It will, for example, be admitted that, according to the hitherto popular acceptation of the character, Tartars were not exactly the sort of persons on whom practical jokes might be perpetrated with impunity. Read, however, the following anecdote:—While our two travellers were one day in their tents, two Tartar horsemen dashed up to the entrance, and threw themselves on the ground. 'Men of prayer,' said they with voices full of emotion, 'we come to ask you to draw our horoscope. We have this day had two horses stolen from us. We cannot find the robbers, and we come to you men of learning, to tell us where we shall find our property.'
'Brothers,' answered the missionaries, 'we are not lamas of Buddha, and do not believe in horoscopes. For a man to say that he can discover stolen goods by such means, is falsehood and deception.'
The horsemen entreated, but the priests were inflexible, and the disappointed Tartars mounted their steeds, and galloped off. It so happened that Samdadchiemba, the guide of the missionaries—a Christianised Oriental, but withal a very merry fellow—was present during this interview, but he sat drinking his tea without uttering a word. All on a sudden he knitted his brows, rose, and came to the door. The horsemen were at some distance; but the dchiahour, by an exertion of his strong lungs, induced them to turn round in their saddles. He motioned to them, and they, thinking that the horoscope was to be given, galloped once more to the tent. 'My Mongol brothers,' said Samdadchiemba, 'in future be more careful: watch your herds well, and you won't be robbed. Retain these words of mine in your memory: they are worth all the horoscopes in the world.'
Samdad—the reader will perhaps thank us for the abbreviation—gravely returned to the tent; and the Tartars did not dismount and whip him, as two horsemen of any other nation under the sun would have done, but quietly resumed their journey. It appeared that Samdad had once acted as diviner on a similar occasion. The missing valuable was a bull, and the sage having called for eleven stones, counted, arranged and rearranged them with great gravity, and then appeared to meditate. 'If you would find your bull, go seek him in the north,' said the magician; and without querulously inquiring, like Shakspeare's Richard, what Taurus did in that region, the Mongols pursued a northern course, and by mere chance actually discovered the animal. Samdad was entertained for a week, and took his departure laden with butter and tea. He hinted his regret that 'his attachment to Mother Church' prevented him from playing the soothsayer to the two horsemen.
A peculiarity in Tartar manners, regarding stolen horses when abstracted near caravans, is likely to prove of more service than casting horoscopes. Some time after the occurrence mentioned, the missionaries lost a horse and mule. 'We each mounted a camel, and made a circuit in search of the animals. Our search being futile, we resolved to proceed to the Mongol encampment, and inform them that our loss had taken place near their habitation. By a law among the Tartars, when animals are lost from a caravan, the persons occupying the nearest encampment are bound either to find them or replace them.... This it is which has contributed to render the Mongols so skilful in tracking. A mere glance at the slight traces left by an animal on the grass, suffices to inform the Mongol pursuer how long it is since it passed, and whether or not it bore a rider; and the track once found, they follow it throughout all its meanderings, however complicated.
'We had no sooner explained our loss to the Mongol chief, than he said to us cheerfully: "Sirs Lamas, do not permit sorrow to invade your hearts. Your animals cannot be lost; in these plains there are neither robbers nor associates of robbers. I will send in quest of your horses. If we do not find them, you may select what others you please in their place from our herd. We would have you leave this place as happy as you came to it."' Eight horses darted off in pursuit; the missionaries were invited to take tea in the interim, and in two hours the strayed cattle were recovered. We should like to know in what other country travellers would be so treated?
Regal personages in these regions observe the characteristic simple manners of the country. Our pilgrims were pursuing their solitary way, when the tramping of many horses and the sound of many voices disturbed the silence of the desert. A large caravan belonging to the queen of Mourguevan overtook them, and a mandarin addressed them.
'Sirs, where is your country?'
'We come from the west.'
'Through what districts have your beneficial shadows passed?'