When recalled by the steam whistle we left the village and took a short route down a steep bank to the boat. In descending, my feet passed from under me, and I had the pleasure of sliding about ten yards before stopping. Had it not been for a Cossack who happened in my way I should have entered the Amoor after the manner of an otter, and afforded much amusement to the spectators, though comparatively little to myself. The sliding attracted no special attention as it was supposed to be the American custom, and I did not deem it prudent to make an explanation lest the story might bring discredit to my nationality.
CHAPTER XII.
I had a curiosity to examine the ancient monuments at Tyr, opposite the mouth of the Amgoon river, but we passed them in the night without stopping. There are several traditions concerning their origin. The most authentic story gives them an age of six or seven hundred years. They are ascribed to an emperor of the Yuen dynasty who visited the mouth of the Amoor and commemorated his journey by building the ‘Monastery of Eternal Repose.’ The ruined walls of this monastery are visible, and the shape of the building can be easily traced. In some places the walls are eight or ten feet high.
Mr. Collins visited the spot in 1857 and made sketches of the monuments. He describes them situated on a cliff a hundred and fifty feet high, from which there is a magnificent view east and west of the Amoor and the mountains around it. Toward the south there are dark forests and mountain ridges, some of them rough and broken. To the north is the mouth of the Amgoon, with a delta of numerous islands covered with forest, while in the northwest the valley of the river is visible for a long distance. Back from the cliff is a table-land several miles in width.
This table-land is covered with oak, aspen, and fir trees, and has a rich undergrowth of grass and flowers. On a point of the cliff there are two monuments. A third is about four hundred yards away. One is a marble shaft on a granite pedestal; a second is entirely granite, and the third partly granite and partly porphyry. The first and third bear inscriptions in Chinese, Mongol, and Thibetan. One inscription announces that the emperor Yuen founded the Monastery of Eternal Repose, and the others record a prayer of the Thibetans. Archimandrate Avvakum, a learned Russian, who deciphered the inscriptions, says the Thibetan prayer Om-mani-badme-khum is given in three languages. [[C]]
Abbe Hue in his ‘Recollections of a journey through Thibet and Tartary,’ says:—