Night came on. Evil spirits seized on the opportunity to close in on him. Every demon bore a burning torch. They were more in multitude than the stars of heaven. Four horrid nights, filled with hallucination, wore away. Four days he struggled on, tortured by thirst, his body one ache. At last horse and rider fell to the ground, worn out. Death was close at hand when a refreshing night-breeze swept over the desert, and horse and rider renewed the struggle. Suddenly, the horse insisted on taking his own way: he had scented water; and soon a little oasis was reached. It was uninhabited; but a day’s rest there refreshed man and beast; and, on the third day, the traveller saw the last of the shifting sands of Shamo and came to the pastures of the Uïghurs.
In the capital, probably identical with the town now known as Hâmî, he found a Buddhist monastery, wherein dwelt three Chinese monks. He had already made fully 600 miles from Liang-chau; but that was as nothing to the journey which lay before him; and from this he was compelled to digress. For he was in a region tributary to the ruler of Kau-chang (Turfan) and this monarch, having heard of his arrival, ordered that he should be sent on to him. Six days of travel to the West, through a desert, brought him to Turfan. The Lord-paramount of the Uïghurs received him with all honour and much state-ceremony. He sat under a “canopy of precious stuffs” pitched in the courtyard of a palace. Soon after the pilgrim’s arrival, the queen, accompanied by her suite, appeared; but Hiuen-Tsiang being fatigued, their Majesties retired to the “palace,” and he was conducted to his chamber, where eunuchs served and guarded him. Next day he was taken to a Buddhist convent, still in the custody of the eunuchs. For the monarch had resolved to keep such a holy person for the better instruction of his subjects.
Hiuen-Tsiang incurred the royal displeasure by stoutly refusing to do as he was bid and stay on. Then ensued, in that far away time and half barbaric land, the ancient and ever recurrent struggle which history so copiously illustrates—the contest between regnant authority and the claims of religion. At one time the despot tried to brow-beat; at another time, to cajole; he even put aside his dignity and offered to serve the monk at table. Both men were equally resolute; and the situation seemed hopeless, when Hiuen-Tsiang bethought him of an expedient with which we moderns became familiar at no very recent date. He started to hunger-strike. In four days the result of this policy alarmed the King. The queen-mother declared herself for the holy pilgrim, and the monarch gave in. He begged that Hiuen-Tsiang would at least stay in the country during one short month. The monk accepted the compromise; and in that single month his unaffected piety, passionate singleness of aim and personal attraction did the work they never failed to accomplish everywhere and on every occasion. Moral intensity was the secret of his success.
And so we see the poor wanderer who came to Uïghur-land alone, famished, and half dead, leaving the land under the protection of an armed escort, and provided, not merely with an ample supply of warm clothing for the heights he must cross, but with 100 ounces of gold, 30,000 pieces of silver and 500 pieces of satin for the presents which were necessary and to pay his way. He was also given letters of recommendation to the Princes of the West. Monks and the population of the city followed him beyond its gates; and the despot, having sent the queen and people back, conducted him surrounded by his whole court, some miles on his journey.
The route lay westward, over a difficult, mountainous land. Southward lay the Tarim, a considerable river, which discharges itself into Lob-nor, one of the numerous inland salt-seas of Asia, for ever rising and falling and shifting its boundaries. It was well that the pilgrim had a military escort; for a band of brigands lurked among the mountains. They were probably quite as strong as the Uïghur soldiery; for negotiations were entered into, and ended in their being bought off. A little farther on there was ghastly evidence that these ruffians had recently attacked and destroyed a caravan of traders: a few score corpses lay stretched out on the ground.
When Kara-shahr (Karshâr) was reached, its King behaved courteously, but refused to grant fresh horses, by reason of the frequent raiding of his domain by the Uïghurs. He was disquieted by the presence of Uïghur soldiery. Hiuen-Tsiang tells us, among much else that is interesting, that the coinage here was of gold, silver and copper,—that there were ten Buddhist monasteries of the Lesser Vehicle; that these were properly kept, but that the country “had no annals” and that “the laws were not settled. The people clothe themselves in cotton or wool, and go about with their scalps shorn and uncovered.”
The separate account of each country the pilgrim visited or concerning which he believed he had credible information—his great monumental work—the Si-yu-ki—begins with Kara-shahr which he calls Akni or Agni. One is at once struck with the exactness of the author’s observation, the orderliness of his mind, and the minute precision of his statement. One is equally astounded at his oriental love of the marvellous and his eager haste to record every grotesque and absurd legend. There is before us a man as full as any modern explorer of ardent zeal for travel, eager curiosity, keen eye, and quick interest in all that is novel and peculiar. There is the same intellectual grasp of the natural features, products and government of strange countries. But Hiuen-Tsiang’s inmost, burning passion is revealed both in this book and in the biography compiled from his documents and discourse by two pupils and intimate friends Hwui-Lih and Yen-Tsong[1]: it was for all that appertained to his religion, whether sacred writing or Buddhist monuments or the relics of saints. When he deals with mundane matters he rarely goes astray. And, from his earliest years, he bore a sacred flame, a consuming fire in his breast, fed by the highest and holiest emotions and aspirations of man. But, although he breathed the breath of life, the purest atmosphere of the East in his century was tainted by superstition. The mental disposition for the marvellous, implanted in him at a tender age, and sustained by precept and example, waxed with the years. The absurdest legends became credible if they bore the name of his faith. This close observer, this clear minded man became passionate for prodigies, had a Gargantuan swallow for the superstitious-grotesque. Brought up on legend, he soon found himself in a home of fable. He records every marvellous tale which is told him, and worships at every shrine which guards any relic of wonder. And this although he was not wanting in passion for orderly thinking.
News from Kara-shahr that a holy pilgrim, bound for India, might be expected reached the next Kingdom, and he found monks standing to greet him at the gate of Kutchê, its capital. Feelings of simple grace and beauty dwelt in those Eastern hearts; they welcomed him with a gift of flowers. But the strict laws of his order did not permit of his accepting these for himself. He placed them before an image of Buddha, Teacher of the Law. Kutchê was a land of music, its people excelling all others on the lute and pipe. They were a wholly honest folk, with an incompetent ruler. “The King’s wisdom being small,” says our Chinaman, “he is ruled by a private minister. The heads of children of the humbler order are flattened by the pressure of a wooden board”; which recalls the custom of certain North American Indians. The King had ordered a banquet to honour his visitor; but the strictness of the rule which Hiuen-Tsiang followed forbade him to be present. This cast the potentate into a mighty rage; but once again the simplicity and sincerity of the pilgrim’s character, which glowed in his countenance, disarmed wrath. He was retained at Kutchê, an honoured guest, until such time as the snows should melt. He spent two months there, chiefly occupied in religious discussion with the monks. He tells us that the monarch and his ministers met together once a month to discuss matters of state, and consulted the priests before publishing their decrees.
When the season ripened and the ways became open once more, he was sent forth in magnificent pomp and protection; he was accompanied by an armed escort and a staff of servants, all mounted on camels and horses. The escort was very necessary; for a great horde of Turkish robbers were passed on the way, quarrelling about the booty of a caravan which they had stopped and plundered. A march of about 120 miles brought our party to a small desert which they crossed over, and so entered the domain of another Khân. A single night was spent at what is now Bai, where he found Buddhist monasteries, and the party pushed across another small desert. The towering and forbidding ranges of Thian-shan were before them, “very dangerous and reaching up to the sky.” Indeed Khân Tengri, the highest mountain of the range, has an elevation of 24,000 feet. The imposing features of the mountain-masses and the horror of the passes across them left indelible marks on Hiuen-Tsiang’s memory. “Since the creation of the world,” he says, “the snow has gathered there and become frozen blocks, which spring and summer cannot melt. Shining sheets of solid ice spread before one, and there is, as it were, no end to them; they blend with the clouds. Frozen splinters have become detached and have fallen; some of these are an hundred feet high; others measure some dozens of feet athwart, and they bar the way. You attempt to climb over the former kind at your peril; you get across the latter with pain. And all the time tempest assails you with gusts of wind and whirling drifts of snow; so that double soles to your foot-gear and fur garments to your body fail to keep out the cold. Of dry shelter there is none, either to feed or sleep in. You have to sling up your cooking-pot and lay your sleeping mat on the frozen ground.” Mountain-staves were used, and we learn from the Si-yu-ki (the “Record of Western Countries”) that mountaineers were accustomed to cut steps in the ice. But to climb uncharted hills, among the highest of the world, led by guides of no great experience; to make one’s way over rock and glacier unroped and unprovided with specially constructed boots; to sleep in the open in rarified and arctic air; to live on poor food, and often to lack it, was to loathe the mountain-pass. And this Hiuen-Tsiang did, heartily.
It cost the caravan seven dolorous days to cross the higher ranges, and, by the time the western uplands were reached, 13 or 14 strong men had been lost through cold and hunger, and more than double that number of beasts of burthen.