href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@32747@[email protected]#page147" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">147

A Fishing Party

155

Election of a Living Buddha

165

The Steppes of Ortous

168

Caves of the Ortous

180

Barbarous Lamanesque Ceremony

188

Lamasery of Rache-Tchurin

201

Turning Prayers

203

Mongol Butcher

210

Encampment at the Hundred Wells

222

Grand Ceremony at the Ancestral Temple

227

Chinese Idol

236

Chinese and Tartar Arms

237

Chinese Princess

253

Chinese Caricature

261

Irrigation of the Fields

262

Root of the Jin-Seng

293

CHAPTER I.

French Mission of Peking—Glance at the Kingdom of Ouniot—Preparations for Departure—Tartar-Chinese Inn—Change of Costume—Portrait and Character of Samdadchiemba—Sain-Oula (the Good Mountain)—The Frosts on Sain-Oula, and its Robbers—First Encampment in the Desert—Great Imperial Forest—Buddhist monuments on the summit of the mountains—Topography of the Kingdom of Gechekten—Character of its Inhabitants—Tragical working of a Mine—Two Mongols desire to have their horoscope taken—Adventure of Samdadchiemba—Environs of the town of Tolon-Noor.

The French mission of Peking, once so flourishing under the early emperors of the Tartar-Mantchou dynasty, was almost extirpated by the constant persecutions of Kia-King, the fifth monarch of that dynasty, who ascended the throne in 1799.  The missionaries were dispersed or put to death, and at that time Europe was herself too deeply agitated to enable her to send succour to this distant Christendom, which remained for a time abandoned.  Accordingly, when the French Lazarists re-appeared at Peking, they found there scarce a vestige of the true faith.  A great number of Christians, to avoid

the persecutions of the Chinese authorities, had passed the Great Wall, and sought peace and liberty in the deserts of Tartary, where they lived dispersed upon small patches of land which the Mongols permitted them to cultivate.  By dint of perseverance the missionaries collected together these dispersed Christians, placed themselves at their head, and hence superintended the mission of Peking, the immediate administration of which was in the hands of a few Chinese Lazarists.  The French missionaries could not, with any prudence, have resumed their former position in the capital of the empire.  Their presence would have compromised the prospects of the scarcely reviving mission.

In visiting the Chinese Christians of Mongolia, we more than once had occasion to make excursions into the Land of Grass, (Isao-Ti), as the uncultivated portions of Tartary are designated, and to take up our temporary abode beneath the tents of the Mongols.  We were no sooner acquainted with this nomadic people, than we loved them, and our hearts were filled with a passionate desire to announce the gospel to them.  Our whole leisure was therefore devoted to acquiring the Tartar dialects, and in 1842, the Holy See at length fulfilled our desires, by erecting Mongolia into an Apostolical Vicariat.

Towards the commencement of the year 1844, couriers arrived at Si-wang, a small Christian community, where the vicar apostolic of Mongolia had fixed his episcopal residence.  Si-wang itself is a village,