are, with very few exceptions, of very limited understanding. Brought up under the watchful guardianship of the neighbouring lamas, they have no opportunity 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 instruction in the Tibetan language and the Lamaist books, and even this knowledge is often most superficial. Accustomed from infancy to be looked on as living deities, they seriously believe in their own divine origin and renewed birth[1] 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 Shabin class.
Outwardly the Mongol part of Urga is disgustingly 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.'
