Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/110

94 or four dancers, who represented good spirits and defenders of the faith, and who were without masks, wore on their heads broad-brimmed hats with a heart-shaped superstructure of gold open-work, and were armed with naked daggers. It seemed to be their province to drive the black-masked demons and the skull-headed figures out of the field. The dresses worn by all the dancers were of extraordinary richness and beauty, and were so complicated and full of detail that two or three pages would be needed for a complete and accurate description of a single one of them. The materials of the costumes were crimson, scarlet, blue, and orange silk, old-gold brocade, violet velvet, satin of various colors, bright-colored cords, tassels, and fringes, wheel-shaped silver brooches supporting festooned strings of white beads, and gold and silver ornaments in infinite variety, which shone and flashed in the sunlight as the figures pirouetted and leaped hither and thither, keeping time to the measured clashing of cymbals and booming of the great drums. The performance lasted about fifteen minutes, and the last figures to retire were the burkháns with the golden lattice-work hats and the naked daggers. It seemed to me evident that this sacred "dance of the burkháns" was a species of religious pantomime or mystery play; but I could not get through Khainúief any intelligible explanation of its significance.

When we returned to the house of the Grand Lama we found ready a very good and well-cooked dinner, with fruit cordial and madeira to cheer the "ambassadors," and plenty of vódka to inebriate Khainúief. After dinner I had a long talk with the Grand Lama about my native country, geography, and the shape of the earth. It seemed very strange to find anywhere on the globe, in the nineteenth century, an educated man and high ecclesiastical dignitary who had never even heard of America, and who did not feel at all sure that the world is round. The Grand Lama was such a man.