Leaving Manitchkaia, we skirted along the basin of the Manitch. The first dwellings we descried were some miserable Tatar cabins, surrounded with brambles and thistles. We found in them an old Tatar captain, a relic of the French campaign. He amused us a good deal by his pompous encomiums on the valour and tall stature of the Prussians. A Frenchman, said he, does not fear ten Russians, but a Prussian would settle at least ten Frenchmen.
For three days our journey was without interest. No traces of buildings were to be seen; at intervals there appeared in the middle of the steppes, a Kalmuck tent, the inhabitants of which kept a large herd of horses; then here and there some strayed camels, and these were the only objects that broke the dreary monotony of the wilderness. But on the fourth day, we reached the vicinity of the great Khouroul of the Kalmucks, the residence of their high priest. One of our Cossacks was sent forward to announce our visit, and an hour after his departure two priests came galloping up to us. After complimenting us in the name of the grand Lama, they presented us with brandy distilled from mare's milk, in token of welcome, and fell in to line with our party. Some minutes afterwards we descried the white tents of the Khouroul. Our party was every moment swelled by fresh reinforcements, and we had soon fifty horsemen caracoling by our sides. Having reached the centre of the Khouroul, we alighted, and then walking between two lines of priests dressed in garments of the most glaring colours, we were conducted to the high priest's tent. This venerable representative of the great Dalai Lama, was an old man upwards of seventy, entirely bald, and with features of a much less Kalmuck cast than his countrymen. He was wrapped in a wide tunic of yellow brocade, lined with cherry red silk, and his fingers were busy with the beads of his chaplet. After many salutations on both sides we sat down on a sofa, and then, according to the invariable Kalmuck usage, we were helped to brandy and koumis, a beverage at which my friend Kloch made very queer faces. Next, I presented the high priest with two pounds of bad tobacco, purchased at Novo Tcherkask, which I passed off as genuine Latakieh. He was so delighted with my present that he did honour to it on the spot, with every mark of extreme satisfaction. This high priest will have the honour to be burned after his death, and his ashes, formed into a paste with a certain ingredient, will be worked into a little statue, which will adorn the temple to be erected to his memory. His successor is already nominated; he looks like a stupid fanatic, puffed up with the importance of his future dignity; we afterwards saw him acquit himself of his religious duties, with a conscientiousness quite rare among the Cossack Kalmucks. All the priests of this khouroul, appeared to us incomparably less devout than those of the Volga and the Caspian. They have very little reverence for their spiritual chief; they seem fully aware of the absurdities of their religious notions and ceremonies, and if they set any value by their functions, it is because they enable them to lead a life of indolence and sensuality, and exempt them from military service. The laity seems to be very indifferent as to religious matters. The women alone seem attached to their ancient principles; one of them burst into a fury because her husband allowed us to see and touch the leaves of her prayer-book. It is to their intercourse with the Cossacks that we must attribute the lapse of these Kalmucks from the strictness of the primitive rule, which has been preserved almost unimpaired among the Kalmucks of the Caspian.