A Tour in Mongolia by Beatrix Manico Gull

"It is only kindness and not severity that can impress at the distance of a thousand miles"

-- _Chinese proverb_

Among all the brightness and sparkle of life in Urga, there is alas! a very dark and sinister side. Day after day, we rode past a certain little inconspicuous enclosure surrounded by a rough pine stockade, little recking of the appalling amount of misery it encompassed. How far circumstances and how far sheer native cruelty are responsible for the terrible condition under which the Mongols drag out a ghastly existence in punishment for crimes either great or small, and even prior to condemnation, it would be difficult to establish. Deprivation of liberty and rigorous confinement is the accepted form of punishment held by the Mongols in common with all nations of modern civilisation, and the present form probably originated before there was any other way of imprisoning malefactors than the felt yourt of the nomad, from which, of course, any prisoner could escape in ten minutes.

Few, if any, Europeans other than Russians have seen the inside of this Mongol prison; and truly the dungeons at Urga beggar description. Through the kind offices of one of our Russian friends we obtained a pass from the Mongol Government to enable us to visit the prisoners. The authorities were not a little suspicious as to our object in wishing to do so, and since a reason had perforce to be furnished, they were informed that we were merely humane travellers who desired to distribute largesse among the suffering inmates. Accompanied by a couple of Mongol officials, three Russians, and Mr. Gull, I was taken over the entire place, and I believe that none of its horrors escaped me.

It would indeed be a hard heart that did not open to the hopeless misery of the prisoners. Within a small compound fenced in by high spiked palisades are five or six dungeons. The dungeons are thrice enclosed by a stockade of rough pinewood some eighteen feet high, and to gain access to them many heavily bolted doors have to be unbarred. All the doors were double, and two great padlocks ensured the security of each. As we entered, the gaolers, who struck us as being a most unholy looking couple who literally gloated over the misery of the prisoners in their power, met us, and called our attention, quite unnecessarily, to a trio of pale-faced Mongols sitting on the ground just inside the gates. Their hands and feet were heavily chained together, and they fell on their knees when they saw us. We had each contributed three roubles before entering the prison, and, having reduced it to small change, one of the party doled it out, making the sum go as far as possible among the miserable suppliants.

Passing on to the interior, we came upon a heavy wooden chest, some 4 to 4 1/2 feet long by 2 1/2 feet deep, iron-bound and secured by two strong padlocks. To our horror we discovered that it contained a man -- one might have imagined that a wild beast to be sent by train was temporarily imprisoned therein! But a man! The hole in the side was of sufficient size to enable the prisoner to thrust out his manacled hands. This also provided the sole means of ventilation. But this unfortunate creature was well off compared with the others we saw subsequently. At least he was breathing in the open air. The dungeons, we were told, were so full that this prisoner had to remain outside. While we were discussing his pitiable lot, clank, clank, went the great bars and bolts, and the gaoler had opened the double doors leading into the first dungeon. There must have been from twenty to thirty coffins in this, some piled on the tops of the others, and the atmosphere was absolutely putrid. The two Mongol officials, whose general tone I cannot say impressed us very favourably, now very ostentatiously held their long sleeves over their noses, accustomed to smells though they were. One imagines that there may have been some means of cleaning out the coffins from underneath as is the case in cages in a menagerie, for it was most strongly impressed upon us that never under any circumstances whatsoever are the prisoners allowed to come out except for execution or -- rarely -- to be set free. The majority are in for life sentences.