Kiachta, on the southern frontier of Siberia, was reached September 28, 1870, and there Gilmour was at once plunged into a series of troubles. The Russian and Chinese authorities would not recognise his passport, and he had to wait months before another could be obtained from Peking. He found absolutely no sympathy in his work. He knew next to nothing of the Mongol language. Yet with robust faith, with whole-hearted courage, with a resolution that nothing could daunt, he set to work. A Scotch trader, named Grant, was kind to him, and found accommodation for him at his house. At first he tried the orthodox plan of getting a Mongol teacher to visit and instruct him. Before he secured one he used to visit such Mongols as he found in the neighbourhood, trying to acquire a vocabulary from them, asking the names of the articles they were using, their actions, and all such other matters as he could make them understand. But his loneliness, his ignorance of the language, the inaction to which he was condemned, partly by his difficulty in getting a suitable teacher, and partly by the uncertainty as to whether the authorities would allow him to remain, told upon his eager spirit as week after week passed by, and he became subject to fits of severe depression. Here is a picture of one of these early days. He had been trying to talk with a Buriat carpenter, in a place called Kudara, not far from Kiachta:—
'After getting my quota of words I walked through the town. The main object in it is the church, a large whitewashed structure built by Mr. Grant's father-in-law when he was a rich man. He was made poor, comparatively speaking, in one night by a great fire which burnt up all before it. In addition to the church are some streets of Cossack houses, desolate enough looking, the streets desolate enough at best, but rendered much more so this morning by the snow melting in the sun, which is still high, and manages to thaw away all the snow that falls in places where it shines, though it was frost all day in the shade. Passing the town I made for the river, which rolled on quiet and cold. Passed through large orchards of apple(?) trees; doubled about, went to the extreme west, got on a hill, and came round home again in time for dinner at 4 P.M. I felt very lonely, and not having a teacher I am thrown idle, as it were, a great part of the day after I get my words. It is true I am taking notice of all I see, but it always occurs to me that this is not furthering the Mongolian Mission in any direct way. I often think of what Dr. Alexander said in his charge at my ordination: "You do not go to discover new countries." Would I had a teacher, that the language might go on full swing! To-day I felt a good deal like Elijah in the wilderness, when the reaction came on after his slaughter of the priests of Baal. He prayed that he might die. I wonder if I am telling the truth when I say that I felt drawn towards suicide. I take this opportunity of declaring strongly that on all occasions two missionaries should go together. I was not of this opinion a few weeks ago, but I had no idea how weak an individual I am. My eyes have filled with tears frequently these last few days in spite of myself, and I do not wonder in the least that Grant's brother shot himself. Oh! the intense loneliness of Christ's life, not a single one understood Him! He bore it. O Jesus, let me follow in Thy steps, and have in me the same Spirit that Thou hadst!
'Read papers in the evening (Oct 5). So Jones of Singrauli is dead! I heard him in Exeter Hall, May, a year or two ago, and heard a good deal of him through Dr. Evans, of Chestnut College. I am persuaded he was a missionary among a thousand. When he returned to his station he found that during his absence matters had got out of order a good deal, and he set about putting them right. Now he is dead! How prodigal God seems of His workers—Hartley, Jones, both A 1, both gone. God's ways are not ours. We would have preserved these two at all risk and expense, but God takes them away, and it seems to us as if He were hurting His own cause. God knows best, but to us it is a great mystery.'
Two days later he received a letter telling him of the death of a brilliant young Glasgow student, and he enters in his diary comments which received only too complete an illustration in his own subsequent career:—
'Another splendid student going from college to the grave. This is a thing of common occurrence with reference to Glasgow College, and, if I am not mistaken, I have seen it somewhere publicly commented on. Men, poor it may be, strive through college with a mind and determination beyond their circumstances and bodily strength, fight a great battle with poverty and more clever students, resolute to take the first place if possible, and just as the college is finished with them, and sending them forth to the field of life decorated with all the honours it can bestow, the fond Alma Mater has to keep on mourning and drop her tear over an early grave.
'Are the young men to blame? Who can be restrained by the cold-blooded calculation of preserving health? "There is my opponent, I'll thrash him if I can; better to toil out my life-blood drop by drop than let it mount to my cheek as a mantle of shame when I find myself defeated when I might have been victorious." Then they conscientiously work themselves to death. If they did not work as hard as they do, and refrain from recreation as they do, they would have in their breasts the uneasy feeling that they have not done as much as they might have done; and what noble nature can be content to live under that accusation written against them by the supreme court in their own breasts?
'Several times I have resolved to refrain for health's sake, but in a short time found such an uneasy feeling about not doing as much as I might, that I had to give it up and go at it. I never feel that I have done as much as I might, and when I am doing most I feel best.'
Very dissatisfied with his progress, and stung one day by a remark of Grant's to the effect that he did not seem to speak Mongolian readily, Gilmour changed his plans. He resolved to go out upon the Plain, and persuade some Mongol to allow him to share his tent. On December 13, 1870, he left Kiachta and journeyed out into Mongolia to the first cluster of tents, named Olau Bourgass. There he found a friendly Mongol. 'Grant's contractor. Found him at his prayers. He motioned me to sit down, and when his devotions were finished he gave me a warm welcome. He lives alone in his tent, having nothing to care for but the horses for the courier service, and a couple of lamas[2] to attend to his wants, one of whom goes with the letters when they come. We talked, and I learned a great deal, when at last I broke my mind to him, and was glad to find that he received it favourably. I settled to remain there during the night. Nothing very remarkable happened except that we were invaded by a great blustering lama, intoxicated. He came ramping into the tent as if he would have knocked everything down. After a time he went away and lodged in the next hut. I went to bed about ten and slept well, though my feet were cold towards morning.'
[2] A lama is a priest of the lama section of Buddists. More than half the population of Mongolia are lamas.
The next three months were passed mainly in this tent. Gilmour used, whenever possible, to return to Kiachta to spend the Sunday at Grant's house; but by enduring the hardships and suffering all the inconveniences of ordinary Mongol life he rapidly acquired the colloquial, and he also made an indelible impression upon the minds and hearts of the natives, who ever afterwards spoke of him as 'Our Gilmour.' He saw Mongol life as it was, free from all the illusion and romance sometimes thrown around it. He became intimately acquainted with the various Mongol types, and he began to enter into the native habits of thought. His diary contains many a scene like the following:—
'I gave the lama a book on Saturday, and when I came back on Tuesday I found he had read it through twice. He set upon me with questions, getting me to admit premises, and then reasoned from them. Christ being at the right hand of God was a great point with him. If God has no form, how can anyone be at His right hand? Then, again, if God is everywhere, Christ is everywhere right and left of God, and how can that be?
'The omnipresence was a staggerer. Was God in that pot, in the tent, in his boot? Did he tread upon God? Then was God inside the kettle? Did the hot tea not scald Him? Again, if God was inside the kettle, the kettle was living! And so he held it up to the laughing circle as a new species of animal. I asked him if a fly were inside the kettle, would the kettle be alive? "No," he said; "but a fly does not fill the space as God must do." "Well, then," said I, "is my coat alive because I fill it?" This settled the question.'
In March 1871 he visited Selenginsk and Onagen Dome, the scene of the labours of Stallybrass and Swan from 1817 to 1841, and then he took a run into Siberia, crossing Lake Baikal and visiting Irkutsk. At the latter place he reviews the past few months:—
'Another week has passed over my head with many hopes and fears. This day, a week ago, I was nearing Ana in doubt as to many things; now I am in Irkutsk, having my path marked with mercies. In many points of my journey I expected difficulties which might have stopped me short in my path, but all these have disappeared, and I am here, having succeeded beyond expectations. One thing is not right: my readiness to forget the ways in which God has helped me. Sometimes for weeks and months I look forward to some crisis which is coming; it comes off well, and in two days I am as if I had forgotten that to which I had looked forward with so much apprehension. In this manner I am not only guilty of ingratitude, but lose much joy and strength of faith and hope. What should make me more happy than the thought of the helps and deliverances that God has vouchsafed me; and in troubles present and to come, what can give me more faith and courage than to remember that out of such troubles I was delivered before?
'One thing I sometimes think of. I left Britain with no intention of travelling; I expected to settle down quietly and confine myself to a circle I could impress. This plan has been completely changed and overruled. Two months have I been in Peking; two weeks have I been in Kalgan; a month have I been in the desert; a month have I been in Kudara, a small Russian frontier military post; a month and a half have I been in Kiachta; two months have I been in Mongolia; and now two weeks have I been travelling in Russia. A year and a month have elapsed since I left home, and during that time I have been walking to and fro on the face of the earth, and going up and down in it. In this way I have not found my life at all dull, but very stirring. Indeed, many people would have left home to travel as I have done. I sought it not; it came, and I took it. So as yet I have no hardships to complain of. To see the places and things I have seen—Liverpool, Wales, Rock of Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, Port Said, Canal, Suez, Red Sea, Cape Gardafui, Indian Ocean, Penang, Straits of Malacca, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tientsin, Peking, Kalgan, Desert, Urga, Kiachta, Russia, Baikal, Irkutsk—only even to see these, men will make long journeys. I have seen them all without seeking them, with the exception of Baikal and Irkutsk. These are all by the way, and I dwell upon them as proofs that God, in sending His servants from home and kindred, often gives them pleasure and worldly enjoyment on the way, which He does not promise, and which they have no right to expect.'