From the Arctic Ocean to the Yellow Sea

by Julius M. Price

I don’t think I was ever in a more strangely religious place than Ourga. Everywhere, at the most unexpected places, at all times, one often saw people throwing themselves suddenly face downwards, full length on the ground, saying their prayers, just as the fit took them, I suppose, these curious proceedings attracting no attention. Many a time I have been riding quietly along, when all of a sudden my horse would be made to swerve violently by some hideous old man or woman, who was seized with an irresistible impulse to say a prayer just in front of its feet. And their devotions do not end here, for every yourt, however humble, not only contains a family wheel, but is decorated outside with innumerable “prayer-flags,” or rather bits of rag, tied on to strings suspended from poles all round the palisades. Till I was informed what they were, I took them for bird-scares, for they could not, even by the wildest stretch of the imagination, be taken for flags. If the Mongols were only a quarter as industrious in ordinary everyday pursuits as they are in their religion, the Chinese would not, as they do, monopolize all the trade of the country, while its inhabitants sit about on their hams twirling their prayer-wheels or manipulating their rosaries, quite content if they only earn enough to keep them from day to day.

The sight of a nation’s decadence is always a saddening spectacle; but that of the once so powerful Mongol race being gradually but surely extinguished, by the people they once conquered, is a still further and overwhelming instance of Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. Although, beyond the annual rearing of a few ponies, camels, and cattle by some of the richer families, there is no actual industry, and the bulk of the populace live from hand to mouth, there are but few signs of actual want. Of course there are poor, wretchedly poor, people in Ourga, who live, or, rather, manage to exist, in the most awful hovels. But still, during the whole month I spent in the sacred city, I was never once pestered by a beggar; indeed, I never saw one. Ourga, in this respect, offered an agreeable contrast to most of the Siberian towns I was in, where one could never leave one’s hotel or lodgings without finding quite a little crowd of them lying in wait. Whether this is a relic of the old national pride, I cannot, of course, tell, but I give it as a curious and remarkable fact.

“THE OLD, OLD STORY ALL THE WOULD OVER.”

[To face [p. 246].

The absence of beggars was, however, but the one redeeming feature of this dirty and disappointing city—or, rather, I don’t think that this could be called a redeeming feature, for it was more than counterbalanced by the immense quantity of dogs with which the place is infested—huge fierce brutes, more like wild beasts than domestic animals. They are not unlike certain breeds of Scotch collies, only considerably larger. Till I went to Ourga, I used to be fond of “the friend of man;” but I had not been long in the sacred city before I got to hate the very sight of dogs. At night it was absolutely impossible to work owing to the incessant barking they kept up; at all times it was dangerous to venture out unless one was armed with a heavy stick. Although it would not be a difficult matter to exterminate these pests, they are left to increase unmolested; so it is not to be wondered at that every street is blocked with them, to the great danger of passengers.

These dogs do not confine their attentions entirely to strangers, the inhabitants themselves fearing them as much as the Europeans do. It will give some idea of the size and ferocity of the brutes when I add that only a short time ago an old woman, passing through a by-street, was set upon by a pack of them, and actually torn to pieces and devoured, in broad daylight, before any assistance could reach her. Nor is this an isolated instance, for not many years since an old Lama was riding through the city late at night, when he was literally dragged off his horse and killed. Very few of the inhabitants think of going out in the streets at night, unless they have very important business, and then very seldom alone.

One of the worst mauvais quarts-d’heure I think I ever had was one afternoon here, when, accompanied by a Russian friend, who spoke a little English, I was returning from a stroll around. In order to make a short cut, we passed through a number of narrow back streets, and while going along the very narrowest of these we suddenly heard a sort of hoarse murmur behind us, which was quickly getting nearer. On looking back to see what it was, we saw a big cloud of dust, and in the midst of it a huge crowd of dogs, coming towards us at full speed, with one wretched-looking brute on ahead of them, which they were evidently chivying. The few people in the street made a rush for their doors, and got inside their enclosure without much hesitation. “It is a mad dog!” exclaimed my companion, at the same time pulling me close to the palisade behind us, which was flush with the road. We stood with our backs to it, as flat as we could make ourselves, and in less time than it takes to tell it the whole pack were abreast of us, with the poor hunted beast, covered with blood and dirt, snapping and biting viciously right and left at his tormentors as he flew past. Fortunately for us, they were too occupied to direct their energies in our direction, though they actually had to squeeze by us, so narrow was the street. I did not feel comfortable again until some little time after they were out of sight.

The savage nature of these brutes will be more readily understood when it is remembered that the Mongols, in accordance with their creed, literally throw their dead to their dogs, and never bury them. Old or young, rich or poor, the custom is universal, forming as it does part and parcel of their religion. When a Mongol dies, the body is wrapped up in an old coat and is taken a short distance outside the city on to the hills, where it is placed on the ground, with only a “prayer-flag” over it to protect it, and is then abandoned, not to the mercy of the elements, but to the hundreds of dogs who have already scented their feast and are waiting patiently by. No sooner are the mourners out of sight than the dreadful repast commences, and in an incredibly short time nothing remains of the lifeless body but a few scraps of the covering it was rolled in. A general battle usually takes place over the body among the savage brutes, with the result that human remains are soon strewed over the ground, and the scene is too ghastly for description. As there is no cemetery or particular spot for depositing the dead, one not infrequently comes across a stray bone or a skull which has escaped those hungry canine sextons, and these poor vestiges of frail humanity certainly add to the desolate surroundings of the desert city. Such a wonderful instinct have the Ourga dogs, that I am told they will often wait for days outside a yourt where a person is dying.

The currency of Mongolia is peculiar, and takes a lot of getting used to. On one occasion I bought some trifling article and paid for it in Russian money, which the Mongols are, at any rate, shrewd enough never to refuse. Imagine my surprise when, for the change, I was handed a small slab of brick-tea and two dirty little bits of floss silk, which I should have passed unnoticed in the gutter. These rags, which intrinsically were probably worth less than a farthing, represented twenty kopeks (sixpence), as I was informed, while the tea was equivalent to thirty kopeks. This tea, by the way, is the only real currency throughout Mongolia; the silk is becoming gradually obsolete, probably because it wears out too soon, whereas the tea will stand almost any amount of hard wear. A “brick” of tea, sixteen inches long by eight wide and about one and a half thick, represents sixty kopeks, equal to one shilling and sixpence. If a smaller sum is necessary, the brick is cut up into sections, say, six of ten kopeks each, and even these are again subdivided by the poorer Mongols.