Chapter XV. Description of an Idol, Which They Destroy

by Daniel Defoe

　　Early in the morning, when marching from a little town calledChangu, we had a river to pass, which we were obliged to ferry;and, had the Tartars had any intelligence, then had been the timeto have attacked us, when the caravan being over, the rear-guardwas behind; but they did not appear there. About three hoursafter, when we were entered upon a desert of about fifteen orsixteen miles over, we knew by a cloud of dust they raised, thatthe enemy was at hand, and presently they came on upon the spur.Our Chinese guards in the front, who had talked so big the daybefore, began to stagger; and the soldiers frequently looked behindthem, a certain sign in a soldier that he is just ready to runaway. My old pilot was of my mind; and being near me, called out,"Seignior Inglese, these fellows must be encouraged, or they willruin us all; for if the Tartars come on they will never stand it."- "If am of your mind," said I; "but what must be done?" - "Done?"says he, "let fifty of our men advance, and flank them on eachwing, and encourage them. They will fight like brave fellows inbrave company; but without this they will every man turn his back."Immediately I rode up to our leader and told him, who was exactlyof our mind; accordingly, fifty of us marched to the right wing,and fifty to the left, and the rest made a line of rescue; and sowe marched, leaving the last two hundred men to make a body ofthemselves, and to guard the camels; only that, if need were, theyshould send a hundred men to assist the last fifty.At last the Tartars came on, and an innumerable company they were;how many we could not tell, but ten thousand, we thought, at theleast. A party of them came on first, and viewed our posture,traversing the ground in the front of our line; and, as we foundthem within gunshot, our leader ordered the two wings to advanceswiftly, and give them a salvo on each wing with their shot, whichwas done. They then went off, I suppose to give an account of thereception they were like to meet with; indeed, that salute cloyedtheir stomachs, for they immediately halted, stood a while toconsider of it, and wheeling off to the left, they gave over theirdesign for that time, which was very agreeable to ourcircumstances.Two days after we came to the city of Naun, or Naum; we thanked thegovernor for his care of us, and collected to the value of ahundred crowns, or thereabouts, which we gave to the soldiers sentto guard us; and here we rested one day. This is a garrisonindeed, and there were nine hundred soldiers kept here; but thereason of it was, that formerly the Muscovite frontiers lay nearerto them than they now do, the Muscovites having abandoned that partof the country, which lies from this city west for about twohundred miles, as desolate and unfit for use; and more especiallybeing so very remote, and so difficult to send troops thither forits defence; for we were yet above two thousand miles from Muscovyproperly so called. After this we passed several great rivers, andtwo dreadful deserts; one of which we were sixteen days passingover; and on the 13th of April we came to the frontiers of theMuscovite dominions. I think the first town or fortress, whicheverit may he called, that belonged to the Czar, was called Arguna,being on the west side of the river Arguna.I could not but feel great satisfaction that I was arrived in acountry governed by Christians; for though the Muscovites do, in myopinion, but just deserve the name of Christians, yet such theypretend to be, and are very devout in their way. It wouldcertainly occur to any reflecting man who travels the world as Ihave done, what a blessing it is to be brought into the world wherethe name of God and a Redeemer is known, adored, and worshipped;and not where the people, given up to strong delusions, worship thedevil, and prostrate themselves to monsters, elements, horrid-shaped animals, and monstrous images. Not a town or city we passedthrough but had their pagodas, their idols, and their temples, andignorant people worshipping even the works of their own hands. Nowwe came where, at least, a face of the Christian worship appeared;where the knee was bowed to Jesus: and whether ignorantly or not,yet the Christian religion was owned, and the name of the true Godwas called upon and adored; and it made my soul rejoice to see it.I saluted the brave Scots merchant with my first acknowledgment ofthis; and taking him by the hand, I said to him, "Blessed be God,we are once again amongst Christians." He smiled, and answered,"Do not rejoice too soon, countryman; these Muscovites are but anodd sort of Christians; and but for the name of it you may see verylittle of the substance for some months further of our journey." -"Well," says I, "but still it is better than paganism, andworshipping of devils." - "Why, I will tell you," says he; "exceptthe Russian soldiers in the garrisons, and a few of the inhabitantsof the cities upon the road, all the rest of this country, forabove a thousand miles farther, is inhabited by the worst and mostignorant of pagans." And so, indeed, we found it.We now launched into the greatest piece of solid earth that is tobe found in any part of the world; we had, at least, twelvethousand miles to the sea eastward; two thousand to the bottom ofthe Baltic Sea westward; and above three thousand, if we left thatsea, and went on west, to the British and French channels: we hadfull five thousand miles to the Indian or Persian Sea south; andabout eight hundred to the Frozen Sea north.We advanced from the river Arguna by easy and moderate journeys,and were very visibly obliged to the care the Czar has taken tohave cities and towns built in as many places as it is possible toplace them, where his soldiers keep garrison, something like thestationary soldiers placed by the Romans in the remotest countriesof their empire; some of which I had read of were placed inBritain, for the security of commerce, and for the lodging oftravellers. Thus it was here; for wherever we came, though atthese towns and stations the garrisons and governors were Russians,and professed Christians, yet the inhabitants were mere pagans,sacrificing to idols, and worshipping the sun, moon, and stars, orall the host of heaven; and not only so, but were, of all theheathens and pagans that ever I met with, the most barbarous,except only that they did not eat men's flesh.Some instances of this we met with in the country between Arguna,where we enter the Muscovite dominions, and a city of Tartars andRussians together, called Nortziousky, in which is a continueddesert or forest, which cost us twenty days to travel over. In avillage near the last of these places I had the curiosity to go andsee their way of living, which is most brutish and unsufferable.They had, I suppose, a great sacrifice that day; for there stoodout, upon an old stump of a tree, a diabolical kind of idol made ofwood; it was dressed up, too, in the most filthy manner; its uppergarment was of sheepskins, with the wool outward; a great Tartarbonnet on the head, with two horns growing through it; it was abouteight feet high, yet had no feet or legs, nor any other proportionof parts.This scarecrow was set up at the outer side of the village; andwhen I came near to it there were sixteen or seventeen creaturesall lying flat upon the ground round this hideous block of wood; Isaw no motion among them, any more than if they had been all logs,like the idol, and at first I really thought they had been so; but,when I came a little nearer, they started up upon their feet, andraised a howl, as if it had been so many deep-mouthed hounds, andwalked away, as if they were displeased at our disturbing them. Alittle way off from the idol, and at the door of a hut, made ofsheep and cow skins dried, stood three men with long knives intheir hands; and in the middle of the tent appeared three sheepkilled, and one young bullock. These, it seems, were sacrifices tothat senseless log of an idol; the three men were priests belongingto it, and the seventeen prostrated wretches were the people whobrought the offering, and were offering their prayers to thatstock.I confess I was more moved at their stupidity and brutish worshipof a hobgoblin than ever I was at anything in my life, and,overcome with rage, I rode up to the hideous idol, and with mysword made a stroke at the bonnet that was on its head, and cut itin two; and one of our men that was with me, taking hold of thesheepskin that covered it, pulled at it, when, behold, a mosthideous outcry ran through the village, and two or three hundredpeople came about my ears, so that I was glad to scour for it, forsome had bows and arrows; but I resolved from that moment to visitthem again. Our caravan rested three nights at the town, which wasabout four miles off, in order to provide some horses which theywanted, several of the horses having been lamed and jaded with thelong march over the last desert; so we had some leisure here to putmy design in execution. I communicated it to the Scots merchant,of whose courage I had sufficient testimony; I told him what I hadseen, and with what indignation I had since thought that humannature could be so degenerate; I told him if I could get but fouror five men well armed to go with me, I was resolved to go anddestroy that vile, abominable idol, and let them see that it had nopower to help itself, and consequently could not be an object ofworship, or to be prayed to, much less help them that offeredsacrifices to it.He at first objected to my plan as useless, seeing that, owing tothe gross ignorance of the people, they could not be brought toprofit by the lesson I meant to teach them; and added that, fromhis knowledge of the country and its customs, he feared we shouldfall into great peril by giving offence to these brutal idolworshippers. This somewhat stayed my purpose, but I was stilluneasy all that day to put my project in execution; and thatevening, meeting the Scots merchant in our walk about the town, Iagain called upon him to aid me in it. When he found me resolutehe said that, on further thoughts, he could not but applaud thedesign, and told me I should not go alone, but he would go with me;but he would go first and bring a stout fellow, one of hiscountrymen, to go also with us; "and one," said he, "as famous forhis zeal as you can desire any one to be against such devilishthings as these." So we agreed to go, only we three and my man-servant, and resolved to put it in execution the following nightabout midnight, with all possible secrecy.We thought it better to delay it till the next night, because thecaravan being to set forward in the morning, we suppose thegovernor could not pretend to give them any satisfaction upon uswhen we were out of his power. The Scots merchant, as steady inhis resolution for the enterprise as bold in executing, brought mea Tartar's robe or gown of sheepskins, and a bonnet, with a bow andarrows, and had provided the same for himself and his countryman,that the people, if they saw us, should not determine who we were.All the first night we spent in mixing up some combustible matter,with aqua vitae, gunpowder, and such other materials as we couldget; and having a good quantity of tar in a little pot, about anhour after night we set out upon our expedition.We came to the place about eleven o'clock at night, and found thatthe people had not the least suspicion of danger attending theiridol. The night was cloudy: yet the moon gave us light enough tosee that the idol stood just in the same posture and place that itdid before. The people seemed to be all at their rest; only thatin the great hut, where we saw the three priests, we saw a light,and going up close to the door, we heard people talking as if therewere five or six of them; we concluded, therefore, that if we setwildfire to the idol, those men would come out immediately, and runup to the place to rescue it from destruction; and what to do withthem we knew not. Once we thought of carrying it away, and settingfire to it at a distance; but when we came to handle it, we foundit too bulky for our carriage, so we were at a loss again. Thesecond Scotsman was for setting fire to the hut, and knocking thecreatures that were there on the head when they came out; but Icould not join with that; I was against killing them, if it werepossible to avoid it. "Well, then," said the Scots merchant, "Iwill tell you what we will do: we will try to make them prisoners,tie their hands, and make them stand and see their idol destroyed."As it happened, we had twine or packthread enough about us, whichwe used to tie our firelocks together with; so we resolved toattack these people first, and with as little noise as we could.The first thing we did, we knocked at the door, when one of thepriests coming to it, we immediately seized upon him, stopped hismouth, and tied his hands behind him, and led him to the idol,where we gagged him that he might not make a noise, tied his feetalso together, and left him on the ground.Two of us then waited at the door, expecting that another wouldcome out to see what the matter was; but we waited so long till thethird man came back to us; and then nobody coming out, we knockedagain gently, and immediately out came two more, and we served themjust in the same manner, but were obliged to go all with them, andlay them down by the idol some distance from one another; when,going back, we found two more were come out of the door, and athird stood behind them within the door. We seized the two, andimmediately tied them, when the third, stepping back and cryingout, my Scots merchant went in after them, and taking out acomposition we had made that would only smoke and stink, he setfire to it, and threw it in among them. By that time the otherScotsman and my man, taking charge of the two men already bound,and tied together also by the arm, led them away to the idol, andleft them there, to see if their idol would relieve them, makinghaste back to us.When the fuze we had thrown in had filled the hut with so muchsmoke that they were almost suffocated, we threw in a small leatherbag of another kind, which flamed like a candle, and, following itin, we found there were but four people, who, as we supposed, hadbeen about some of their diabolical sacrifices. They appeared, inshort, frightened to death, at least so as to sit trembling andstupid, and not able to speak either, for the smoke.We quickly took them from the hut, where the smoke soon drove usout, bound them as we had done the other, and all without anynoise. Then we carried them all together to the idol; when we camethere, we fell to work with him. First, we daubed him all over,and his robes also, with tar, and tallow mixed with brimstone; thenwe stopped his eyes and ears and mouth full of gunpowder, andwrapped up a great piece of wildfire in his bonnet; then stickingall the combustibles we had brought with us upon him, we lookedabout to see if we could find anything else to help to burn him;when my Scotsman remembered that by the hut, where the men were,there lay a heap of dry forage; away he and the other Scotsman ranand fetched their arms full of that. When we had done this, wetook all our prisoners, and brought them, having untied their feetand ungagged their mouths, and made them stand up, and set thembefore their monstrous idol, and then set fire to the whole.We stayed by it a quarter of an hour or thereabouts, till thepowder in the eyes and mouth and ears of the idol blew up, and, aswe could perceive, had split altogether; and in a word, till we sawit burned so that it would soon be quite consumed. We then beganto think of going away; but the Scotsman said, "No, we must not go,for these poor deluded wretches will all throw themselves into thefire, and burn themselves with the idol." So we resolved to staytill the forage has burned down too, and then came away and leftthem. After the feat was performed, we appeared in the morningamong our fellow-travellers, exceedingly busy in getting ready forour journey; nor could any man suppose that we had been anywherebut in our beds.But the affair did not end so; the next day came a great number ofthe country people to the town gates, and in a most outrageousmanner demanded satisfaction of the Russian governor for theinsulting their priests and burning their great Cham Chi-Thaungu.The people of Nertsinkay were at first in a great consternation,for they said the Tartars were already no less than thirty thousandstrong. The Russian governor sent out messengers to appease them,assuring them that he knew nothing of it, and that there had not asoul in his garrison been abroad, so that it could not be fromanybody there: but if they could let him know who did it, theyshould be exemplarily punished. They returned haughtily, that allthe country reverenced the great Cham Chi-Thaungu, who dwelt in thesun, and no mortal would have dared to offer violence to his imagebut some Christian miscreant; and they therefore resolved todenounce war against him and all the Russians, who, they said, weremiscreants and Christians.The governor, unwilling to make a breach, or to have any cause ofwar alleged to be given by him, the Czar having strictly chargedhim to treat the conquered country with gentleness, gave them allthe good words he could. At last he told them there was a caravangone towards Russia that morning, and perhaps it was some of themwho had done them this injury; and that if they would be satisfiedwith that, he would send after them to inquire into it. Thisseemed to appease them a little; and accordingly the governor sentafter us, and gave us a particular account how the thing was;intimating withal, that if any in our caravan had done it theyshould make their escape; but that whether we had done it or no, weshould make all the haste forward that was possible: and that, inthe meantime, he would keep them in play as long as he could.This was very friendly in the governor; however, when it came tothe caravan, there was nobody knew anything of the matter; and asfor us that were guilty, we were least of all suspected. However,the captain of the caravan for the time took the hint that thegovernor gave us, and we travelled two days and two nights withoutany considerable stop, and then we lay at a village called Plothus:nor did we make any long stop here, but hastened on towardsJarawena, another Muscovite colony, and where we expected we shouldbe safe. But upon the second day's march from Plothus, by theclouds of dust behind us at a great distance, it was plain we werepursued. We had entered a vast desert, and had passed by a greatlake called Schanks Oser, when we perceived a large body of horseappear on the other side of the lake, to the north, we travellingwest. We observed they went away west, as we did, but had supposedwe would have taken that side of the lake, whereas we very happilytook the south side; and in two days more they disappeared again:for they, believing we were still before them, pushed on till theycame to the Udda, a very great river when it passes farther north,but when we came to it we found it narrow and fordable.The third day they had either found their mistake, or hadintelligence of us, and came pouring in upon us towards dusk. Wehad, to our great satisfaction, just pitched upon a convenientplace for our camp; for as we had just entered upon a desert abovefive hundred miles over, where we had no towns to lodge at, and,indeed, expected none but the city Jarawena, which we had yet twodays' march to; the desert, however, had some few woods in it onthis side, and little rivers, which ran all into the great riverUdda; it was in a narrow strait, between little but very thickwoods, that we pitched our camp that night, expecting to beattacked before morning. As it was usual for the Mogul Tartars togo about in troops in that desert, so the caravans always fortifythemselves every night against them, as against armies of robbers;and it was, therefore, no new thing to be pursued. But we had thisnight a most advantageous camp: for as we lay between two woods,with a little rivulet running just before our front, we could notbe surrounded, or attacked any way but in our front or rear. Wetook care also to make our front as strong as we could, by placingour packs, with the camels and horses, all in a line, on the insideof the river, and felling some trees in our rear.In this posture we encamped for the night; but the enemy was uponus before we had finished. They did not come on like thieves, aswe expected, but sent three messengers to us, to demand the men tobe delivered to them that had abused their priests and burned theiridol, that they might burn them with fire; and upon this, theysaid, they would go away, and do us no further harm, otherwise theywould destroy us all. Our men looked very blank at this message,and began to stare at one another to see who looked with the mostguilt in their faces; but nobody was the word - nobody did it. Theleader of the caravan sent word he was well assured that it was notdone by any of our camp; that we were peaceful merchants,travelling on our business; that we had done no harm to them or toany one else; and that, therefore, they must look further for theenemies who had injured them, for we were not the people; so theydesired them not to disturb us, for if they did we should defendourselves.They were far from being satisfied with this for an answer: and agreat crowd of them came running down in the morning, by break ofday, to our camp; but seeing us so well posted, they durst come nofarther than the brook in our front, where they stood in suchnumber as to terrify us very much; indeed, some spoke of tenthousand. Here they stood and looked at us a while, and then,setting up a great howl, let fly a crowd of arrows among us; but wewere well enough sheltered under our baggage, and I do not rememberthat one of us was hurt.Some time after this we saw them move a little to our right, andexpected them on the rear: when a cunning fellow, a Cossack ofJarawena, calling to the leader of the caravan, said to him, "Iwill send all these people away to Sibeilka." This was a city fouror five days' journey at least to the right, and rather behind us.So he takes his bow and arrows, and getting on horseback, he ridesaway from our rear directly, as it were back to Nertsinskay; afterthis he takes a great circuit about, and comes directly on the armyof the Tartars as if he had been sent express to tell them a longstory that the people who had burned the Cham Chi-Thaungu were goneto Sibeilka, with a caravan of miscreants, as he called them - thatis to say, Christians; and that they had resolved to burn the godScal-Isar, belonging to the Tonguses. As this fellow was himself aTartar, and perfectly spoke their language, he counterfeited sowell that they all believed him, and away they drove in a violenthurry to Sibeilka. In less than three hours they were entirely outof our sight, and we never heard any more of them, nor whether theywent to Sibeilka or no. So we passed away safely on to Jarawena,where there was a Russian garrison, and there we rested five days.From this city we had a frightful desert, which held us twenty-three days' march. We furnished ourselves with some tents here,for the better accommodating ourselves in the night; and the leaderof the caravan procured sixteen waggons of the country, forcarrying our water or provisions, and these carriages were ourdefence every night round our little camp; so that had the Tartarsappeared, unless they had been very numerous indeed, they would nothave been able to hurt us. We may well be supposed to have wantedrest again after this long journey; for in this desert we neithersaw house nor tree, and scarce a bush; though we saw abundance ofthe sable-hunters, who are all Tartars of Mogul Tartary; of whichthis country is a part; and they frequently attack small caravans,but we saw no numbers of them together.After we had passed this desert we came into a country pretty wellinhabited - that is to say, we found towns and castles, settled bythe Czar with garrisons of stationary soldiers, to protect thecaravans and defend the country against the Tartars, who wouldotherwise make it very dangerous travelling; and his czarishmajesty has given such strict orders for the well guarding thecaravans, that, if there are any Tartars heard of in the country,detachments of the garrison are always sent to see the travellerssafe from station to station. Thus the governor of Adinskoy, whomI had an opportunity to make a visit to, by means of the Scotsmerchant, who was acquainted with him, offered us a guard of fiftymen, if we thought there was any danger, to the next station.I thought, long before this, that as we came nearer to Europe weshould find the country better inhabited, and the people morecivilised; but I found myself mistaken in both: for we had yet thenation of the Tonguses to pass through, where we saw the sametokens of paganism and barbarity as before; only, as they wereconquered by the Muscovites, they were not so dangerous, but forrudeness of manners and idolatry no people in the world ever wentbeyond them. They are all clothed in skins of beasts, and theirhouses are built of the same; you know not a man from a woman,neither by the ruggedness of their countenances nor their clothes;and in the winter, when the ground is covered with snow, they liveunderground in vaults, which have cavities going from one toanother. If the Tartars had their Cham Chi-Thaungu for a wholevillage or country, these had idols in every hut and every cave.This country, I reckon, was, from the desert I spoke of last, atleast four hundred miles, half of it being another desert, whichtook us up twelve days' severe travelling, without house or tree;and we were obliged again to carry our own provisions, as wellwater as bread. After we were out of this desert and had travelledtwo days, we came to Janezay, a Muscovite city or station, on thegreat river Janezay, which, they told us there, parted Europe fromAsia.All the country between the river Oby and the river Janezay is asentirely pagan, and the people as barbarous, as the remotest of theTartars. I also found, which I observed to the Muscovite governorswhom I had an opportunity to converse with, that the poor pagansare not much wiser, or nearer Christianity, for being under theMuscovite government, which they acknowledged was true enough - butthat, as they said, was none of their business; that if the Czarexpected to convert his Siberian, Tonguse, or Tartar subjects, itshould be done by sending clergymen among them, not soldiers; andthey added, with more sincerity than I expected, that it was not somuch the concern of their monarch to make the people Christians asto make them subjects.From this river to the Oby we crossed a wild uncultivated country,barren of people and good management, otherwise it is in itself apleasant, fruitful, and agreeable country. What inhabitants wefound in it are all pagans, except such as are sent among them fromRussia; for this is the country - I mean on both sides the riverOby - whither the Muscovite criminals that are not put to death arebanished, and from whence it is next to impossible they should everget away. I have nothing material to say of my particular affairstill I came to Tobolski, the capital city of Siberia, where Icontinued some time on the following account.We had now been almost seven months on our journey, and winterbegan to come on apace; whereupon my partner and I called a councilabout our particular affairs, in which we found it proper, as wewere bound for England, to consider how to dispose of ourselves.They told us of sledges and reindeer to carry us over the snow inthe winter time, by which means, indeed, the Russians travel morein winter than they can in summer, as in these sledges they areable to run night and day: the snow, being frozen, is oneuniversal covering to nature, by which the hills, vales, rivers,and lakes are all smooth and hard is a stone, and they run upon thesurface, without any regard to what is underneath.But I had no occasion to urge a winter journey of this kind. I wasbound to England, not to Moscow, and my route lay two ways: eitherI must go on as the caravan went, till I came to Jarislaw, and thengo off west for Narva and the Gulf of Finland, and so on toDantzic, where I might possibly sell my China cargo to goodadvantage; or I must leave the caravan at a little town on theDwina, from whence I had but six days by water to Archangel, andfrom thence might be sure of shipping either to England, Holland,or Hamburg.Now, to go any one of these journeys in the winter would have beenpreposterous; for as to Dantzic, the Baltic would have been frozenup and I could not get passage; and to go by land in thosecountries was far less safe than among the Mogul Tartars; likewise,as to Archangel in October, all the ships would be gone fromthence, and even the merchants who dwell there in summer retiresouth to Moscow in the winter, when the ships are gone; so that Icould have nothing but extremity of cold to encounter, with ascarcity of provisions, and must lie in an empty town all thewinter. Therefore, upon the whole, I thought it much my better wayto let the caravan go, and make provision to winter where I was, atTobolski, in Siberia, in the latitude of about sixty degrees, whereI was sure of three things to wear out a cold winter with, viz.plenty of provisions, such as the country afforded, a warm house,with fuel enough, and excellent company.I was now in quite a different climate from my beloved island,where I never felt cold, except when I had my ague; on thecontrary, I had much to do to bear any clothes on my back, andnever made any fire but without doors, which was necessary fordressing my food, &c. Now I had three good vests, with large robesor gowns over them, to hang down to the feet, and button close tothe wrists; and all these lined with furs, to make themsufficiently warm. As to a warm house, I must confess I greatlydislike our way in England of making fires in every room of thehouse in open chimneys, which, when the fire is out, always keepsthe air in the room cold as the climate. So I took an apartment ina good house in the town, and ordered a chimney to be built like afurnace, in the centre of six several rooms, like a stove; thefunnel to carry the smoke went up one way, the door to come at thefire went in another, and all the rooms were kept equally warm, butno fire seen, just as they heat baths in England. By this means wehad always the same climate in all the rooms, and an equal heat waspreserved, and yet we saw no fire, nor were ever incommoded withsmoke.The most wonderful thing of all was, that it should be possible tomeet with good company here, in a country so barbarous as this -one of the most northerly parts of Europe. But this being thecountry where the state criminals of Muscovy, as I observed before,are all banished, the city was full of Russian noblemen, gentlemen,soldiers, and courtiers. Here was the famous Prince Galitzin, theold German Robostiski, and several other persons of note, and someladies. By means of my Scotch merchant, whom, nevertheless, Iparted with here, I made an acquaintance with several of thesegentlemen; and from these, in the long winter nights in which Istayed here, I received several very agreeable visits.