At last before our eyes the abode of the Living Buddha! At thefoot of Bogdo-Ol behind white walls rose a white Tibetan buildingcovered with greenish-blue tiles that glittered under the sunshine.
It was richly set among groves of trees dotted here and there withthe fantastic roofs of shrines and small palaces, while furtherfrom the mountain it was connected by a long wooden bridge acrossthe Tola with the city of monks, sacred and revered throughout allthe East as Ta Kure or Urga. Here besides the Living Buddha livewhole throngs of secondary miracle workers, prophets, sorcerers andwonderful doctors. All these people have divine origin and arehonored as living gods. At the left on the high plateau stands anold monastery with a huge, dark red tower, which is known as the"Temple Lamas City," containing a gigantic bronze gilded statue ofBuddha sitting on the golden flower of the lotus; tens of smallertemples, shrines, obo, open altars, towers for astrology and thegrey city of the Lamas consisting of single-storied houses andyurtas, where about 60,000 monks of all ages and ranks dwell;schools, sacred archives and libraries, the houses of Bandi and theinns for the honored guests from China, Tibet, and the lands of theBuriat and Kalmuck.
Down below the monastery is the foreign settlement where theRussian, foreign and richest Chinese merchants live and where themulti-colored and crowded oriental bazaar carries forward itsbustling life. A kilometre away the greyish enclosure of Maimachensurrounds the remaining Chinese trading establishments, whilefarther on one sees a long row of Russian private houses, ahospital, church, prison and, last of all, the awkward four-storiedred brick building that was formerly the Russian Consulate.
We were already within a short distance of the monastery, when Inoticed several Mongol soldiers in the mouth of a ravine nearby,dragging back and concealing in the ravine three dead bodies.
"What are they doing?" I asked.
The Cossacks only smiled without answering. Suddenly theystraightened up with a sharp salute. Out of the ravine came asmall, stocky Mongolian pony with a short man in the saddle. As hepassed us, I noticed the epaulets of a colonel and the green capwith a visor. He examined me with cold, colorless eyes from underdense brows. As he went on ahead, he took off his cap and wipedthe perspiration from his bald head. My eyes were struck by thestrange undulating line of his skull. It was the man "with thehead like a saddle," against whom I had been warned by the oldfortune teller at the last ourton outside Van Kure!
"Who is this officer?" I inquired.
Although he was already quite a distance in front of us, theCossacks whispered: "Colonel Sepailoff, Commandant of Urga City."Colonel Sepailoff, the darkest person on the canvas of Mongolianevents! Formerly a mechanician, afterwards a gendarme, he hadgained quick promotion under the Czar's regime. He was alwaysnervously jerking and wriggling his body and talking ceaselessly,making most unattractive sounds in his throat and sputtering withsaliva all over his lips, his whole face often contracted withspasms. He was mad and Baron Ungern twice appointed a commissionof surgeons to examine him and ordered him to rest in the hope hecould rid the man of his evil genius. Undoubtedly Sepailoff was asadist. I heard afterwards that he himself executed the condemnedpeople, joking and singing as he did his work. Dark, terrifyingtales were current about him in Urga. He was a bloodhound,fastening his victims with the jaws of death. All the glory of thecruelty of Baron Ungern belonged to Sepailoff. Afterwards BaronUngern once told me in Urga that this Sepailoff annoyed him andthat Sepailoff could kill him just as well as others. Baron Ungernfeared Sepailoff, not as a man, but dominated by his ownsuperstition, because Sepailoff had found in Transbaikalia a witchdoctor who predicted the death of the Baron if he dismissedSepailoff. Sepailoff knew no pardon for Bolshevik nor for any oneconnected with the Bolsheviki in any way. The reason for hisvengeful spirit was that the Bolsheviki had tortured him in prisonand, after his escape, had killed all his family. He was nowtaking his revenge.
I put up with a Russian firm and was at once visited by myassociates from Uliassutai, who greeted me with great joy becausethey had been much exercised about the events in Van Kure and ZainShabi. When I had bathed and spruced up, I went out with them onthe street. We entered the bazaar. The whole market was crowded.
To the lively colored groups of men buying, selling and s............