our camels were trudging to a slow but steady measure on toward thenorth. we were making twenty-five to thirty miles a day as weapproached a small monastery that lay to the left of our route. itwas in the form of a square of large buildings surrounded by a highfence of thick poles. each side had an opening in the middleleading to the four entrances of the temple in the center of thesquare. the temple was built with the red lacquered columns andthe chinese style roofs and dominated the surrounding low dwellingsof the lamas. on the opposite side of the road lay what appearedto be a chinese fortress but which was in reality a tradingcompound or dugun, which the chinese always build in the form of afortress with double walls a few feet apart, within which theyplace their houses and shops and usually have twenty or thirtytraders fully armed for any emergency. in case of need theseduguns can be used as blockhouses and are capable of withstandinglong sieges. between the dugun and the monastery and nearer to theroad i made out the camp of some nomads. their horses and cattlewere nowhere to be seen. evidently the mongols had stopped herefor some time and had left their cattle in the mountains. overseveral yurtas waved multi-colored triangular flags, a sign of thepresence of disease. near some yurtas high poles were stuck intothe ground with mongol caps at their tops, which indicated that thehost of the yurta had died. the packs of dogs wandering over theplain showed that the dead bodies lay somewhere near, either in theravines or along the banks of the river.
as we approached the camp, we heard from a distance the franticbeating of drums, the mournful sounds of the flute and shrill, madshouting. our mongol went forward to investigate for us andreported that several mongolian families had come here to themonastery to seek aid from the hutuktu jahansti who was famed forhis miracles of healing. the people were stricken with leprosy andblack smallpox and had come from long distances only to find thatthe hutuktu was not at the monastery but had gone to the livingbuddha in urga. consequently they had been forced to invite thewitch doctors. the people were dying one after another. just theday before they had cast on the plain the twenty-seventh man.
meanwhile, as we talked, the witch doctor came out of one of theyurtas. he was an old man with a cataract on one eye and with aface deeply scarred by smallpox. he was dressed in tatters withvarious colored bits of cloth hanging down from his waist. hecarried a drum and a flute. we could see froth on his blue lipsand madness in his eyes. suddenly he began to whirl round anddance with a thousand prancings of his long legs and writhings ofhis arms and shoulders, still beating the drum and playing theflute or crying and raging at intervals, ever accelerating hismovements until at last with pallid face and bloodshot eyes he fellon the snow, where he continued to writhe and give out hisincoherent cries. in this manner the doctor treated his patients,frightening with his madness the bad devils that carry disease.
another witch doctor gave his patients dirty, muddy water, which ilearned was the water from the bath of the very person of theliving buddha who had washed in it his "divine" body born from thesacred flower of the lotus.
"om! om!" both witches continuously screamed.
while the doctors fought with the devils, the ill people were leftto themselves. they lay in high fever under the heaps ofsheepskins and overcoats, were delirious, raved and threwthemselves about. by the braziers squatted adults and children whowere still well, indifferently chatting, drinking tea and smoking.
in all the yurtas i saw the diseased and the dead and such miseryand physical horrors as cannot be described.
and i thought: "oh, great jenghiz khan! why did you with yourkeen understanding of the whole situation of asia and europe, youwho devoted all your life to the glory of the name of the mongols,why did you not give to your own people, who preserve their oldmorality, honesty and peaceful customs, the enlightenment thatwould have saved them from such death? your bones in the mausoleumat karakorum being destroyed by the centuries that pass over themmust cry out against the rapid disappearance of your formerly greatpeople, who were feared by half the civilized world!"such thoughts filled my brain when i saw this camp of the deadtomorrow and when i heard the groans, shoutings and raving of dyingmen, women and children. somewhere in the distance the dogs werehowling mournfully, and monotonously the drum of the tired witchrolled.
"forward!" i could not witness longer this dark horror, which ihad no means or force to eradicate. we quickly passed on from theominous place. nor could we shake the thought that some horribleinvisible spirit was following us from this scene of terror. "thedevils of disease?" "the pictures of horror and misery?" "thesouls of men who have been sacrificed on the altar of darkness ofmongolia?" an inexplicable fear penetrated into our consciousnessfrom whose grasp we could not release ourselves. only when we hadturned from the road, passed over a timbered ridge into a bowl inthe mountains from which we could see neither jahantsi kure, thedugun nor the squirming grave of dying mongols could we breathefreely again.
presently we discovered a large lake. it was tisingol. near theshore stood a large russian house, the telegraph station betweenkosogol and uliassutai.
