Beasts, Men and Gods

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BEASTS, MEN AND GODS

by Ferdinand Ossendowski




EXPLANATORY NOTE


When one of the leading publicists in America, Dr. Albert Shaw of
the Review of Reviews, after reading the manuscript of Part I of
this volume, characterized the author as "The Robinson Crusoe of the
Twentieth Century," he touched the feature of the narrative which is at
once most attractive and most dangerous; for the succession of trying
and thrilling experiences recorded seems in places too highly colored
to be real or, sometimes, even possible in this day and generation.
I desire, therefore, to assure the reader at the outset that Dr.
Ossendowski is a man of long and diverse experience as a scientist and
writer with a training for careful observation which should put
the stamp of accuracy and reliability on his chronicle. Only the
extraordinary events of these extraordinary times could have thrown one
with so many talents back into the surroundings of the "Cave Man" and
thus given to us this unusual account of personal adventure, of great
human mysteries and of the political and religious motives which are
energizing the "Heart of Asia."

My share in the work has been to induce Dr. Ossendowski to write his
story at this time and to assist him in rendering his experiences into
English.

LEWIS STANTON PALEN.




CONTENTS


PART I. DRAWING LOTS WITH DEATH


CHAPTER

I. INTO THE FORESTS

II. THE SECRET OF MY FELLOW TRAVELER

III. THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE

IV. A FISHERMAN

V. A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR

VI. A RIVER IN TRAVAIL

VII. THROUGH SOVIET SIBERIA

VIII. THREE DAYS ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE

IX. TO THE SAYANS AND SAFETY

X. THE BATTLE OF THE SEYBI

XI. THE BARRIER OF RED PARTISANS

XII. IN THE COUNTRY OF ETERNAL PEACE

XIII. MYSTERIES, MIRACLES AND A NEW FIGHT

XIV. THE RIVER OF THE DEVIL

XV. THE MARCH OF GHOSTS

XVI. IN MYSTERIOUS TIBET



PART II. THE LAND OF DEMONS


XVII. MYSTERIOUS MONGOLIA

XVIII. THE MYSTERIOUS LAMA AVENGER

XIX. WILD CHAHARS

XX. THE DEMON OF JAGISSTAI

XXI. THE NEST OF DEATH

XXII. AMONG THE MURDERERS

XXIII. ON A VOLCANO

XXIV. A BLOODY CHASTISEMENT

XXV. HARASSING DAYS

XXVI. THE BAND OF WHITE HUNGHUTZES

XXVII. MYSTERY IN A SMALL TEMPLE

XXVIII. THE BREATH OF DEATH



PART III. THE STRAINING HEART OF ASIA


XXIX. ON THE ROAD OF GREAT CONQUERORS

XXX. ARRESTED!

XXXI. TRAVELING BY "URGA"

XXXII. AN OLD FORTUNE TELLER

XXXIII. "DEATH FROM THE WHITE MAN WILL STAND BEHIND YOU"

XXXIV. THE HORROR OF WAR!

XXXV. IN THE CITY OF LIVING GODS, 30,000 BUDDHAS AND 60,000 MONKS

XXXVI. A SON OF CRUSADERS AND PRIVATEERS

XXXVII. THE CAMP OF MARTYRS

XXXVIII. BEFORE THE FACE OF BUDDHA

XXXIX. "THE MAN WITH A HEAD LIKE A SADDLE"



PART IV. THE LIVING BUDDHA


XL. IN THE BLISSFUL GARDEN OF A THOUSAND JOYS

XLI. THE DUST OF CENTURIES

XLII. THE BOOKS OF MIRACLES

XLIII. THE BIRTH OF THE LIVING BUDDHA

XLIV. A PAGE IN THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT LIVING BUDDHA

XLV. THE VISION OF THE LIVING BUDDHA OF MAY 17, 1921



PART V. MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES--THE KING OF THE WORLD


XLVI. THE SUBTERRANEAN KINGDOM

XLVII. THE KING OF THE WORLD BEFORE THE FACE OF GOD

XLVIII. REALITY OR RELIGIOUS FANTASY?

XLIX. THE PROPHECY OF THE KING OF THE WORLD IN 1890


There are times, men and events about which History alone can record the
final judgments; contemporaries and individual observers must only write
what they have seen and heard. The very truth demands it.

TITUS LIVIUS.




BEASTS, MEN AND GODS




Part I

DRAWING LOTS WITH DEATH


CHAPTER I

INTO THE FORESTS


In the beginning of the year 1920 I happened to be living in the
Siberian town of Krasnoyarsk, situated on the shores of the River
Yenisei, that noble stream which is cradled in the sun-bathed mountains
of Mongolia to pour its warming life into the Arctic Ocean and to whose
mouth Nansen has twice come to open the shortest road for commerce from
Europe to the heart of Asia. There in the depths of the still Siberian
winter I was suddenly caught up in the whirling storm of mad revolution
raging all over Russia, sowing in this peaceful and rich land vengeance,
hate, bloodshed and crimes that go unpunished by the law. No one could
tell the hour of his fate. The people lived from day to day and left
their homes not knowing whether they should return to them or whether
they should be dragged from the streets and thrown into the dungeons of
that travesty of courts, the Revolutionary Committee, more terrible
and more bloody than those of the Mediaeval Inquisition. We who were
strangers in this distraught land were not saved from its persecutions
and I personally lived through them.

One morning, when I had gone out to see a friend, I suddenly received
the news that twenty Red soldiers had surrounded my house to arrest me
and that I must escape. I quickly put on one of my friend's old hunting
suits, took some money and hurried away on foot along the back ways of
the town till I struck the open road, where I engaged a peasant, who in
four hours had driven me twenty miles from the town and set me down
in the midst of a deeply forested region. On the way I bought a rifle,
three hundred cartridges, an ax, a knife, a sheepskin overcoat, tea,
salt, dry bread and a kettle. I penetrated into the heart of the wood to
an abandoned half-burned hut. From this day I became a genuine trapper
but I never dreamed that I should follow this role as long as I did.
The next morning I went hunting and had the good fortune to kill two
heathcock. I found deer tracks in plenty and felt sure that I should not
want for food. However, my sojourn in this place was not for long. Five
days later when I returned from hunting I noticed smoke curling up out
of the chimney of my hut. I stealthily crept along closer to the cabin
and discovered two saddled horses with soldiers' rifles slung to the
saddles. Two disarmed men were not dangerous for me with a weapon, so I
quickly rushed across the open and entered the hut. From the bench
two soldiers started up in fright. They were Bolsheviki. On their big
Astrakhan caps I made out the red stars of Bolshevism and on their
blouses the dirty red bands. We greeted each other and sat down. The
soldiers had already prepared tea and so we drank this ever welcome
hot beverage and chatted, suspiciously eyeing one another the while.
To disarm this suspicion on their part, I told them that I was a hunter
from a distant place and was living there because I found it good
country for sables. They announced to me that they were soldiers of
a detachment sent from a town into the woods to pursue all suspicious
people.

"Do you understand, 'Comrade,'" said one of them to me, "we are looking
for counter-revolutionists to shoot them?"

I knew it without his explanations. All my forces were directed to
assuring them by my conduct that I was a simple peasant hunter and that
I had nothing in common with the counter-revolutionists. I was thinking
also all the time of where I should go after the departure of my
unwelcome guests. It grew dark. In the darkness their faces were even
less attractive. They took out bottles of vodka and drank and the
alcohol began to act very noticeably. They talked loudly and constantly
interrupted each other, boasting how many bourgeoisie they had killed
in Krasnoyarsk and how many Cossacks they had slid under the ice in the
river. Afterwards they began to quarrel but soon they were tired and
prepared to sleep. All of a sudden and without any warning the door of
the hut swung wide open and the steam of the heated room rolled out in
a great cloud, out of which seemed to rise like a genie, as the steam
settled, the figure of a tall, gaunt peasant impressively crowned with
the high Astrakhan cap and wrapped in the great sheepskin overcoat that
added to the massiveness of his figure. He stood with his rifle ready
to fire. Under his girdle lay the sharp ax without which the Siberian
peasant cannot exist. Eyes, quick and glimmering like those of a wild
beast, fixed themselves alternately on each of us. In a moment he took
off his cap, made the sign of the cross on his breast and asked of us:
"Who is the master here?"

I answered him.

"May I stop the night?"

"Yes," I replied, "places enough for all. Take a cup of tea. It is still
hot."

The stranger, running his eyes constantly over all of us and over
everything about the room, began to take off his skin coat after putting
his rifle in the corner. He was dressed in an old leather blouse with
trousers of the same material tucked in high felt boots. His face was
quite young, fine and tinged with something akin to mockery. His white,
sharp teeth glimmered as his eyes penetrated everything they rested
upon. I noticed the locks of grey in his shaggy head. Lines of
bitterness circled his mouth. They showed his life had been very stormy
and full of danger. He took a seat beside his rifle and laid his ax on
the floor below.

"What? Is it your wife?" asked one of the drunken soldiers, pointing to
the ax.

The tall peasant looked calmly at him from the quiet eyes under their
heavy brows and as calmly answered:

"One meets a different folk these days and with an ax it is much safer."

He began to drink tea very greedily, while his eyes looked at me many
times with sharp inquiry in them and ran often round the whole cabin in
search of the answer to his doubts. Very slowly and with a guarded drawl
he answered all the questions of the soldiers between gulps of the
hot tea, then he turned his glass upside down as evidence of having
finished, placed on the top of it the small lump of sugar left and
remarked to the soldiers:

"I am going out to look after my horse and will unsaddle your horses for
you also."

"All right," exclaimed the half-sleeping young soldier, "bring in our
rifles as well."

The soldiers were lying on the benches and thus left for us only the
floor. The stranger soon came back, brought the rifles and set them in
the dark corner. He dropped the saddle pads on the floor, sat down on
them and began to take off his boots. The soldiers and my guest soon
were snoring but I did not sleep for thinking of what next to do.
Finally as dawn was breaking, I dozed off only to awake in the
broad daylight and find my stranger gone. I went outside the hut and
discovered him saddling a fine bay stallion.

"Are you going away?" I asked.

"Yes, but I want to go together with these ---- comrades,'" he
whispered, "and afterwards I shall come back."

I did not ask him anything further and told him only that I would wait
for him. He took off the bags that had been hanging on his saddle, put
them away out of sight in the burned corner of the cabin, looked over
the stirrups and bridle and, as he finished saddling, smiled and said:

"I am ready. I'm going to awake my 'comrades.'" Half an hour after the
morning drink of tea, my three guests took their leave. I remained out
of doors and was engaged in splitting wood for my stove. Suddenly,
from a distance, rifle shots rang through the woods, first one, then
a second. Afterwards all was still. From the place near the shots a
frightened covey of blackcock broke and came over me. At the top of a
high pine a jay cried out. I listened for a long time to see if anyone
was approaching my hut but everything was still.

On the lower Yenisei it grows dark very early. I built a fire in my
stove and began to cook my soup, constantly listening for every noise
that came from beyond the cabin walls. Certainly I understood at all
times very clearly that death was ever beside me and might claim me
by means of either man, beast, cold, accident or disease. I knew that
nobody was near me to assist and that all my help was in the hands of
God, in the power of my hands and feet, in the accuracy of my aim and in
my presence of mind. However, I listened in vain. I did not notice the
return of my stranger. Like yesterday he appeared all at once on the
threshold. Through the steam I made out his laughing eyes and his fine
face. He stepped into the hut and dropped with a good deal of noise
three rifles into the corner.

"Two horses, two rifles, two saddles, two boxes of dry bread, half a
brick of tea, a small bag of salt, fifty cartridges, two overcoats, two
pairs of boots," laughingly he counted out. "In truth today I had a very
successful hunt."

In astonishment I looked at him.

"What are you surprised at?" he laughed. "Komu nujny eti tovarischi?
Who's got any use for these fellows? Let us have tea and go to sleep.
Tomorrow I will guide you to another safer place and then go on."


CHAPTER II

THE SECRET OF MY FELLOW TRAVELER


At the dawn of day we started forth, leaving my first place of refuge.
Into the bags we packed our personal estate and fastened them on one of
the saddles.

"We must go four or five hundred versts," very calmly announced my
fellow traveler, who called himself "Ivan," a name that meant nothing to
my mind or heart in this land where every second man bore the same.

"We shall travel then for a very long time," I remarked regretfully.

"Not more than one week, perhaps even less," he answered.

That night we spent in the woods under the wide spreading branches of
the fir trees. It was my first night in the forest under the open sky.
How many like this I was destined to spend in the year and a half of my
wanderings! During the day there was very sharp cold. Under the hoofs of
the horses the frozen snow crunched and the balls that formed and broke
from their hoofs rolled away over the crust with a sound like crackling
glass. The heathcock flew from the trees very idly, hares loped slowly
down the beds of summer streams. At night the wind began to sigh and
whistle as it bent the tops of the trees over our heads; while below it
was still and calm. We stopped in a deep ravine bordered by heavy trees,
where we found fallen firs, cut them into logs for the fire and, after
having boiled our tea, dined.

Ivan dragged in two tree trunks, squared them on one side with his ax,
laid one on the other with the squared faces together and then drove in
a big wedge at the butt ends which separated them three or four inches.
Then we placed live coals in this opening and watched the fire run
rapidly the whole length of the squared faces vis-a-vis.

"Now there will be a fire in the morning," he announced. "This is the
'naida' of the gold prospectors. We prospectors wandering in the woods
summer and winter always sleep beside this 'naida.' Fine! You shall see
for yourself," he continued.

He cut fir branches and made a sloping roof out of them, resting it on
two uprights toward the naida. Above our roof of boughs and our naida
spread the branches of protecting fir. More branches were brought and
spread on the snow under the roof, on these were placed the saddle
cloths and together they made a seat for Ivan to rest on and to take off
his outer garments down to his blouse. Soon I noticed his forehead was
wet with perspiration and that he was wiping it and his neck on his
sleeves.

"Now it is good and warm!" he exclaimed.

In a short time I was also forced to take off my overcoat and soon lay
down to sleep without any covering at all, while through the branches
of the fir trees and our roof glimmered the cold bright stars and
just beyond the naida raged a stinging cold, from which we were cosily
defended. After this night I was no longer frightened by the cold.
Frozen during the days on horseback, I was thoroughly warmed through
by the genial naida at night and rested from my heavy overcoat, sitting
only in my blouse under the roofs of pine and fir and sipping the ever
welcome tea.

During our daily treks Ivan related to me the stories of his wanderings
through the mountains and woods of Transbaikalia in the search for gold.
These stories were very lively, full of attractive adventure, danger and
struggle. Ivan was a type of these prospectors who have discovered in
Russia, and perhaps in other countries, the richest gold mines, while
they themselves remain beggars. He evaded telling me why he left
Transbaikalia to come to the Yenisei. I understood from his manner that
he wished to keep his own counsel and so did not press him. However, the
blanket of secrecy covering this part of his mysterious life was one day
quite fortuitously lifted a bit. We were already at the objective point
of our trip. The whole day we had traveled with difficulty through a
thick growth of willow, approaching the shore of the big right branch of
the Yenisei, the Mana. Everywhere we saw runways packed hard by the feet
of the hares living in this bush. These small white denizens of the wood
ran to and fro in front of us. Another time we saw the red tail of a fox
hiding behind a rock, watching us and the unsuspecting hares at the same
time.

Ivan had been silent for a long while. Then he spoke up and told me that
not far from there was a small branch of the Mana, at the mouth of which
was a hut.

"What do you say? Shall we push on there or spend the night by the
naida?"

I suggested going to the hut, because I wanted to wash and because it
would be agreeable to spend the night under a genuine roof again. Ivan
knitted his brows but acceded.

It was growing dark when we approached a hut surrounded by the dense
wood and wild raspberry bushes. It contained one small room with two
microscopic windows and a gigantic Russian stove. Against the building
were the remains of a shed and a cellar. We fired the stove and prepared
our modest dinner. Ivan drank from the bottle inherited from the
soldiers and in a short time was very eloquent, with brilliant eyes and
with hands that coursed frequently and rapidly through his long locks.
He began relating to me the story of one of his adventures, but suddenly
stopped and, with fear in his eyes, squinted into a dark corner.

"Is it a rat?" he asked.

"I did not see anything," I replied.

He again became silent and reflected with knitted brow. Often we were
silent through long hours and consequently I was not astonished. Ivan
leaned over near to me and began to whisper.

"I want to tell you an old story. I had a friend in Transbaikalia. He
was a banished convict. His name was Gavronsky. Through many woods
and over many mountains we traveled in search of gold and we had an
agreement to divide all we got into even shares. But Gavronsky suddenly
went out to the 'Taiga' on the Yenisei and disappeared. After five years
we heard that he had found a very rich gold mine and had become a rich
man; then later that he and his wife with him had been murdered. . . ."
Ivan was still for a moment and then continued:

"This is their old hut. Here he lived with his wife and somewhere on
this river he took out his gold. But he told nobody where. All the
peasants around here know that he had a lot of money in the bank
and that he had been selling gold to the Government. Here they were
murdered."

Ivan stepped to the stove, took out a flaming stick and, bending over,
lighted a spot on the floor.

"Do you see these spots on the floor and on the wall? It is their
blood, the blood of Gavronsky. They died but they did not disclose the
whereabouts of the gold. It was taken out of a deep hole which they had
drifted into the bank of the river and was hidden in the cellar under
the shed. But Gavronsky gave nothing away. . . . AND LORD HOW I TORTURED
THEM! I burned them with fire; I bent back their fingers; I gouged out
their eyes; but Gavronsky died in silence."

He thought for a moment, then quickly said to me:

"I have heard all this from the peasants." He threw the log into the
stove and flopped down on the bench. "It's time to sleep," he snapped
out, and was still.

I listened for a long time to his breathing and his whispering to
himself, as he turned from one side to the other and smoked his pipe.

In the morning we left this scene of so much suffering and crime and on
the seventh day of our journey we came to the dense cedar wood growing
on the foothills of a long chain of mountains.

"From here," Ivan explained to me, "it is eighty versts to the next
peasant settlement. The people come to these woods to gather cedar nuts
but only in the autumn. Before then you will not meet anyone. Also you
will find many birds and beasts and a plentiful supply of nuts, so that
it will be possible for you to live here. Do you see this river? When
you want to find the peasants, follow along this stream and it will
guide you to them."

Ivan helped me build my mud hut. But it was not the genuine mud hut. It
was one formed by the tearing out of the roots of a great cedar, that
had probably fallen in some wild storm, which made for me the deep hole
as the room for my house and flanked this on one side with a wall of
mud held fast among the upturned roots. Overhanging ones formed also
the framework into which we interlaced the poles and branches to make
a roof, finished off with stones for stability and snow for warmth.
The front of the hut was ever open but was constantly protected by the
guardian naida. In that snow-covered den I spent two months like summer
without seeing any other human being and without touch with the outer
world where such important events were transpiring. In that grave under
the roots of the fallen tree I lived before the face of nature with my
trials and my anxiety about my family as my constant companions, and in
the hard struggle for my life. Ivan went off the second day, leaving for
me a bag of dry bread and a little sugar. I never saw him again.


CHAPTER III

THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE


Then I was alone. Around me only the wood of eternally green cedars
covered with snow, the bare bushes, the frozen river and, as far as I
could see out through the branches and the trunks of the trees, only
the great ocean of cedars and snow. Siberian taiga! How long shall I be
forced to live here? Will the Bolsheviki find me here or not? Will my
friends know where I am? What is happening to my family? These questions
were constantly as burning fires in my brain. Soon I understood why Ivan
guided me so long. We passed many secluded places on the journey, far
away from all people, where Ivan could have safely left me but he always
said that he would take me to a place where it would be easier to live.
And it was so. The charm of my lone refuge was in the cedar wood and
in the mountains covered with these forests which stretched to every
horizon. The cedar is a splendid, powerful tree with wide-spreading
branches, an eternally green tent, attracting to its shelter every
living being. Among the cedars was always effervescent life. There the
squirrels were continually kicking up a row, jumping from tree to tree;
the nut-jobbers cried shrilly; a flock of bullfinches with carmine
breasts swept through the trees like a flame; or a small army of
goldfinches broke in and filled the amphitheatre of trees with their
whistling; a hare scooted from one tree trunk to another and behind him
stole up the hardly visible shadow of a white ermine, crawling on the
snow, and I watched for a long time the black spot which I knew to be
the tip of his tail; carefully treading the hard crusted snow approached
a noble deer; at last there visited me from the top of the mountain the
king of the Siberian forest, the brown bear. All this distracted me
and carried away the black thoughts from my brain, encouraging me to
persevere. It was good for me also, though difficult, to climb to the
top of my mountain, which reached up out of the forest and from which I
could look away to the range of red on the horizon. It was the red cliff
on the farther bank of the Yenisei. There lay the country, the towns,
the enemies and the friends; and there was even the point which I
located as the place of my family. It was the reason why Ivan had guided
me here. And as the days in this solitude slipped by I began to miss
sorely this companion who, though the murderer of Gavronsky, had taken
care of me like a father, always saddling my horse for me, cutting the
wood and doing everything to make me comfortable. He had spent many
winters alone with nothing except his thoughts, face to face with
nature--I should say, before the face of God. He had tried the horrors
of solitude and had acquired facility in bearing them. I thought
sometimes, if I had to meet my end in this place, that I would spend my
last strength to drag myself to the top of the mountain to die there,
looking away over the infinite sea of mountains and forest toward the
point where my loved ones were.

However, the same life gave me much matter for reflection and yet more
occupation for the physical side. It was a continuous struggle for
existence, hard and severe. The hardest work was the preparation of the
big logs for the naida. The fallen trunks of the trees were covered
with snow and frozen to the ground. I was forced to dig them out and
afterwards, with the help of a long stick as a lever, to move them from
their place. For facilitating this work I chose the mountain for my
supplies, where, although difficult to climb, it was easy to roll the
logs down. Soon I made a splendid discovery. I found near my den a great
quantity of larch, this beautiful yet sad forest giant, fallen during
a big storm. The trunks were covered with snow but remained attached to
their stumps, where they had broken off. When I cut into these stumps
with the ax, the head buried itself and could with difficulty be drawn
and, investigating the reason, I found them filled with pitch. Chips of
this wood needed only a spark to set them aflame and ever afterward I
always had a stock of them to light up quickly for warming my hands on
returning from the hunt or for boiling my tea.