Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1889 — THE TEANS-BAIKAL. [ARTICLE]

THE TEANS-BAIKAL.

The Grand Lama Ignorant of the Exj - istence of America. „ > George Kennan's contribution to the March Century is a description of his visit to the Grand Lama of the T’ransBajkaly whose portrait fprms the frffintisDiec& qf the numbef. The article, is profusely illustrated, find from it we quote the following: 1 j ' TAfter dinner I had a long with the Grand Lama about my native country, geography, and the shape of anywhere on the globe, in the nineteen century, an educated man and high ecclesiastical dignitary * who had never even heard of A tnerica, and who did not feel at all sure that the world was round, The Grand Lama was such aman. ---- . j‘ ‘You have been in many countries,’ he said through an interpreter, ‘and have tab.ed with the wise men of the Wept; w hat is your opinion, with regard,, to the shape of the earth?” “ ‘I think,’ I Replied, ‘that it is shaped like a great ball.’ “‘I have heard so before,’ said the Grand Lama looking thoughtfully away into vacancy. ‘The Russian officers whom 1 have met have told me that the world is round. Such a belief is contrary to the teachings of our old Thiebetan books, but I have observed that the Russian wise men- predict eclipses accurately; and if they can tell beforehand when the sun and moon are to be darkened, they probably know something about the shape of the earth. Why do you think that the earth is round?’

“‘I have many reasons for thinking so,’ I answered; ‘but perhaps the best and strongest reason is that I have been arobnd it.’ “This statement seemed to give the Grand Lama a sort of mental shock, inquired. , ‘What do you mean by “around it?” How do you know that you have been around it?’ :X “I turned my back upon my home, I replied, and traveled many months in the course taken by the sun. I crossed wide continents and great oceans. Every night the sun set before my face and morning it rose behind my back. The jearth always seemed flat, butj I could not find anywhere an end nor an edge, and at last, when I had traveled more than thirty thousand versts, I found myself again in my own country and returned to my home from a direction exactly opposite to that which I had taken in leaving it. If the world was flat, do - you think I could have done this?’7’ Z-- “ ‘lt is very strange,’ said the Grand Lama, after a thoughtful pause of a moment. ‘Where is your country? How far is it beyond St. Petersburg?** “ ‘My country is farther from St. Peters burg than St. Petersburg is from here,’ I replied. ‘lt lies almost exactly under our feet, and if we could go directly through the earth, that would be the shortest way to reach it. “ ‘Are your countrymen walking around with their heads downward under our feet?’ asked the Grand Lama with evident- interest and surprise, but without any perceptible change in his habitually impassive face. “‘Yes,’J replied; ‘and to them we seem to be sitting heads downward hereJL ‘ v “The Grand Lama then asked me to describe minutely the route that we had followed in coming from America to Siberia, and to name the countries through which we had passed. He knew that Germany adjoined Russia on the west, he had heard of British India and of England,—probably through Thibet, —and he had a vague idea of the extent and situation of the Pacific Ocean; but of the Atlantic and of the continent that lies between -the two great oceans he knew nothing. “After a long talk, in the course of which we discussed the sphericity of the earth from every possible point of view, the Grand Lama seemed to be partly or wholly convinced of the truth of that doctrine, and said, with a sigh, ‘lt is not in accordance with the teachings of our books; but the Russians must be right.’ Z. “It is a somewhat remarkable fact that Dr. Erman, the only foreigner who had seen the lamasery of Goose Lake previous to our visit, had an almost precisely similar conversation concerning the shape of the earth with the man who was then (in 1828) Grand Laina. Almost sixty years elapsed between Dr. Erman’s visit and ours, but the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth continued throughout that period to trouble ecclesiastical minds in this remote East Siberian lamasery; and, it is not improbable that sixty years hence some traveler from the western world may De asked by some future Grand Lama to give his reasons for believing the world to be a sphere.”