a fairly broad road led out from sharkhe through the mountains andon the fifth day of our two weeks' march to the south from themonastery we emerged into the great bowl of the mountains in whosecenter lay the large lake of koko nor. if finland deserves theordinary title of the "land of ten thousand lakes," the dominion ofkoko nor may certainly with justice be called the "country of amillion lakes." we skirted this lake on the west between it anddoulan kitt, zigzagging between the numerous swamps, lakes andsmall rivers, deep and miry. the water was not here covered withice and only on the tops of the mountains did we feel the coldwinds sharply. we rarely met the natives of the country and onlywith greatest difficulty did our kalmuck learn the course of theroad from the occasional shepherds we passed. from the easternshore of the lake of tassoun we worked round to a monastery on thefurther side, where we stopped for a short rest. besides ourselvesthere was also another group of guests in the holy place. thesewere tibetans. their behavior was very impertinent and theyrefused to speak with us. they were all armed, chiefly with therussian military rifles and were draped with crossed bandoliers ofcartridges with two or three pistols stowed beneath belts with morecartridges sticking out. they examined us very sharply and wereadily realized that they were estimating our martial strength.
after they had left on that same day i ordered our kalmuck toinquire from the high priest of the temple exactly who they were.
for a long time the monk gave evasive answers but when i showed himthe ring of hutuktu narabanchi and presented him with a largeyellow hatyk, he became more communicative.
"those are bad people," he explained. "have a care of them."however, he was not willing to give their names, explaining hisrefusal by citing the law of buddhist lands against pronouncing thename of one's father, teacher or chief. afterwards i found outthat in north tibet there exists the same custom as in north china.
here and there bands of hunghutze wander about. they appear at theheadquarters of the leading trading firms and at the monasteries,claim tribute and after their collections become the protectors ofthe district. probably this tibetan monastery had in this bandjust such protectors.
when we continued our trip, we frequently noticed single horsemenfar away or on the horizon, apparently studying our movements withcare. all our attempts to approach them and enter intoconversation with them were entirely unsuccessful. on their speedylittle horses they disappeared like shadows. as we reached thesteep and difficult pass on the hamshan and were preparing to spendthe night there, suddenly far up on a ridge above us appeared aboutforty horsemen with entirely white mounts and without formalintroduction or warning spattered us with a hail of bullets. twoof our officers fell with a cry. one had been instantly killedwhile the other lived some few minutes. i did not allow my men toshoot but instead i raised a white flag and started forward withthe kalmuck for a parley. at first they fired two shots at us butthen ceased firing and sent down a group of riders from the ridgetoward us. we began the parley. the tibetans explained thathamshan is a holy mountain and that here one must not spend thenight, advising us to proceed farther where we could considerourselves in safety. they inquired from us whence we came andwhither we were going, stated in answer to our information aboutthe purpose of our journey that they knew the bolsheviki andconsidered them the liberators of the people of asia from the yokeof the white race. i certainly did not want to begin a politicalquarrel with them and so turned back to our companions. ridingdown the slope toward our camp, i waited momentarily for a shot inthe back but the tibetan hunghutze did not shoot.
we moved forward, leaving among the stones the bodies of two of ourcompanions as sad tribute to the difficulties and dangers of ourjourney. we rode all night, with our exhausted horses constantlystopping and some lying down under us, but we forced them everonward. at last, when the sun was at its zenith, we finallyhalted. without unsaddling our horses, we gave them an opportunityto lie down for a little rest. before us lay a broad, swampyplain, where was evidently the sources of the river ma-chu. notfar beyond lay the lake of aroung nor. we made our fire of cattledung and began boiling water for our tea. again without anywarning the bullets came raining in from all sides. immediately wetook cover behind convenient rocks and waited developments. thefiring became faster and closer, the raiders appeared on the wholecircle round us and the bullets came ever in increasing numbers.
we had fallen into a trap and had no hope but to perish. werealized this clearly. i tried anew to begin the parley; but wheni stood up with my white flag, the answer was only a thicker rainof bullets and unfortunately one of these, ricocheting off a rock,struck me in the left leg and lodged there. at the same momentanother one of our company was killed. we had no other choice andwere forced to begin fighting. the struggle continued for abouttwo hours. besides myself three others received slight wounds. weresisted as long as we could. the hunghutze approached and oursituation became desperate.
"there's no choice," said one of my associates, a very expertcolonel. "we must mount and ride for it . . . anywhere.""anywhere. . . ." it was a terrible word! we consulted for but aninstant. it was apparent that with this band of cut-throats behindus the farther we went into tibet, the less chance we had of savingour lives.
we decided to return to mongolia. but how? that we did not know.
and thus we began our retreat. firing all the time, we trotted ourhorses as fast as we could toward the north. one after anotherthree of my companions fell. there lay my tartar with a bulletthrough his neck. after him two young and fine stalwart officerswere carried from their saddles with cries of death, while theirscared horses broke out across the plain in wild fear, perfectpictures of our distraught selves. this emboldened the tibetans,who became more and more audacious. a bullet struck the buckle onthe ankle strap of my right foot and carried it, with a piece ofleather and cloth, into my leg just above the ankle. my old andmuch tried friend, the agronome, cried out as he grasped hisshoulder and then i saw him wiping and bandaging as best as hecould his bleeding forehead. a second afterward our kalmuck washit twice right through the palm of the same hand, so that it wasentirely shattered. just at this moment fifteen of the hunghutzerushed against us in a charge.
"shoot at them with volley fire!" commanded our colonel.
six robber bodies lay on the turf, while two others of the gangwere unhorsed and ran scampering as fast as they could after theirretreating fellows. several minutes later the fire of ourantagonists ceased and they raised a white flag. two riders cameforward toward us. in the parley it developed that their chief hadbeen wounded through the chest and they came to ask us to "renderfirst aid." at once i saw a ray of hope. i took my box ofmedicines and my groaning, cursing, wounded kalmuck to interpretfor me.
"give that devil some cyanide of potassium," urged my companions.
but i devised another scheme.
we were led to the wounded chief. there he lay on the saddlecloths among the rocks, represented to us to be a tibetan but i atonce recognized him from his cast of countenance to be a sart orturcoman, probably from the southern part of turkestan. he lookedat me with a begging and frightened gaze. examining him, i foundthe bullet had passed through his chest from left to right, that hehad lost much blood and was very weak. conscientiously i did allthat i could for him. in the first place i tried on my own tongueall the medicines to be used on him, even the iodoform, in order todemonstrate that there was no poison among them. i cauterized thewound with iodine, sprinkled it with iodoform and applied thebandages. i ordered that the wounded man be not touched nor movedand that he be left right where he lay. then i taught a tibetanhow the dressing must be changed and left with him medicatedcotton, bandages and a little iodoform. to the patient, in whomthe fever was already developing, i gave a big dose of aspirin andleft several tablets of quinine with them. afterwards, addressingmyself to the bystanders through my kalmuck, i said very solemnly:
"the wound is very dangerous but i gave to your chief very strongmedicine and hope that he will recover. one condition, however, isnecessary: the bad demons which have rushed to his side for hisunwarranted attack upon us innocent travelers will instantly killhim, if another shot is let off against us. you must not even keepa single cartridge in your rifles."with these words i ordered the kalmuck to empty his rifle and i, atthe same time, took all the cartridges out of my mauser. thetibetans instantly and very servilely followed my example.
"remember that i told you: 'eleven days and eleven nights do notmove from this place and do not charge your rifles.' otherwise thedemon of death will snatch off your chief and will pursue you!"--and with these words i solemnly drew forth and raised above theirheads the ring of hutuktu narabanchi.
i returned to my companions and calmed them. i told them we weresafe against further attack from the robbers and that we must onlyguess the way to reach mongolia. our horses were so exhausted andthin that on their bones we could have hung our overcoats. wespent two days here, during which time i frequently visited mypatient. it also gave us opportunity to bandage our ownfortunately light wounds and to secure a little rest; thoughunfortunately i had nothing but a jackknife with which to dig thebullet out of my left calf and the shoemaker's accessories from myright ankle. inquiring from the brigands about the caravan roads,we soon made our way out to one of the main routes and had the goodfortune to meet there the caravan of the young mongol princepounzig, who was on a holy mission carrying a message from theliving buddha in urga to the dalai lama in lhasa. he helped us topurchase horses, camels and food.
with all our arms and supplies spent in barter during the journeyfor the purchase of transport and food, we returned stripped andbroken to the narabanchi monastery, where we were welcomed by thehutuktu.
"i knew you would come back," said he. "the divinations revealedit all to me."with six of our little band left behind us in tibet to pay theeternal toll of our dash for the south we returned but twelve tothe monastery and waited there two weeks to re-adjust ourselves andlearn how events would again set us afloat on this turbulent sea tosteer for any port that destiny might indicate. the officersenlisted in the detachment which was then being formed in mongoliato fight against the destroyers of their native land, thebolsheviki. my original companion and i prepared to continue ourjourney over mongolian plains with whatever further adventures anddangers might come in the struggle to escape to a place of safety.
and now, with the scenes of that trying march so vividly recalled,i would dedicate these chapters to my gigantic, old and ruggedlytried friend, the agronome, to my russian fellow-travelers, andespecially, to the sacred memory of those of our companions whosebodies lie cradled in the sleep among the mountains of tibet--colonel ostrovsky, captains zuboff and turoff, lieutenantpisarjevsky, cossack vernigora and tartar mahomed spirin. alsohere i express my deep thanks for help and friendship to the princeof soldjak, hereditary noyon ta lama and to the kampo gelong ofnarabanchi monastery, the honorable jelyb djamsrap hutuktu.
