The spiritual life of the Kalmuks reduces itself to their religious cult. There are many Buddhist convents where children are being brought up for a monastic life. Religious rites are performed by priests dressed in purple and brilliant yellow; for the uninitiated, their part consists in unrolling interminable bands on which prayers are inscribed, and in executing a religious music which seemed a mixture of a camel’s grunt, a dog’s howling, and an infinitely sad plaint. Of the pure cult of Buddha, nothing seems to remain but an empty form. However, there is a convent in the steppes—Tshori—a sort of religious academy, where an effort is being made to restore the cult to the original level of Buddhist doctrines.
Whilst gathering observations on tuberculosis, we traversed the steppes in a north-easterly direction as far as Sarepta. This town seemed like a civilised centre after the steppes, where the conditions of life were somewhat hard in spite of the cordial reception accorded us everywhere. The food, consisting solely in tinned goods and mutton, had caused intestinal trouble in nearly all the members of the expedition; on the other hand, we were greatly incommoded by the heat, lack of water, and abundance of insects of all kinds.
In spite of all, Metchnikoff had hitherto borne the journey fairly well. However, since we left Moscow he had had frequent cardiac intermittence, accompanied sometimes by sharp pains along the sternum. But the stay at Sarepta especially tried his health; the heat reached 35° C. (95° F.) in the shade and 52° C. (about 125° F.) in the sun; in the evening the windows could not be opened because of the mosquitoes. Metchnikoff, who had shown so much endurance, now became weak, drowsy, and nervous; he attributed his condition to the excessive heat. Yet he could not leave Sarepta, for all the members of both branches of the mission had agreed to meet there in order to sum up the results of their observations.
The researches of the expedition for the study of plague were not finished, and the Russian mission had agreed to complete them. So far, it was established that neither the corpses—after a certain time—nor the ground, nor the surrounding animals contained any plague microbes, and no carriers had been found among the Kirghiz population.
The data gathered among the Kalmuk population justified Metchnikoff’s hypothesis. In the centre of the steppes, where the Kalmuks were still isolated, tuberculosis was completely unknown; diagnosis reactions were negative. They became positive more and more frequently as we came nearer the periphery of the steppes and the Russian population. The extreme sensitiveness of the Kalmuks must therefore depend on the fact that they have suffered no natural vaccination in the steppes, which would support the idea that some natural vaccine exists amongst us. Metchnikoff therefore concluded that he might direct ulterior researches towards the quest of natural tuberculous vaccines. Such were the scientific results of the expedition.
Apart from that, the journey to Russia had a strong personal influence on Metchnikoff. He had formerly left his country under the impression of the fatal error committed by the revolutionaries in killing Alexander II., an error which had led to a protracted reaction. He had therefore remained very sceptical concerning the Russian revolutionary movement; he thought that the necessary reforms might come from a Government evolution. But, during his sojourn in Russia, he was able to appreciate events which modified his ideas to a great extent. He was impressed by the contrast between the progressive aspirations of the “intellectuals” and the inertia or noxious activity of the rulers. The policy of Casso, the Minister of Public Instruction, who ordered regular raids in the universities, the persecution of Poles and Jews, the encouragement of the “black band” obscurantism, giving plenary powers to creatures of darkness like Rasputin and his peers, all these things excited indignation in a man who placed the free development of human culture above everything.
He thus ceased to count upon the progressive evolution of a Government which was incapable of solving the complicated problems of Russian life, and henceforward thought that those problems would be solved by the “intellectuals” apart from the Government and in opposition to it.