"has anybody seen the king of the world?" i asked.
"oh, yes!" answered the lama. "during the solemn holidays of theancient buddhism in siam and india the king of the world appearedfive times. he rode in a splendid car drawn by white elephants andornamented with gold, precious stones and finest fabrics; he wasrobed in a white mantle and red tiara with strings of diamondsmasking his face. he blessed the people with a golden apple withthe figure of a lamb above it. the blind received their sight, thedumb spoke, the deaf heard, the crippled freely moved and the deadarose, wherever the eyes of the king of the world rested. he alsoappeared five hundred and forty years ago in erdeni dzu, he was inthe ancient sakkai monastery and in the narabanchi kure.
"one of our living buddhas and one of the tashi lamas received amessage from him, written with unknown signs on golden tablets. noone could read these signs. the tashi lama entered the temple,placed the golden tablet on his head and began to pray. with thisthe thoughts of the king of the world penetrated his brain and,without having read the enigmatical signs, he understood andaccomplished the message of the king.""how many persons have ever been to agharti?" i questioned him.
"very many," answered the lama, "but all these people have keptsecret that which they saw there. when the olets destroyed lhasa,one of their detachments in the southwestern mountains penetratedto the outskirts of agharti. here they learned some of the lessermysterious sciences and brought them to the surface of our earth.
this is why the olets and kalmucks are artful sorcerers andprophets. also from the eastern country some tribes of blackpeople penetrated to agharti and lived there many centuries.
afterwards they were thrust out from the kingdom and returned tothe earth, bringing with them the mystery of predictions accordingto cards, grasses and the lines of the palm. they are thegypsies. . . . somewhere in the north of asia a tribe existswhich is now dying and which came from the cave of agharti,skilled in calling back the spirits of the dead as they floatthrough the air."the lama was silent and afterwards, as though answering mythoughts, continued.
"in agharti the learned panditas write on tablets of stone all thescience of our planet and of the other worlds. the chinese learnedbuddhists know this. their science is the highest and purest.
every century one hundred sages of china collect in a secret placeon the shores of the sea, where from its depths come out onehundred eternally-living tortoises. on their shells the chinesewrite all the developments of the divine science of the century."as i write i am involuntarily reminded of a tale of an old chinesebonze in the temple of heaven at peking. he told me that tortoiseslive more than three thousand years without food and air and thatthis is the reason why all the columns of the blue temple of heavenwere set on live tortoises to preserve the wood from decay.
"several times the pontiffs of lhasa and urga have sent envoys tothe king of the world," said the lama librarian, "but they couldnot find him. only a certain tibetan leader after a battle withthe olets found the cave with the inscription: 'this is the gateto agharti.' from the cave a fine appearing man came forth,presented him with a gold tablet bearing the mysterious signs andsaid:
"'the king of the world will appear before all people when the timeshall have arrived for him to lead all the good people of the worldagainst all the bad; but this time has not yet come. the most evilamong mankind have not yet been born.
"chiang chun baron ungern sent the young prince pounzig to seek outthe king of the world but he returned with a letter from the dalailama from lhasa. when the baron sent him a second time, he did notcome back."
