A VISIT TO CHEN-LAO-PAN—COLONEL YANG—THE DAUGHTER OF PRINCE KOKO NOR—A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY OF KUMBUM.

The following morning we visited the Lhassa officials, but unfortunately found only one of them at home, Lusam Kindum, who was very friendly, and at once plied us with tea. He said that he himself was shortly going to Pekin with the big triennial tribute to the Emperor, consisting of pulo cloth, saffron, and incense. He showed us a rifle of German make which he had bought from one of the soldiers during the rebellion for eighteen taels, or £3 12s.

We made Lusam Kindum a small present of a knife, and he in return presented Malcolm with a beautifully embroidered golden cap such as he himself wore, and to me gave a "scarf of blessing," or k'artag, under which it was given, and I in return held this up to my forehead with a gentle nod. He, too, came down from the "k'ang" and accompanied us as far as the gates, which were opened in our honour.

We again visited Chen-Lao-Pan, where the "ting" and the Colonel turned up, so that the conversation and laughter waxed strong and loud, while the tea, the cakes, and pipes were liberally distributed. All knew that Chen-Lao-Pan possessed the best of everything, and was liberal with it withal. To add to the gathering, the Colonel's two little daughters, both well dressed, were trotted in to pay their respects. They must have been very young, for they were very little, and could scarcely walk, yet they made their curtseys all round in the most polite fashion, showing at what an early age the better educated Chinese are taught to a nicety the correct manners of society. As soon as the mayor and the Colonel, whose name was Yang, and his two little daughters had departed, we set about business, and the object of our second visit. This was the loan of some money to help us across China. Nothing could have delighted more the heart of this good-natured Chinaman than his freely lending us sixty taels, as well as giving us letters of credit to other agents throughout the country. Nor could we thank him sufficiently for the kind help he had given us. The lack of money at this time was our greatest difficulty. How could we cross China when we were penniless?

During the afternoon the Rijnharts were visited by the daughter of the Prince of Koko Nor. She was so splendidly dressed that I could not resist taking a snap-shot of her whilst being engaged in conversation with Dr. Rijnhart. We were sorry at having to leave Tankar on the morrow, especially as Rijnhart himself was coming with us and we were leaving his good wife to live alone; but we were thankful to know that in this busy little town the greatest officials were her staunchest friends.

Tankar—Sining.

A Visit to the Monastery of Kumbum.

About 1 p.m. on October 17th, after having said "Good-bye" to Dr. Rijnhart, our hospitable hostess of the last few days, and having sent off our baggage by the direct road to Sining, we started for the famous monastery of Kumbum, which lies about seventy li south-east of Tankar. Our party consisted of Mr. Peter Rijnhart, our two selves, and Lassoo, the cook. We rode our Mongol ponies, on which we fastened our saddlebags, with all that we were likely to require.

Very lucky we were to be able to pay this visit under the guidance of Mr. Rijnhart, for not only has he a more intimate knowledge of the monastery than any other living man, but having made his home for two years in Lusar, ten months of which were spent in the monastery itself, he has made friends with a very large number of its inmates, more especially with Mina Fu-yeh, one of the greatest incarnate saints in the place,[4] in whose house we were to spend the night. Just outside the east gate of Tankar we passed a party of Tibetans, in the midst of whom was a big living Buddha, who had recently been appointed abbot of the monastery of Ta Koe Ri by the TalÉ Lama. On his way from Lhassa he had been attacked by a party of Mohammedans. All his attendants had been killed, and he alone had escaped to the mountains, where he wandered about for twenty-three days without food, till at last he found his way to Tankar. He was now on his way to take up his appointment, having recovered from the effects of his privations.

For the first fifteen li our road lay along the left bank of the Hsi Ho, till we crossed it by a bridge close to the village of Hsang Ho Ri (Sounding River). On the way we overtook strings of camels laden with the yearly tribute of pulo and incense from the TalÉ Lama to the Emperor. We noticed several caves in the cliffs inhabited by men—fortunate beings, for they had no rent to pay. At Hsang Ho Ri is a small inn where flour and tea can be bought, and close by were some opium fields. This bridge was one of the many in Kansu which are built on the cantilever principle. They are plentiful throughout the Western Himalayas, but this was the first we had seen in China. We now had a stiffish climb to the top of a pass called the Wu La, whence we got a magnificent view over range after range of mountains, stretching away to the south. The descent was comparatively easy, and we were able to note the results of the recent Mohammedan rebellion. Every village that was not in ruins had loop-holed walls and fighting towers which had been specially erected. Our companion, Rijnhart, had spent some time in General Wei's[5] camp, he and his wife doctoring the wounded, thereby saving many a life, and earning the gratitude of their patients. He was, therefore, well qualified to point out various spots along our road where skirmishes or serious fighting had taken place. Many of the villages had been deserted, but the people were now returning, and beginning to again get their fields under cultivation. It will, however, be many a long day before grain and market produce regain their normal price. Rich and fertile though this little bit of Kansu is, it will be fully two years before it can recover from the trying times it passed through in 1895.

Once, just about sunset, we missed our way, and once one of the horses, while being led, slipped down a steep bank into a ravine, luckily without injuring himself or any one else. Otherwise our ride was devoid of incident, but the moon was high in the heavens by the time we arrived at our destination. We were quite unexpected, so it was some time before we could get any one to pay attention to our knocking at the stout wooden doors of the monastery; but at length it was opened by one of the great man's servants, who, as soon as he recognised Mr. Rijnhart, was all civility. The door we went in at was not the front door, as only the owner of the house was supposed to use that, and it would have been a great breach of etiquette on our part to have gone in by it. Our door led us into the stable yard, and while word was being taken to Mina Fu-yeh that Mr. Rijnhart, or Lin Hsien-shÊng, as he was generally called, had arrived with two foreign friends, we busied ourselves looking after the horses, loosening girths, getting straw, etc. In a few moments we went upstairs, and, after passing through an open court ornamented in the middle with a flower bed, were ushered into the presence of one of the holiest men on the eastern border of Tibet.

Mina Fu-yeh[6] is a man twenty-seven years of age, or twenty-eight by Chinese calculation, and has been in the monastery since he was seven. Considerably below medium height, and of slight build, he has a very pleasant face, especially when lit up by a happy smile, as it often is. It struck us both that the sedentary indoor life he is more or less bound to live was telling on his constitution, and that if he had spent more of his time in the open air, instead of in reading, writing, and meditation, his health would benefit greatly. However that may be, it did not interfere with his hospitality, for the moment we were seated he told us that food was being prepared, and that it would shortly be ready. He was living in a small room about twelve feet square, with massive stone walls, squatting on the "k'ang" or raised platform which occupied the greater portion of the room. On this "k'ang" was a low square table only a few inches high, holding a beautiful tea-cup made of stone, with a silver cover. On his right was a darkly-stained cupboard, wherein he kept his books, writing materials, and other nick-nacks. Hanging on the wall opposite him, and in no way harmonising with the other surroundings, was a coloured picture of the day illustrating some English boys and girls out of school. This had been given him by Mr. Rijnhart, who meanwhile told him all about us—who we were, where we had come from, and gave him a general outline of our journey, in all of which he took considerable interest, and, through Rijnhart, he asked us several questions, including the inevitable one, "Aren't you cold in those thin clothes?" No Chinaman or Tibetan seems able to grasp the European fashion of wearing tight clothing; to them our outer clothes appear to fit so closely that there can be no room for any underneath.

Mina Fu-yeh speaks Chinese, Mongolian, and Tibetan with equal ease and fluency, so that any questions we wished to ask we put to Rijnhart, who translated them into Chinese, the answer being received the reverse way. In this manner we were able to get a reliable statement about the priests who live on the "Dragon Colt's Island," the island in the Koko Nor, mention of which has been made by so many travellers. While marching along the north shore of the lake, we had just been able to make out the island away towards the south side, but no two men gave the same account of its inhabitants. Mina Fu-yeh said that there are twelve or thirteen priests living there, that they keep sheep and goats, and that, being free from depredations of wolves, their flocks thrive well. In winter, when the lake is frozen over, they cross to the mainland and lay in stores for the following summer. He himself, he added, was thinking of building a house there and getting a boat of some sort, so that he would be able to go backwards and forwards at any time of year. I don't suppose this idea of his will ever come to anything.

One was naturally diffident about asking a perfect stranger a great deal about his religious tenets, for although our host was a very liberal-minded man and far more ready to converse than most Tibetans, there was always the feeling that one might touch on some delicate subject and quite unintentionally annoy him. We therefore contented ourselves with asking Rijnhart privately what he had told him on other occasions. His explanation of how he came to be recognised as the reincarnation of the previous Mina Fu-yeh shows how convincing the proofs of identity are to one who has been brought up to accept and believe in the theory. He relates how, when very small, various articles were laid out from which he was to select those which had been his own in his previous life-time. Among these was a number of rosaries from which he had no difficulty in choosing his own, "For," he says, "I had used it daily for years; how is it possible that I should not know it from among all these others? Of course I knew it." So on with other articles; his identity was established without a doubt, and he became the heir to the accumulated property of fifteen former lifetimes.[7] He talks freely of his last lifetime, pointing out the site of the house in which he lived, and which was burnt down about two years before his death; it was, he says, a far finer house than the one he now occupies.

In the course of conversation, he told us that he had spent some time in studies at Pekin, and that he had also been on a journey to the Eastern Mongols, where he read the sacred books to all who wished it. He selected them as they were more pious and more wealthy than the Tibetans or Western Mongols. While in Pekin he had had some dealings with foreigners, buying things in the stores, and was full of admiration for their honesty. He was much amused when we told him we were sorry we could not say the same for the Chinese. Most of his own people, those for whose spiritual welfare he is chiefly responsible, come from round Kuei-TÊ, where he himself was born; he has also a certain number of Tibetans and Mongols from the Koko Nor and Tsaidam. He was till recently Ta K'anpo or abbot of the monastery, a position of great dignity, being in fact the principal official.

All officials are elected for a period of three years, and the abbot during that time has a very peculiar privilege. He is allowed to send out eight parties of priests in different directions for three months carrying with them Ts.2,000 worth of merchandise. This they trade for sheep, cattle, horses, etc., which are sold at considerable profit on their return. All this profit goes into the pocket of the abbot, who runs no risk beyond the Ts.2,000 originally invested. All other expenses are defrayed out of the monastery funds.

Mina Fu-yeh had been most unfortunate in his business matters while abbot, for in 1894 he had sold a great proportion of his horses, etc., to Mohammedans. They, in accordance with the universal Chinese custom, deferred payment till New Year's Day, by which time the rebellion had broken out, some of his debtors had been killed, and others had left the country, so that he only collected a tithe of what was due to him; in 1895 no party was sent out, owing to the disturbed state of the country, and in 1896 he had only sent out Ts.1,000 worth of stuff. With this he had done extremely well, but only made sufficient profit to cover his losses of 1894.[8]

While we had been conversing thus, our food, tea and large quantities of boiled mutton, was being prepared and was now brought in, a large dishful for the three of us, and a separate smaller dish for our host, as is only fitting for one who lives in such an odour of sanctity as he does.

We were very hungry after our ride, and in a few moments we were busy eating Tibetan fashion, i.e., pocket-knives and fingers, each one selecting from the joint whatever morsel took his fancy; to do the thing properly each bone should be scraped scrupulously clean, but, though we did our best, our host could give us points at this. The ease and rapidity with which he cleaned up the most awkward-looking bones came as a revelation. As a matter of fact he had already had his evening meal, but etiquette compelled him to eat again to encourage us. We were waited upon by the treasurer of the establishment and by a jolly little boy, about twelve years old, a disciple of Mina Fu-yeh's, under whose tuition he was studying the sacred writings. In the intervals of filling up our bowls with tea and pressing food upon us, he amused himself and the company by teasing his teacher's dog, a very fat little Pekin pug, as it lay beside its master.

When we had eaten our fill we rose to say "Good-night," and apologised for having thrust ourselves in without due notice, having come, too, just when our host must have been about to go to bed. To this he replied that he was delighted that we had come, that he hoped that we would go all over the place, taking pictures if we wished to. The priests would be occupied in public reading in the big hall, but we should be free to go where we wished; he added that he was only writing extracts from the books when we came in, and that we had not disturbed him at all.

Of course we asked if we might see his writing, and when produced we were most unfeignedly astonished by it. Never have I seen more beautifully even writing, or better formed characters. Every here and there a word was written in red ink. On asking why this was we were told that it was the character for "Sum," or three, and stood for the Trinity of Buddha.

It was very late, so having again said "Good-night," we went to bed and slept soundly. The next morning we were up betimes, as we had a busy day before us. At daybreak we were awakened by hearing two short blasts from a long horn, followed by a louder blast which was dwelt upon till it gradually died away. This was the warning to the 4,000 priests at Kumbum to get ready for prayer; it was the commencement of a new day. But, early as we were, our host was before us, and when we left our room we found him making preparations for breakfast. He explained that his steward and several of his servants were away, so he had to do a great deal himself. It seemed strange to see an incarnate saint, who is held in the deepest reverence and worshipped by men, busying himself unlocking drawers, producing sugar and butter, and generally attending to the most trivial and mundane matters, chattering away all the time like an ordinary mortal.

Thanks, however, to these endeavours, our breakfast of tea and tsamba was soon ready. Rijnhart, of course, is an adept at mixing up the butter, meal, and sugar into the correct dough, but neither of us had acquired the art. For some time our host watched us in silence, smiling occasionally at our awkwardness, but at last he offered to do it for us, adding hastily to Rijnhart, "Please tell them my hands are quite clean." Breakfast over, we lost no time in starting, armed with the kodak, to visit the many temples and shrines which form the monastery.

When we arrived the previous evening, it was too dark to get any idea of how the monastery lay, but we were enabled to do so. Kumbum itself lies at the junction of two small valleys, one coming from the east, the other from the south, the buildings lying to the south of the former, while on the north is the "Precious Hill," which keeps off all evil influences. On the east side of the other valley are most of the private dwellings, while on the west are temples, chief among which is the famous "Gold-Tiled Temple" of Tsong K'aba. Lower down, below the junction of these two valleys, is the little town of Lusar. Altogether in Kumbum there are close on 4,000 priests, the vast majority of which, say seventy per cent., are Tibetans; of the rest about twenty per cent. are Mongols, and the remainder Chinese. Nearly all of them speak Chinese with a greater or less degree of fluency, but there are a few who speak only Mongol and Tibetan.

It has, I believe, been stated in print, though I have never seen it, that Kumbum is entirely Chinese in its government and organisation. That this is not the case needs no further proof than the fact that, in all things temporal, it is under the Tsong T'u, or Prince of the Koko Nor, a mandarin appointed by the Emperor to govern all his Tibetan dependencies in this direction; he lives at Sining, and is known among Tibetans and Mongols as the "Seling Amban"; on the other hand, if Kumbum were really Chinese, it would be subservient to the Fu of Sining, and would be governed by the Fu T'ai. There is, moreover, a distinct boundary line, separating the territory which comes under Fu T'ai from that which comes under the Tsong T'u, those living within the boundary paying taxes to the monastery, while those outside pay to Sining Fu.