well, we resolved to pitch our tent beside it. While we were making our tea, three Tartars, one decorated with the red, the other with the blue button, alighted at the entrance of our dwelling. They asked for news of the caravan of the King of the Alechans. We answered that we had met it a long time since, that it must already be at a considerable distance, and that it would doubtless arrive, before night, at the encampment of the Hundred Wells. “As it is so,” they said, “we would rather remain here, than arrive by night at the Hundred Wells, at the risk of falling into some hole. Tomorrow, by starting a little before day, we shall reach the caravan.”
No sooner said than done: the Tartars forthwith unsaddled their horses, sent them off to seek their fortune in the desert, and without ceremony took their seat beside our fire. They were all Taitsi of the kingdom of the Alechan. One of these, he who wore the cap with the red button, was the king’s minister; they all three belonged to the great caravan, but the day before, having started to visit a friend, a prince of the Ortous, they had been left behind by the main body.
The minister of the King of Alechan had an open, frank character, and a very acute understanding; he combined Mongol good nature with vivacious and elegant manners, which he had no doubt acquired in his frequent visits to Peking. He asked many questions about the country which the Tartars call the Western Heaven, and informed us, that every three years a great number of our countrymen, from the different western kingdoms, rendered their homage to the Emperor at Peking.
It is needless to observe that, for the most part, the Tartars do not carry very far their geographical studies. The west means with them simply Thibet and some adjacent countries, which they hear mentioned by the Lamas, who have made the pilgrimage to Lha-Ssa. They firmly believe that beyond Thibet there is nothing; there, say they, is the end of the world; beyond, there is merely a shoreless ocean.
When we had satisfied all the inquiries of the red button, we addressed some to him about the country of the Alechan, and the journey to Peking. “Every third year all the sovereigns of the world,” said he, “repair to Peking, for the feast of the new year. Princes who live near, are bound to go thither every year; those who live at the extremities of the earth, go every second or third year, according to the distance they have to travel.” “What is your purpose in going every year to Peking?” “We ourselves go as the retinue of our king; the king alone enjoys the happiness of prostrating himself in the presence of the Old Buddha (the
Emperor).” He entered then into long details about the ceremony of the first day of the year, and the relations between the Chinese Emperor and the tributary kings.
The foreign sovereigns, under the dominating influence of the China empire, repair to Peking; first, as an act of obeisance and submission: secondly, to pay certain rents to the Emperor, whose vassals they consider themselves. These rents, which are decorated with the fine name of offerings, are, in fact, imposts which no Tartar king would venture to refuse the payment of. They consist in camels, in horses remarkable for their beauty, and which the Emperor sends to augment his immense herds in the Tchakar. Every Tartar prince is, besides, obliged to bring some of the rarer productions of his country; deer, bear and goat venison; aromatic plants, pheasants, mushrooms, fish, etc. As they visit Peking in the depth of winter, all these eatables are frozen; so that they bear, without danger of being spoiled, the trial of a long journey, and even remain good long after they have arrived at their destination.
One of the Banners of the Tchakar is especially charged with sending to Peking, every year, an immense provision of pheasant’s eggs. We asked the minister of the King of the Alechan, whether these pheasant’s eggs were of a peculiar flavour, that they were so highly appreciated by the Court. “They are not destined to be eaten,” he answered; “the Old Buddha uses them for another purpose.” “As they are not eaten, what are they used for?” The Tartar seemed embarrassed, and blushed somewhat as he replied that these eggs were used to make a sort of varnish, which the women of the imperial harem used for the purpose of smoothing their hair, and which communicates to it, they say, a peculiar lustre and brilliancy. Europeans, perhaps, may consider this pomatum of pheasant’s eggs, so highly esteemed at the Chinese court, very nasty and disgusting; but beauty and ugliness, the nice and the nasty, are, as everybody knows, altogether relative and conventional matters, upon which the various nations that inhabit this earth have ideas remotest from the uniform.
These annual visits to the Emperor of China are very expensive and extremely troublesome to the Tartars of the plebeian class, who are overwhelmed with enforced labour, at the pleasure of their masters, and are bound to provide a certain number of camels and horses, to carry the baggage of the king and the nobles. As these journeys take place in the depth of winter, the animals find little food, especially when, after leaving the Land of Grass, they enter upon the districts cultivated by the Chinese; and a great number of them, accordingly, die on the road. Hence, when the caravan returns, it is far from being in such good order and condition as when
it started; it presents, one might almost say, merely the skeletons of the animals. Those which have still retained a little strength are laden with the baggage necessary on the way; the others are dragged along by the halter, scarcely able to move one leg before the other. It is a very sad, and, at the same time, singular thing, to see the Mongols walking on foot, and leading behind them horses which they dare not mount for fear of breaking them down.