the inhabitants of urianhai, the soyots, are proud of being thegenuine buddhists and of retaining the pure doctrine of holy ramaand the deep wisdom of sakkia-mouni. they are the eternal enemiesof war and of the shedding of blood. away back in the thirteenthcentury they preferred to move out from their native land and takerefuge in the north rather than fight or become a part of theempire of the bloody conqueror jenghiz khan, who wanted to add tohis forces these wonderful horsemen and skilled archers. threetimes in their history they have thus trekked northward to avoidstruggle and now no one can say that on the hands of the soyotsthere has ever been seen human blood. with their love of peacethey struggled against the evils of war. even the severe chineseadministrators could not apply here in this country of peace thefull measure of their implacable laws. in the same manner thesoyots conducted themselves when the russian people, mad with bloodand crime, brought this infection into their land. they avoidedpersistently meetings and encounters with the red troops andpartisans, trekking off with their families and cattle southwardinto the distant principalities of kemchik and soldjak. theeastern branch of this stream of emigration passed through thevalley of the buret hei, where we constantly outstrode groups ofthem with their cattle and herds.
we traveled quickly along the winding trail of the buret hei and intwo days began to make the elevations of the mountain pass betweenthe valleys of the buret hei and kharga. the trail was not onlyvery steep but was also littered with fallen larch trees andfrequently intercepted, incredible as it may seem, with swampyplaces where the horses mired badly. then again we picked ourdangerous road over cobbles and small stones that rolled away underour horses' feet and bumped off over the precipice nearby. ourhorses fatigued easily in passing this moraine that had been strewnby ancient glaciers along the mountain sides. sometimes the trailled right along the edge of the precipices where the horses startedgreat slides of stones and sand. i remember one whole mountaincovered with these moving sands. we had to leave our saddles and,taking the bridles in our hands, to trot for a mile or more overthese sliding beds, sometimes sinking in up to our knees and goingdown the mountain side with them toward the precipices below. oneimprudent move at times would have sent us over the brink. thisdestiny met one of our horses. belly down in the moving trap, hecould not work free to change his direction and so slipped on downwith a mass of it until he rolled over the precipice and was lostto us forever. we heard only the crackling of breaking trees alonghis road to death. then with great difficulty we worked down tosalvage the saddle and bags. further along we had to abandon oneof our pack horses which had come all the way from the northernborder of urianhai with us. we first unburdened it but this didnot help; no more did our shouting and threats. he only stood withhis head down and looked so exhausted that we realized he hadreached the further bourne of his land of toil. some soyots withus examined him, felt of his muscles on the fore and hind legs,took his head in their hands and moved it from side to side,examined his head carefully after that and then said:
"that horse will not go further. his brain is dried out." so wehad to leave him.
that evening we came to a beautiful change in scene when we toppeda rise and found ourselves on a broad plateau covered with larch.
on it we discovered the yurtas of some soyot hunters, covered withbark instead of the usual felt. out of these ten men with riflesrushed toward us as we approached. they informed us that theprince of soldjak did not allow anyone to pass this way, as hefeared the coming of murderers and robbers into his dominions.
"go back to the place from which you came," they advised us withfear in their eyes.
i did not answer but i stopped the beginnings of a quarrel betweenan old soyot and one of my officers. i pointed to the small streamin the valley ahead of us and asked him its name.
"oyna," replied the soyot. "it is the border of the principalityand the passage of it is forbidden.""all right," i said, "but you will allow us to warm and restourselves a little.""yes, yes!" exclaimed the hospitable soyots, and led us into theirtepees.
on our way there i took the opportunity to hand to the old soyot acigarette and to another a box of matches. we were all walkingalong together save one soyot who limped slowly in the rear and washolding his hand up over his nose.
"is he ill?" i asked.
"yes," sadly answered the old soyot. "that is my son. he has beenlosing blood from the nose for two days and is now quite weak."i stopped and called the young man to me.
"unbutton your outer coat," i ordered, "bare your neck and chestand turn your face up as far as you can." i pressed the jugularvein on both sides of his head for some minutes and said to him:
"the blood will not flow from your nose any more. go into yourtepee and lie down for some time."the "mysterious" action of my fingers created on the soyots astrong impression. the old soyot with fear and reverencewhispered:
"ta lama, ta lama! (great doctor)."in the yurta we were given tea while the old soyot sat thinkingdeeply about something. afterwards he took counsel with hiscompanions and finally announced:
"the wife of our prince is sick in her eyes and i think the princewill be very glad if i lead the 'ta lama' to him. he will notpunish me, for he ordered that no 'bad people' should be allowed topass; but that should not stop the 'good people' from coming to us.
"do as you think best," i replied rather indifferently. "as amatter of fact, i know how to treat eye diseases but i would goback if you say so.""no, no!" the old man exclaimed with fear. "i shall guide youmyself."sitting by the fire, he lighted his pipe with a flint, wiped themouthpiece on his sleeve and offered it to me in true nativehospitality. i was "comme il faut" and smoked. afterwards heoffered his pipe to each one of our company and received from eacha cigarette, a little tobacco or some matches. it was the seal onour friendship. soon in our yurta many persons piled up around us,men, women, children and dogs. it was impossible to move. fromamong them emerged a lama with shaved face and close cropped hair,dressed in the flowing red garment of his caste. his clothes andhis expression were very different from the common mass of dirtysoyots with their queues and felt caps finished off with squirreltails on the top. the lama was very kindly disposed towards us butlooked ever greedily at our gold rings and watches. i decided toexploit this avidity of the servant of buddha. supplying him withtea and dried bread, i made known to him that i was in need ofhorses.
"i have a horse. will you buy it from me?" he asked. "but i donot accept russian bank notes. let us exchange something."for a long time i bargained with him and at last for my goldwedding ring, a raincoat and a leather saddle bag i received a finesoyot horse--to replace one of the pack animals we had lost--and ayoung goat. we spent the night here and were feasted with fatmutton. in the morning we moved off under the guidance of the oldsoyot along the trail that followed the valley of the oyna, freefrom both mountains and swamps. but we knew that the mounts of myfriend and myself, together with three others, were too worn downto make kosogol and determined to try to buy others in soldjak.
soon we began to meet little groups of soyot yurtas with theircattle and horses round about. finally we approached the shiftingcapital of the prince. our guide rode on ahead for the parley withhim after assuring us that the prince would be glad to welcome theta lama, though at the time i remarked great anxiety and fear inhis features as he spoke. before long we emerged on to a largeplain well covered with small bushes. down by the shore of theriver we made out big yurtas with yellow and blue flags floatingover them and easily guessed that this was the seat of government.
soon our guide returned to us. his face was wreathed with smiles.
he flourished his hands and cried:
"noyon (the prince) asks you to come! he is very glad!"from a warrior i was forced to change myself into a diplomat. aswe approached the yurta of the prince, we were met by twoofficials, wearing the peaked mongol caps with peacock feathersrampants behind. with low obeisances they begged the foreign"noyon" to enter the yurta. my friend the tartar and i entered.
in the rich yurta draped with expensive silk we discovered afeeble, wizen-faced little old man with shaven face and croppedhair, wearing also a high pointed beaver cap with red silk apextopped off with a dark red button with the long peacock feathersstreaming out behind. on his nose were big chinese spectacles. hewas sitting on a low divan, nervously clicking the beads of hisrosary. this was ta lama, prince of soldjak and high priest of thebuddhist temple. he welcomed us very cordially and invited us tosit down before the fire burning in the copper brazier. hissurprisingly beautiful princess served us with tea and chineseconfections and cakes. we smoked our pipes, though the prince as alama did not indulge, fulfilling, however, his duty as a host byraising to his lips the pipes we offered him and handing us inreturn the green nephrite bottle of snuff. thus with the etiquetteaccomplished we awaited the words of the prince. he inquiredwhether our travels had been felicitous and what were our furtherplans. i talked with him quite frankly and requested hishospitality for the rest of our company and for the horses. heagreed immediately and ordered four yurtas set up for us.
"i hear that the foreign noyon," the prince said, "is a gooddoctor.""yes, i know some diseases and have with me some medicines," ianswered, "but i am not a doctor. i am a scientist in otherbranches."but the prince did not understand this. in his simple directness aman who knows how to treat disease is a doctor.
"my wife has had constant trouble for two months with her eyes," heannounced. "help her."i asked the princess to show me her eyes and i found the typicalconjunctivitis from the continual smoke of the yurta and thegeneral uncleanliness. the tartar brought me my medicine case. iwashed her eyes with boric acid and dropped a little cocaine and afeeble solution of sulphurate of zinc into them.
"i beg you to cure me," pleaded the princess. "do not go awayuntil you have cured me. we shall give you sheep, milk and flourfor all your company. i weep now very often because i had verynice eyes and my husband used to tell me they shone like the starsand now they are red. i cannot bear it, i cannot!"she very capriciously stamped her foot and, coquettishly smiling atme, asked:
"do you want to cure me? yes?"the character and manners of lovely woman are the same everywhere:
on bright broadway, along the stately thames, on the vivaciousboulevards of gay paris and in the silk-draped yurta of the soyotprincess behind the larch covered tannu ola.
"i shall certainly try," assuringly answered the new oculist.
we spent here ten days, surrounded by the kindness and friendshipof the whole family of the prince. the eyes of the princess, whicheight years ago had seduced the already old prince lama, were nowrecovered. she was beside herself with joy and seldom left herlooking-glass.
the prince gave me five fairly good horses, ten sheep and a bag offlour, which was immediately transformed into dry bread. my friendpresented him with a romanoff five-hundred-rouble note with apicture of peter the great upon it, while i gave to him a smallnugget of gold which i had picked up in the bed of a stream. theprince ordered one of the soyots to guide us to the kosogol. thewhole family of the prince conducted us to the monastery tenkilometres from the "capital." we did not visit the monastery butwe stopped at the "dugun," a chinese trading establishment. thechinese merchants looked at us in a very hostile manner though theysimultaneously offered us all sorts of goods, thinking especiallyto catch us with their round bottles (lanhon) of maygolo or sweetbrandy made from aniseed. as we had neither lump silver norchinese dollars, we could only look with longing at theseattractive bottles, till the prince came to the rescue and orderedthe chinese to put five of them in our saddle bags.