Beasts, Men, and Gods by Ferdinand Ossendowski
Trans. Lewis Stanton Palen
What is more exotic? The place never-been or the place familiar but seen through strange perspective? In this book, what interests more is indeed the description of those familiar but strange places, namely, Mongolia and Tibet. As a person with Chinese culture upbringing, what I feel about Mongolia and Tibet is invariably tinged with the fantasy of "the (noble) barbarian." Thus, it is quite refreshing for me to read what a foreigner saw Mongolia and Tibet. Ossendowski definitely sympathizes with Mongolian and Tibet, and, in his text, contemporary Chinese government is seen with unfavorable eyes. But that's all right since Ossendowski provides singular experiences of their daily life as well as religious meditation in a specific historical moment. And that is more real and even touching for me than those grandiose defeats and conquests taught in my historical text books.
I specifically like the passage Ossendowski lauds Mongolia in chapter XVII：
In the heart of Asia lies the enormous, mysterious and rich country of Mongolia. From somewhere on the snowy slopes of the Tian Shan and from the hot sands of Western Zungaria to the timbered ridges of the Sayan and to the Great Wall of China it stretches over a huge portion of Central Asia. The cradle of peoples, histories and legends; the native land of bloody conquerors, who have left here their capitals covered by the sand of the Gobi, their mysterious rings and their ancient nomad laws; the states of monks and evil devils, the country of wandering tribes administered by the descendants of Jenghiz Khan and Kublai Khan—Khans and Princes of the Junior lines: that is Mongolia.
Mysterious country of the cults of Rama, Sakkia-Mouni, Djonkapa and Paspa, cults guarded by the very person of the living Buddha—Buddha incarnated in the third dignitary of the Lamaite religion—Bogdo Gheghen in Ta Kure or Urga; the land of mysterious doctors, prophets, sorcerers, fortune-tellers and witches; the land of the sign of the swastika; the land which has not forgotten the thoughts of the long deceased great potentates of Asia and of half of Europe: that is Mongolia.
The land of nude mountains, of plains burned by the sun and killed by the cold, of ill cattle and ill people; the nest of pests, anthrax and smallpox; the land of boiling hot springs and of mountain passes inhabited by demons; of sacred lakes swarming with fish; of wolves, rare species of deer and mountain goats, marmots in millions, wild horses, wild donkeys and wild camels that have never known the bridle, ferocious dogs and rapacious birds of prey which devour the dead bodies cast out on the plains by the people: that is Mongolia.
The land whose disappearing primitive people gaze upon the bones of their forefathers whitening in the sands and dust of their plains; where are dying out the people who formerly conquered China, Siam, Northern India and Russia and broke their chests against the iron lances of the Polish knights, defending then all the Christian world against the invasion of wild and wandering Asia: that is Mongolia.
The land swelling with natural riches, producing nothing, in need of everything, destitute and suffering from the world's cataclysm: that is Mongolia.
It is like Mongolia is no longer a collection of misty imaginations, but a real land that benefits as well as suffers from its inhabitants and its neighbors.