at dawn of the following morning they led up the splendid whitecamel for me and we moved away. my company consisted of the twocossacks, two mongol soldiers and one lama with two pack camelscarrying the tent and food. i still apprehended that the baron hadit in mind not to dispose of me before my friends there in van kurebut to prepare this journey for me under the guise of which itwould be so easy to do away with me by the road. a bullet in theback and all would be finished. consequently i was momentarilyready to draw my revolver and defend myself. i took care all thetime to have the cossacks either ahead of me or at the side. aboutnoon we heard the distant honk of a motor car and soon saw baronungern whizzing by us at full speed. with him were two adjutantsand prince daichin van. the baron greeted me very kindly andshouted:
"shall see you again in urga!""ah!" i thought, "evidently i shall reach urga. so i can be atease during my trip, and in urga i have many friends beside thepresence there of the bold polish soldiers whom i had worked within uliassutai and who had outdistanced me in this journey."after the meeting with the baron my cossacks became very attentiveto me and sought to distract me with stories. they told me abouttheir very severe struggles with the bolsheviki in transbaikaliaand mongolia, about the battle with the chinese near urga, aboutfinding communistic passports on several chinese soldiers frommoscow, about the bravery of baron ungern and how he would sit atthe campfire smoking and drinking tea right on the battle linewithout ever being touched by a bullet. at one fight seventy-fourbullets entered his overcoat, saddle and the boxes by his side andagain left him untouched. this is one of the reasons for his greatinfluence over the mongols. they related how before the battle hehad made a reconnaissance in urga with only one cossack and on hisway back had killed a chinese officer and two soldiers with hisbamboo stick or tashur; how he had no outfit save one change oflinen and one extra pair of boots; how he was always calm andjovial in battle and severe and morose in the rare days of peace;and how he was everywhere his soldiers were fighting.
i told them, in turn, of my escape from siberia and with chattingthus the day slipped by very quickly. our camels trotted all thetime, so that instead of the ordinary eighteen to twenty miles perday we made nearly fifty. my mount was the fastest of them all.
he was a huge white animal with a splendid thick mane and had beenpresented to baron ungern by some prince of inner mongolia with twoblack sables tied on the bridle. he was a calm, strong, bold giantof the desert, on whose back i felt myself as though perched on thetower of a building. beyond the orkhon river we came across thefirst dead body of a chinese soldier, which lay face up and armsoutstretched right in the middle of the road. when we had crossedthe burgut mountains, we entered the tola river valley, farther upwhich urga is located. the road was strewn with the overcoats,shirts, boots, caps and kettles which the chinese had thrown awayin their flight; and marked by many of their dead. further on theroad crossed a morass, where on either side lay great mounds of thedead bodies of men, horses and camels with broken carts andmilitary debris of every sort. here the tibetans of baron ungernhad cut up the escaping chinese baggage transport; and it was astrange and gloomy contrast to see the piles of dead besides theeffervescing awakening life of spring. in every pool wild ducks ofdifferent kinds floated about; in the high grass the cranesperformed their weird dance of courtship; on the lakes great flocksof swans and geese were swimming; through the swampy places likespots of light moved the brilliantly colored pairs of the mongoliansacred bird, the turpan or "lama goose"; on the higher dry placesflocks of wild turkey gamboled and fought as they fed; flocks ofthe salga partridge whistled by; while on the mountain side not faraway the wolves lay basking and turning in the lazy warmth of thesun, whining and occasionally barking like playful dogs.
nature knows only life. death is for her but an episode whosetraces she rubs out with sand and snow or ornaments with luxuriantgreenery and brightly colored bushes and flowers. what matters itto nature if a mother at chefoo or on the banks of the yangtseoffers her bowl of rice with burning incense at some shrine andprays for the return of her son that has fallen unknown for alltime on the plains along the tola, where his bones will dry beneaththe rays of nature's dissipating fire and be scattered by her windsover the sands of the prairie? it is splendid, this indifferenceof nature to death, and her greediness for life!
on the fourth day we made the shores of the tola well afternightfall. we could not find the regular ford and i forced mycamel to enter the stream in the attempt to make a crossing withoutguidance. very fortunately i found a shallow, though somewhatmiry, place and we got over all right. this is something to bethankful for in fording a river with a camel; because, when yourmount finds the water too deep, coming up around his neck, he doesnot strike out and swim like a horse will do but just rolls over onhis side and floats, which is vastly inconvenient for his rider.
down by the river we pegged our tent.
fifteen miles further on we crossed a battlefield, where the thirdgreat battle for the independence of mongolia had been fought.
here the troops of baron ungern clashed with six thousand chinesemoving down from kiakhta to the aid of urga. the chinese werecompletely defeated and four thousand prisoners taken. however,these surrendered chinese tried to escape during the night. baronungern sent the transbaikal cossacks and tibetans in pursuit ofthem and it was their work which we saw on this field of death.
there were still about fifteen hundred unburied and as many moreinterred, according to the statements of our cossacks, who hadparticipated in this battle. the killed showed terrible swordwounds; everywhere equipment and other debris were scattered about.
the mongols with their herds moved away from the neighborhood andtheir place was taken by the wolves which hid behind every stoneand in every ditch as we passed. packs of dogs that had becomewild fought with the wolves over the prey.
at last we left this place of carnage to the cursed god of war.
soon we approached a shallow, rapid stream, where the mongolsslipped from their camels, took off their caps and began drinking.
it was a sacred stream which passed beside the abode of the livingbuddha. from this winding valley we suddenly turned into anotherwhere a great mountain ridge covered with dark, dense forest loomedup before us.
"holy bogdo-ol!" exclaimed the lama. "the abode of the gods whichguard our living buddha!"bogdo-ol is the huge knot which ties together here three mountainchains: gegyl from the southwest, gangyn from the south, and huntufrom the north. this mountain covered with virgin forest is theproperty of the living buddha. the forests are full of nearly allthe varieties of animals found in mongolia, but hunting is notallowed. any mongol violating this law is condemned to death,while foreigners are deported. crossing the bogdo-ol is forbiddenunder penalty of death. this command was transgressed by only oneman, baron ungern, who crossed the mountain with fifty cossacks,penetrated to the palace of the living buddha, where the pontiff ofurga was being held under arrest by the chinese, and stole him.