage to the Kuren, and these devotees come from enormous distances—some from the Manchurian wildernesses in the far east, and others from the frontiers of Thibet.[6] There are many small shrines on the plateau on which the town stands, erected for the convenience of those ascetics who are desirous of commending themselves to the favour of Bhudda and to the respect of their fellows. I observed one of these deluded people performing a journey to a shrine, which was then about a quarter of a mile from him. He advanced by three measured steps one stage, made sundry prostrations, falling flat on his face on the stony ground, repeated prayers, and then advanced again. I know not from what distance he had come, or how long it was since he had commenced this slow and painful march; but, on a rough calculation, we made out that it would take him two days more, at the same rate of progress, to reach the goal.
The Lama-king of the Kuren is regarded by the Mongols as a god. He can never die—he only transmigrates. The whole of the Kalkas tribes are under his sway, and this personage is consequently an object of constant jealousy to the emperors of China, who keep an anxious watch over his proceedings. The lama system has been greatly humoured by the Chinese emperors from early times, and the theocracy of Mongolia and Thibet is mainly of their creation. The secular sovereignty of these nations became spiritual by an accident or an after-thought, and does not, like the Japanese, trace back into the dawn of history its descent from the gods. The last independent king of Thibet finding himself in great trouble from within and from without, escaped from the cares of government by becoming a lama. This happened about the year 1100 A.D., and, in a few years afterwards, Thibet became subject to China. When Kublai became Emperor of China he made a lama of Thibet king, and the kings who succeeded the Mongols in China followed up the idea of conciliating the lama power by making eight of them kings. These afterwards (A.D. 1426) took the title of grand lama, and the chief of them became the Dalai-lama of Thibet,[7] who from that time to this has been the head of the Bhuddist religion and the vassal king of Thibet. It would have been impossible, under any circumstances, for the Dalai-lama to have maintained a real surveillance over the widely-scattered tribes who acknowledged his spiritual sway; and in fact his authority over his distant dependents began to be greatly relaxed from the time that the emperors of China completed the subjection of all the tribes who now inhabit what is called Chinese Tartary. The Emperor Kang-hi, under whose reign this was accomplished, promoted the independence of the lama-king of the Kalkas with a view to severing the tie that bound them to their neighbours the Eleuths or Kalmuks, and in order to accustom the vassal chiefs of the various tribes to look more and more to the Chinese emperors for government and protection. By this wise policy the Chinese government sought to divert the Mongols from forming any combination which might threaten the stability of the foreign rule to which the tribes had just been subjected. The Chinese ambassadors at the court of the Dalai-lama, men of great talent, and trained in diplomatic subtlety, furthered these purposes of their government by holding in check the pretensions of the Dalai-lama, while appearing to support him, and, by indirect means, neutralising his authority whenever the exercise of it seemed to clash with the Chinese policy. The lama-king of the Kalkas has therefore become virtually independent of his spiritual superior at Lassa, for whom he has about the same regard as Napoleon has for the Pope.
The "Urga" of the Kalkas has not always been where it stands now. In 1720,[8] it was on the river Orkhon, near its confluence with the Selenga, some distance north of the present Urga. But some time before that date the Kalkas had their head-quarters where the Urga now stands, for we read[9] of the Eleuths having "destroyed the magnificent temple, which the Kutuchtu had built near the river Tula, of yellow varnished bricks," about the year 1688.
The mountain fastnesses of the Khangai range, stretching south-west from Urga, and bordering the great desert, are eminently favourable to the assembling of armies, and afford a safe retreat for fugitive tribes. The richness of the pastures, and the abundance of water supplied by the larger rivers, and by the mountain streams that are found in every ravine, afford sustenance for unlimited herds and flocks. The first Huns had their head-quarters not far from Urga long before the Christian era. The site of the old Mongol capital of Kara Korum is about 160 miles from Urga in a south-west direction. Thence the Mongols issued forth to conquer Asia and Europe, and thither they returned, when driven out of China in 1368, to found the new empire of the Yuen of the north, under a Grand Khan of the Kalkas. There also flourished Ung-Khan, celebrated in the 12th century, from his name having been used by the Nestorians as a stalking-horse for perpetrating what has generally been considered as a gigantic hoax on the Pope and various European sovereigns. The Nestorians caused it to be reported that they had converted this potentate and his subjects to Christianity; and that the Khan had been by them baptised under the name of John. Letters were written in the name of this "Prester John" as he was called, to his royal brethren in the west. These seem to have been credited as genuine, for more than one mission was despatched from European courts to make the acquaintance of this most Christian king. There is, perhaps, as much reason to believe as to doubt the conversion of this prince. These expeditions, if they failed in their main purpose, were at least the means of giving to the world much curious information concerning the inhabitants of the Great Tartary.
"Prester John," or, to call him by his right name, Ung-Khan, was the most powerful Tartar prince of his day. Genghis, then called Temoujin, when a very young man, repaired to the court of Ung-Khan to seek aid to repress disturbances among his own tribes, and soon became commander-in-chief of Ung-Khan's armies, in which capacity he displayed the high military qualities which afterwards made him master of nearly the whole civilised world. He was a great favourite with the Khan, and all went on smoothly until the unlucky day when Ung-Khan's daughter fell in love with young Temoujin. The course of true love did not run smooth with him, for his rivals being fired with enmity, began to plot against him with the Khan, who in time yielded to their instigation, and betrayed his best friend. Temoujin remained true to his colours long after he lost the confidence of the Khan; but the discovery of a deeply-laid plot against his life at length brought him to an open rupture with his sovereign. They fought a pitched battle between the rivers Tolla and Kerlon, probably at a short distance eastward from the present Urga. Ung-Khan's forces had greatly the advantage in numbers, but the Khan was no match for his accomplished general. Temoujin gained a decisive victory. The Khan escaped from the field of battle, but was soon afterwards killed, and his dynasty destroyed. Temoujin now found himself master of the situation, and was installed at Kara-Korum in 1206, under the title of Genghis-Khan.
Having done our business at the Kuren, we started rather late in the afternoon in pursuit of the camels. The route lay about north through a valley. It was bad travelling, owing to the rough nature of the ground. It is naturally soft and boggy, and the melted snow in the low ground had greatly aggravated the evil. When past the great monasteries, we got on higher ground on the slope of the hills, but this was, if possible, more slippery than the low road, for the melting snow above kept up a continuous supply of moisture which made the road very difficult even for horses. We soon came upon the traces of camels, which we had no difficulty in identifying by the side-slips down the hill made by their broad splay feet. This is always dangerous work for camels, and we had some apprehension of accidents from "splitting," or dislocating the hip joints. We were in consequence not ill-pleased to come upon the caravan a little after sunset, encamped in a narrow ravine looking west, and at the foot of a steep pass. Several of the camels had fallen, but fortunately none were injured. It was a fine moonlight night, and we tried to get our people to proceed on the journey; but the camels could not draw the carts over the pass, steep as it was, and with such slippery roads. Bullocks had been sent for, and they were expected every hour, of course, but it might have been evident to us that they had no intention of coming before morning. Anyhow we would not be the occasion of delay, and therefore slept in our carts ready for a move at any moment. At daylight on the 23rd of September the bullocks came, two for each cart, accompanied by a young woman and a boy, who proceeded to harness them in a very slow and deliberate manner. The beasts did their work, but with difficulty, owing to the broken character of the road. On the top of the pass our lama paid his respects to an obon, by throwing a large piece of wood on it, and the bullocks took the carts safely down the other side of the pass, which was quite as steep as the ascent. We then proceeded with the camels through valleys and undulations, among fine mountain scenery, avoiding the main road, and striking off through various bye-paths, all apparently well known to our conductors. At 3 p.m. we halted off Narim valley to dine, intending to take advantage of the moonlight to resume our night travelling. But as bad luck would have it a snowstorm came on, and we had to remain where we were till morning. All hopes of mending our pace from Urga to Kiachta now vanished. We had already lost two good nights out of the four, or at most five days which is considered ample time for the journey; and if the stormy weather were to continue, which it looked very like doing, we might be the whole winter on the road. The beasts had little to eat but snow all night. In the morning the ground was white, but the storm was over. Our old enemy the wind began early in the day to stir the twigs of the trees, and though he came in like a lamb, we had but too sure a presentiment of what was coming. It blew fiercely all day, and we walked during the greater part of it. The slight covering of snow on the ground soon melted under the combined action of the sun and wind. The latter agency is certainly the more powerful of the two, when the atmosphere is above freezing temperature. Our nights were always very frosty, but the sun had still sufficient influence during the middle of the day to moisten the surface of the ground.
Over a steep pass and down into another valley we joined the main road, which is now very broad and good. Our march continued to be diversified by valleys and undulations, the scene constantly changing, and now and again opening out enchanting views of scenery, with every variety of rock and river, wooded hills and high mountain ranges tumbling on each other. The wind, that had blown bitterly cold all day, lulled at sunset; the sky continued clear, and we had a calm frosty night. Halted at 10 p.m. in Gurun-dsata, a broad rich valley, with abundant grass, and supporting vast herds of cattle, which the clear moonlight revealed to us. The beauties of this spot were only fully discovered at sunrise the next morning, which being calm and fine, we were in the best humour to enjoy the rocky, woody, and pastoral scenes around us. It was plain we had got into a country altogether different from the Mongol steppes. The valleys are all watered by streams, and the soil susceptible of high cultivation.
We are now frightened with another bugbear, in the shape of an unfordable river, the Khara-gol, or "black-river." It seemed we were destined to be delayed by every possible contrivance of nature, for these rivers are very rarely flooded. Were it otherwise, some device would certainly have been found to meet the emergency. It was all the more hard, therefore, that these paltry little Mongol rivers should get themselves up into such a state of fury just when we were passing through the country.
During our march towards Khara river, we struck the river Boro, a tributary of the Khara, which waters a fine broad valley containing the largest Mongol population we had seen anywhere collected in one place. As we followed the course of the Boro down the valley, we passed several apparently separate communities, all rich in cattle. A novel sight here met our eye, the cultivation of a coarse kind of rye, called by the Mongols, boota. They were harvesting this as we passed, carting it to the yourts in a rough sort of wooden cart, and stacking it up. This seems to show that the Mongols are not naturally averse to cultivation, when they are favourably circumstanced for carrying it out. Some of their tribes, such as those in Western Toumet, mentioned by Huc, do indeed systematically cultivate the ground. The sun had set before we got to the end of the valley, and we encamped in the evening not far from the left bank of the Khara-gol, sending out the lama with a native of the district to survey a crossing for the morning.
Early on the 26th we advanced to the river at a place higher up than the usual ford. Carts were unloaded, and the passage effected in the same way as the Tolla, but, the river being much smaller, less time was lost in the operation. There is always a busy scene at these fords, particularly when a drove of cattle have to be got over. One poor man spent the whole morning in fruitless endeavours to drive half-a-dozen cattle through the river, but the neighbours at last came to his assistance, and led them through one by one.