Beasts, Men and Gods eBook

Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 287 pages of information about Beasts, Men and Gods.

Beasts, Men and Gods eBook

Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 287 pages of information about Beasts, Men and Gods.

During the next two days I had the opportunity to visit the Living Buddha three times together with a friend of the Bogdo, the Buriat Prince Djam Bolon.  I shall describe these visits in Part IV.

Baron Ungern organized the trip for me and my party to the shore of the Pacific.  We were to go on camels to northern Manchuria, because there it was easy to avoid cavilling with the Chinese authorities so badly oriented in the international relationship with Poland.  Having sent a letter from Uliassutai to the French Legation at Peking and bearing with me a letter from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, expressing thanks for the saving of Uliassutai from a pogrom, I intended to make for the nearest station on the Chinese Eastern Railway and from there proceed to Peking.  The Danish merchant E. V. Olufsen was to have traveled out with me and also a learned Lama Turgut, who was headed for China.

Never shall I forget the night of May 19th to 20th of 1921!  After dinner Baron Ungern proposed that we go to the yurta of Djam Bolon, whose acquaintance I had made on the first day after my arrival in Urga.  His yurta was placed on a raised wooden platform in a compound located behind the Russian settlement.  Two Buriat officers met us and took us in.  Djam Bolon was a man of middle age, tall and thin with an unusually long face.  Before the Great War he had been a simple shepherd but had fought together with Baron Ungern on the German front and afterwards against the Bolsheviki.  He was a Grand Duke of the Buriats, the successor of former Buriat kings who had been dethroned by the Russian Government after their attempt to establish the Independence of the Buriat people.  The servants brought us dishes with nuts, raisins, dates and cheese and served us tea.

“This is the last night, Djam Bolon!” said Baron Ungern.  “You promised me . . .”

“I remember,” answered the Buriat, “all is ready.”

For a long time I listened to their reminiscences about former battles and friends who had been lost.  The clock pointed to midnight when Djam Bolon got up and went out of the yurta.

“I want to have my fortune told once more,” said Baron Ungern, as though he were justifying himself.  “For the good of our cause it is too early for me to die. . . .”

Djam Bolon came back with a little woman of middle years, who squatted down eastern style before the brazier, bowed low and began to stare at Baron Ungern.  Her face was whiter, narrower and thinner than that of a Mongol woman.  Her eyes were black and sharp.  Her dress resembled that of a gypsy woman.  Afterwards I learned that she was a famous fortune teller and prophet among the Buriats, the daughter of a gypsy woman and a Buriat.  She drew a small bag very slowly from her girdle, took from it some small bird bones and a handful of dry grass.  She began whispering at intervals unintelligible words, as she threw occasional handfuls of the grass into the fire, which gradually

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Beasts, Men and Gods from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.