"stop!" whispered my old mongol guide, as we were one day crossingthe plain near tzagan luk. "stop!"he slipped from his camel which lay down without his bidding. themongol raised his hands in prayer before his face and began torepeat the sacred phrase: "om! mani padme hung!" the othermongols immediately stopped their camels and began to pray.

"what has happened?" i thought, as i gazed round over the tendergreen grass, up to the cloudless sky and out toward the dreamy softrays of the evening sun.

the mongols prayed for some time, whispered among themselves and,after tightening up the packs on the camels, moved on.

"did you see," asked the mongol, "how our camels moved their earsin fear? how the herd of horses on the plain stood fixed inattention and how the herds of sheep and cattle lay crouched closeto the ground? did you notice that the birds did not fly, themarmots did not run and the dogs did not bark? the air trembledsoftly and bore from afar the music of a song which penetrated tothe hearts of men, animals and birds alike. earth and sky ceasedbreathing. the wind did not blow and the sun did not move. atsuch a moment the wolf that is stealing up on the sheep arrests hisstealthy crawl; the frightened herd of antelopes suddenly checksits wild course; the knife of the shepherd cutting the sheep'sthroat falls from his hand; the rapacious ermine ceases to stalkthe unsuspecting salga. all living beings in fear areinvoluntarily thrown into prayer and waiting for their fate. so itwas just now. thus it has always been whenever the king of theworld in his subterranean palace prays and searches out the destinyof all peoples on the earth."in this wise the old mongol, a simple, coarse shepherd and hunter,spoke to me.

mongolia with her nude and terrible mountains, her limitlessplains, covered with the widely strewn bones of the forefathers,gave birth to mystery. her people, frightened by the stormypassions of nature or lulled by her deathlike peace, feel hermystery. her "red" and "yellow lamas" preserve and poetize hermystery. the pontiffs of lhasa and urga know and possess hermystery.

on my journey into central asia i came to know for the first timeabout "the mystery of mysteries," which i can call by no othername. at the outset i did not pay much attention to it and did notattach to it such importance as i afterwards realized belonged toit, when i had analyzed and connoted many sporadic, hazy and oftencontroversial bits of evidence.

the old people on the shore of the river amyl related to me anancient legend to the effect that a certain mongolian tribe intheir escape from the demands of jenghiz khan hid themselves in asubterranean country. afterwards a soyot from near the lake ofnogan kul showed me the smoking gate that serves as the entrance tothe "kingdom of agharti." through this gate a hunter formerlyentered into the kingdom and, after his return, began to relatewhat he had seen there. the lamas cut out his tongue in order toprevent him from telling about the mystery of mysteries. when hearrived at old age, he came back to the entrance of this cave anddisappeared into the subterranean kingdom, the memory of which hadornamented and lightened his nomad heart.

i received more realistic information about this from hutuktu jelybdjamsrap in narabanchi kure. he told me the story of the semi-realistic arrival of the powerful king of the world from thesubterranean kingdom, of his appearance, of his miracles and of hisprophecies; and only then did i begin to understand that in thatlegend, hypnosis or mass vision, whichever it may be, is hidden notonly mystery but a realistic and powerful force capable ofinfluencing the course of the political life of asia. from thatmoment i began making some investigations.

the favorite gelong lama of prince chultun beyli and the princehimself gave me an account of the subterranean kingdom.

"everything in the world," said the gelong, "is constantly in astate of change and transition--peoples science, religions, lawsand customs. how many great empires and brilliant cultures haveperished! and that alone which remains unchanged is evil, the toolof bad spirits. more than sixty thousand years ago a holymandisappeared with a whole tribe of people under the ground and neverappeared again on the surface of the earth. many people, however,have since visited this kingdom, sakkia mouni, undur gheghen,paspa, khan baber and others. no one knows where this place is.

one says afghanistan, others india. all the people there areprotected against evil and crimes do not exist within its bournes.

science has there developed calmly and nothing is threatened withdestruction. the subterranean people have reached the highestknowledge. now it is a large kingdom, millions of men with theking of the world as their ruler. he knows all the forces of theworld and reads all the souls of humankind and the great book oftheir destiny. invisibly he rules eight hundred million men on thesurface of the earth and they will accomplish his every order."prince chultun beyli added: "this kingdom is agharti. it extendsthroughout all the subterranean passages of the whole world. iheard a learned lama of china relating to bogdo khan that all thesubterranean caves of america are inhabited by the ancient peoplewho have disappeared underground. traces of them are still foundon the surface of the land. these subterranean peoples and spacesare governed by rulers owing allegiance to the king of the world.

in it there is not much of the wonderful. you know that in the twogreatest oceans of the east and the west there were formerly twocontinents. they disappeared under the water but their people wentinto the subterranean kingdom. in underground caves there exists apeculiar light which affords growth to the grains and vegetablesand long life without disease to the people. there are manydifferent peoples and many different tribes. an old buddhistbrahman in nepal was carrying out the will of the gods in making avisit to the ancient kingdom of jenghiz,--siam,--where he met afisherman who ordered him to take a place in his boat and sail withhim upon the sea. on the third day they reached an island where hemet a people having two tongues which could speak separately indifferent languages. they showed to him peculiar, unfamiliaranimals, tortoises with sixteen feet and one eye, huge snakes witha very tasty flesh and birds with teeth which caught fish for theirmasters in the sea. these people told him that they had come upout of the subterranean kingdom and described to him certain partsof the underground country."the lama turgut traveling with me from urga to peking gave mefurther details.

"the capital of agharti is surrounded with towns of high priestsand scientists. it reminds one of lhasa where the palace of thedalai lama, the potala, is the top of a mountain covered withmonasteries and temples. the throne of the king of the world issurrounded by millions of incarnated gods. they are the holypanditas. the palace itself is encircled by the palaces of thegoro, who possess all the visible and invisible forces of theearth, of inferno and of the sky and who can do everything for thelife and death of man. if our mad humankind should begin a waragainst them, they would be able to explode the whole surface ofour planet and transform it into deserts. they can dry up theseas, transform lands into oceans and scatter the mountains intothe sands of the deserts. by his order trees, grasses and bushescan be made to grow; old and feeble men can become young andstalwart; and the dead can be resurrected. in cars strange andunknown to us they rush through the narrow cleavages inside ourplanet. some indian brahmans and tibetan dalai lamas during theirlaborious struggles to the peaks of mountains which no other humanfeet had trod have found there inscriptions carved on the rocks,footprints in the snow and the tracks of wheels. the blissfulsakkia mouni found on one mountain top tablets of stone carryingwords which he only understood in his old age and afterwardspenetrated into the kingdom of agharti, from which he brought backcrumbs of the sacred learning preserved in his memory. there inpalaces of wonderful crystal live the invisible rulers of all piouspeople, the king of the world or brahytma, who can speak with godas i speak with you, and his two assistants, mahytma, knowing thepurposes of future events, and mahynga, ruling the causes of theseevents.""the holy panditas study the world and all its forces. sometimesthe most learned among them collect together and send envoys tothat place where the human eyes have never penetrated. this isdescribed by the tashi lama living eight hundred and fifty yearsago. the highest panditas place their hands on their eyes and atthe base of the brain of younger ones and force them into a deepsleep, wash their bodies with an infusion of grass and make themimmune to pain and harder than stones, wrap them in magic cloths,bind them and then pray to the great god. the petrified youths liewith eyes and ears open and alert, seeing, hearing and rememberingeverything. afterwards a goro approaches and fastens a long,steady gaze upon them. very slowly the bodies lift themselves fromthe earth and disappear. the goro sits and stares with fixed eyesto the place whither he has sent them. invisible threads join themto his will. some of them course among the stars, observe theirevents, their unknown peoples, their life and their laws. theylisten to their talk, read their books, understand their fortunesand woes, their holiness and sins, their piety and evil. some aremingled with flame and see the creature of fire, quick andferocious, eternally fighting, melting and hammering metals in thedepths of planets, boiling the water for geysers and springs,melting the rocks and pushing out molten streams over the surfaceof the earth through the holes in the mountains. others rushtogether with the ever elusive, infinitesimally small, transparentcreatures of the air and penetrate into the mysteries of theirexistence and into the purposes of their life. others slip intothe depths of the seas and observe the kingdom of the wisecreatures of the water, who transport and spread genial warmth allover the earth, ruling the winds, waves and storms. . . . inerdeni dzu formerly lived pandita hutuktu, who had come fromagharti. as he was dying, he told about the time when he livedaccording to the will of the goro on a red star in the east,floated in the ice-covered ocean and flew among the stormy fires inthe depths of the earth."these are the tales which i heard in the mongolian yurtas ofprinces and in the lamaite monasteries. these stories were allrelated in a solemn tone which forbade challenge and doubt.

mystery. . . .