国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

losses. This was followed by a lull in the operations until June loth, when CHIANG KAI-SHEK launched a new offensive.

The spring was at times rather chilly; but on April 17th at three in the afternoon the weather was as warm as at the height of summer. The temperature was 31 ° .2 C and the lilacs in our courtyard began to put forth their last blooms.

At about this time we received a visit from JOEL ERIKSSON, who informed us that a little periodical in Mongolian was issued once a week in the lama temple here (Yung-ho-kung) . A writer in this weekly was crying it out as a great scandal that two lama temples should be taken out of the country. The lamas were very well informed; in the present case they knew about BENDIX and the sum he had donated. But since these lamas themselves sold divine images, books, paintings and textiles from their temple and kept the money for private uses no-one took any notice of them. ERIKSSON was also of opinion that it would be possible with money to induce them to change their views in the temple question completely. This was, however, scarcely necessary.

On Easter Sunday (April loth) MONTELL and JOEL ERIKSSON journeyed up to Mongolia, and for a short time I was entirely alone in Peking. It was not long, however, before two new Swedes, of whom I afterwards saw a great deal, arrived in the city. These were the new head of our legation, J oEN LAGERBERG and his wife, who reached Peking on April 26th.

On May 4th MONTELL returned from his round-tour in Mongolia, which had been a great success and considerably enriched our ethnographical collections.

NEW PLAN FOR THE ACQUISITION OF THE TEMPLES

Towards the end of the month MONTELL and I began to discuss quite a different solution of the temple-question than that hitherto planned. We had so far had no decision regarding the purchase of the temples from the government authorities, and the political situation had not cleared in any degree worth mentioning. We now began to discuss instead the possibility of making a copy of a temple, and in this case the Golden Pavilion of the Potala in Jehol would be the best conceivable model. In this way the temple question, which had already swallowed up an enormous amount of my time, could be settled out of hand. This solution offered many advantages. It made us independent of the government and many intermediaries. A new building would also be a good deal more stable and lasting, and in fact from all points of view better, than an old temple in which it would in any case probably prove necessary to replace a lot of rotten or destroyed details.

Two drawbacks, on the other hand, were that the enterprise would be more costly and that it would take a much longer time to procure a copy than to pull down a

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