DESCRIPTION OF URGA. 13 



are, with very few exceptions, of very limited under- 

 standing. Brought up under the watchful guardian- 

 ship of the neighbouring lamas, they have no oppor- 

 tunity of cultivating their intellects even in the 

 ordinary affairs of life, and exist in a little world of 

 their own. The whole education even of the most 

 important among them consists of elementary in- 

 struction in the Tibetan language and the Lamaist 

 books, and even this knowledge is often most super- 

 ficial. Accustomed from infancy to be looked on as 

 living deities, they seriously believe in their own 

 divine origin and renewed birth ^ after death. Their 

 intellectual inferiority ensures the ascendancy of the 

 attendant lamas, who do not scruple to poison clever 

 boys whose lot it has been to belong to this sacred 

 class. Such a fate is said not unfrequently to befall 

 the Kutukhtus of Urga through the connivance of 

 the Chinese Government, which dreads the rivalry 

 of any independent personage at the head of the 

 Mongol hierarchy. 



The Kutukhtu of Urga is very wealthy, and 

 besides the offerings of enthusiastic devotees he 

 owns 150,000 slaves, who inhabit the environs of 

 Urga, and other parts of Northern Mongolia. All 

 these slaves are under his immediate authority, and 

 form the so-called Shdbin class. 



Outwardly the Mongol part of Urga is dis- 

 gustingly dirty. All the filth is thrown into the 

 streets, and the habits of the people are loathsome. 



' The Gigens whom we met during our journey never made use of 

 the expression ' at my death,' but always ' at my renewed birth." 



