Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/354

348 "Buddhism is of comparatively recent origin among these people. Two hundred years ago they were Shamans, or worshippers of good and evil spirits, principally the latter, and in this respect differed little from the wild tribes of the Amoor and of Northern Siberia. About the end of the seventeenth century the Bouriats sent a mission to Lassa, the religious capital of Thibet, and a stronghold of Buddhism. The members of this mission were appointed lamas, and brought back the paraphernalia and ritual of the new faith; they announced it to the people, and in an astonishingly short time the whole tribe was converted, and has remained firm ever since.

"We spent a day at Verckne Udinsk, which has a church nearly two hundred years old, and built with immensely thick walls to resist the earthquakes which are not uncommon there. In fact there was an earthquake shock while we were on the road, but the motion of the carriage prevented our feeling it. We only knew what had happened when we reached the station and found the master and his employés in a state of alarm.

"The Gostinna Dvor contained a curious mixture of Russians and Bouriats in about equal numbers, but there was nothing remarkable in the goods offered for sale. An interesting building was the jail, which seemed unnecessarily large for the population of the place. A gentleman who knew my companion told us that the jail was rapidly filling up for winter. 'We have,' said he, a great number of what you call tramps in America; in summer they wander through the country, and live by begging and stealing, but in winter they come to the jails to be lodged and fed until warm weather comes again. After spending the cold season here they leave in the spring—as the trees do.'

"He further told us there was then in the jail and awaiting trial a man who confessed to the murder of no less than seventeen people. He had been a robber, and when in danger of discovery had not hesitated to kill those whom he plundered. On one occasion he had killed four persons in a single family, leaving only a child too young to testify against him."

Fred wished to know if robberies were common in Siberia.

"Less so than you might suppose," was the reply, "when there is such a proportion of criminals among the population. They are mostly committed in summer, as that is the season when the tramps are in motion. The principal victims are merchants, who often carry money in large amounts; officers are rarely attacked, as they usually have only the money needed for their travelling expenses, and are more likely than the