Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/77

Rh mines you will have to apply to Governor-general Korf or to Governor Barabásh."

As both of the officials last named were at that time in Khabarófka, on the lower Amúr, nearly 1500 miles beyond the mines and 2000 miles from Irkútsk, the prospect of getting their permission did not seem to be very bright. We determined, however, to go ahead without permission, trusting to be saved, by luck and our own wits, from any serious trouble. Instead of proceeding directly to the mines, we decided to make a detour to the southward from Vérkhni Údinsk, for the purpose of visiting Kiákhta, the Mongolian frontier-town of Maimáchin, and the great Buddhist lamasery of Goose Lake. We were tired of prisons and the exile system; we had had misery enough for a while; and it seemed to me that we should be in better condition to bear the strain of the mines if we could turn our thoughts temporarily into other channels and travel a little, as boys say, "for fun." I was anxious, moreover, to see something of that corrupted form of the Buddhistic religion called Lamaism, which prevails so extensively in the Trans-Baikál, and which is there localized and embodied in the peculiar monastic temples known to the Russians as datsáns, or lamaseries. The lamasery of Goose Lake had been described to us in Irkútsk as one of the most interesting and important of these temples, for the reason that it was the residence of the Khambá Láma, or Grand Lama