National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

men. A couple of lamas inspired them with evil spirits, and they really did seem to be possessed. Their faces swelled up and became red, their eyes seemed starting from their heads, they frothed at the mouth and were seized with a sort of hysterical intoxication or uncontrolled religious ecstasy. They became downright dangerous. Our people had been warned not to go too close to them, for they were armed with lances and swords, with which they went windmilling and blindly thrusting about in all directions. And they shot with bow and arrow — not only up in the air, . but also horizontally, so that they might have hit and wounded anybody at all who happened to be out of luck. On one occasion they threw stones at LIEBERENZ as he stood filming from a roof.

July 15th was celebrated with new dances, plays, humoristic pranks, performances by magicians in high hats. Sacred books were displayed for the homage of the crowd, who smothered them with khadaks — long, thin, narrow cloths, regarded as holy gifts and sacrifices and good wishes. Even little children were taken up to the books and held over them.

By midday everything was over. The pilgrims were dismissed and went their ways. All wore their best clothes, and the women their heavy ornaments of silver and corals: diadems, earrings, bracelets and rings. The yellow, red, green and blue colours were bleached, discreet and extremely effective. The whole festival was an unforgettable and magnificent sight.

HUMMEL, HASLUND and LIEBERENZ had been met with the greatest friendliness, and special orders for their safety and security were given at the outset. Before returning they handed over a present of fifty silver dollars for the temple and a number of trifles such as alarm-clocks, knives etc. for the sacred personages. When they took leave of J oLROS LAMA he asked if he might have copies of the photographs that had been taken at the temple, and promised to give us a letter of recommendation or passport that would be useful to us for a great part of our journey westward.

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The work done by the various scientists in the expedition will be described by each of them personally; but as it has not been possible to carry out this program in detail I will here give the notes I made in the camp at Khujirtu-gol on the work by the Chinese archaeologist HUANG WEN-PI during his excursions in the surrounding country. HUANG himself did not speak any foreign language, but Professor Sm served as interpreter between us.

Dr HAUDE'S meteorological work will also be accorded more detailed treatment in this connection than for example the geological work by NORIN or the archaeological work by BERGMAN, since I consider it to be a matter of general interest to know how a meteorologist goes about his work in such peculiar conditions as those afforded by a caravan journey through Mongolia.

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