We were roused the following morning by the sudden, furious scamper of our horses. The driver had fallen asleep and then dropped the reins to the ground: the animals, scared with something clinging to their heels and finding themselves unrestrained, went straight before them, leaping over ditches, earth mounds, and obstacles of all kinds that came in their way. The most vigorous shouting, or the most soothing trémolos from the lips of the yemschik, were of no avail; they kept on their mad, vent à terre course.
Our driver then, like a true, devoted subject of the Emperor of Russia, as he was, did not hesitate at the critical moment to expose his life, when, in his conscience, it was imperative to save the lives of other subjects of the same Emperor. Whilst we held him suspended by the feet between the vehicle and the horses, he was—hanging in this way—enabled to gather up the reins which had already become entangled around the legs of one of the horses. A violent kick or fling, in this dangerous position, might have fractured the skull of this brave fellow, whose only fault had been the misfortune to have been suddenly overcome with too much fatigue, and whose devotion we did not fail to reward as it merited, when we arrived at Urga.
But our trouble did not end here: we had unfortunately lost our way.
Not one of us knew how long we had been at the mercy of our team and, consequently, how far we had strayed. After going one way, then another by chance, having nothing but the sun for a guide, our Buriat began to despair of finding the right way. In this dilemma, we resolved to ascend a high mountain and scan the horizon all around, but M. Marine and I being of course quite ignorant of the conformation and chief features of the country, the driver alone undertook this ascent. This accident and its consequences caused us to lose a whole day, but when he returned, happily, he was confident as to the route he had to take, and we set off in the same state as the pigeon in the fable, believing this time, our troubles would end with this trial.
We had not proceeded very far before we were most annoyingly stopped by a watercourse. We feared that its covering of ice was too fragile to bear us, and, on the other hand, it was apparently too treacherous to admit of our sounding it. After my adventures on Lake Baikal, I was quite prepared to trust myself over this ice without much hesitation, but, seeing the apprehensions of M. Marine and the driver, I became timid, and yielded to them.
We got out of the tarantass; M. Marine and I first went across on foot, and then the driver, after starting the horses at a gallop, followed us. The resistance of the ice was just sufficient, and the next day, probably, we could not have crossed, for the ice even now split under the weight, spurting up the compressed water everywhere through the inauspicious fissures.
We still had a mountain to ascend before arriving at Urga, and as our jaded horses crept up with difficulty, we got down to relieve them. Our attention was at once attracted by the picturesqueness of the scenery. As we advanced, the valleys around us coming into view, deepened in shadow and narrowed in width; the crests of the overhanging mountains were beginning to catch the first rays of the rising sun, and fascinated us with their luminous splendour. It called up, in my memory, my former excursions in the Alps and the Pyrenees. I loitered on my way musingly for some time, and tried to abstract my thoughts from actuality; from the perils of my adventure, the remoteness from my friends, and indulged in the illusion that I had before my eyes the snowy cap of Mont Blanc or the Maladetta. But this attractive imagery was soon rudely dispelled by the sight of two or three Mongolian tents on the summit of the hill we had to ascend. These were too forcibly suggestive of the first encampment I had visited to permit me to indulge any longer in a day-dream that I was so near my home. We resumed our places in the tarantass, and our descent of the mountain, across snow-pits and boggy spots, in the absence of any roadway whatever, kept us in perpetual alarm. The valley into which we descended, was strewn with huge stones, and we could not proceed, even at a snail’s pace, without being tossed with fearful joltings. This wearying movement lasted five or six hours, and M. Marine became quite exhausted and alarmingly pale from the effects. Towards one in the afternoon, we perceived a grand lamasery gracefully rising on the slope of a mountain, and, in another hour, we at last arrived at Urga, the capital of Mongolia.
The Russian consul, to whom I had a letter of recommendation, does not live in the city, and the reason will soon be apparent. His government has built a fine residence for him in the Siberian style, about two miles distant, and he has been living there twenty years with his wife, protected by two companies of Russian gendarmes, opening his house to travellers, who rarely present themselves, and having beyond this no other incidents to enliven his existence than he can find in the neighbourhood of this city, into which I will invite the reader to enter with me.
The streets are bordered right and left with palisades of trunks of trees, placed upright and strongly bound together, and these are pierced here and there, on each side, by gates of the same material and kind of construction, which give access into courts, where tents, exactly of the same character as those I have already described, are permanently pitched. The Mongols are essentially nomads, and would not, even in towns, live in any other kind of habitation. The governor of Mongolia, the Grand Lama, the highest dignitaries, live here also under tents. The lamasery, the Koutoukta palace, and the prison, alone stand out above the other strange constructions, but since these three principal are raised commandingly on a series of logs one above the other, they break slightly the monotonous aspect of the whole.
The lamasery is tolerably rich in its contents. The principal idol placed in the centre is cast in copper, sixty feet high; and around this are disposed several other personages, also of copper. Niches are also sunk along the walls, and contain other little copper idols: I counted twelve hundred of them. Flags and banners of precious stuffs embroidered with gold adorn this temple, but prevent one, through intercepting the view, from appreciating the general effect. On the right of the principal god a platform is raised for the Koutoukta, who takes his place here during the ceremonies. This Koutoukta is the favourite deity of the Mongols. He is brought here from Thibet by the Grand Lama of Urga, who goes into this country to search for him, guided probably by the indications of the other lamas of the country. The child lives retired in the recesses of this building, to which they give the pompous name of “palace.” Through some strange fatality, a fatality always renewed, this living deity never survives the age of eighteen or twenty years. The cause of this cruel destiny may be traced, I think, to the apprehensions of the government of Pekin, who, jealous of the influence the Koutoukta exercises over the Mongol population, fears it might become dangerous if protracted beyond this age. As to the prison, it consists of two enclosures about eighteen feet high, constructed also with trunks of trees.