Such is the external aspect at first sight; the internal life it covers is much more singular.
THE GRAND LAMA OF MONGOLIA.
CHAPTER XVIII.
URGA AND THE ENTRY INTO THE DESERT OF GOBI.
Urga—Mongol religion—Praying wheels—Burial ceremonies—The Holy Mountain—My travelling companions in the desert—Departure from Urga—First halt—A Mongolian repast—Easter Eve.
The thought of death and a future life hovers constantly over this mournful city, and lugubrious religious ceremonies constitute the principal occupation of its fanatical inhabitants. Banners inscribed with prayers are all around the palings surrounding their tents, everywhere fluttering in the breeze; but, as if these were insufficient, certain fanatics stretch a cord around below this row of banners, and suspend oriflammes therefrom covered with pious texts. These stuffs of every colour, as thick as blossom on a peach tree, in lively agitation from the slightest breeze and glittering in the sun, give to this city the aspect of a perpetual fête, contrasting most singularly with the funereal atmosphere one breathes here amid so many obtrusive relics of the dead.
Their chief religious exercise consists in turning round on an axis like a horse in a mill a great drum, crammed with a countless number of written prayers. In the eyes of the faithful, to obtain a turn or two of this miraculous wheel in their favour, is to procure for themselves all the blessings they could hope to attain if the prayers it contains had been turned over on their tongues, or, perhaps,—could they only see the perfunctory procedure of a more enlightened race,—as others are sometimes turned over in a book without a handle. These praying wheels are quite an institution throughout the country. They are seen in the streets of Urga at every thirty or forty paces, and of sufficient size to accommodate a working team of four or five men at a time. Around the lamasery where they are sown broadcast from eighty to a hundred may be counted. Notwithstanding the wheels are as plentiful as fire plugs in civilized cities, and much more accessible when wanted, and, moreover, are as full of prayers “as a pomegranate is full of seed,” they are still insufficient for certain Mongols of exemplary piety feeling the need of private devotion, and who make up for the deficiency by turning a little portable wheel in the left hand, whilst their right is fully employed in the public duty of working the big machine of their district. These praying wheels are furnished with two bells, the one having a grave and the other an acute note, which thus indicate by their tone every turn and half turn: an incessant chime is accordingly heard here which contributes very much to the picturesqueness and grotesqueness of this strange spot.
It is not allowed to enter the space before the palace of the Koutoukta, either on horse or camel or in a carriage. The rite imposes the duty to approach on foot, but the majority make of it a work of supererogation and only come crouching on their knees.