The Shadow of the Gloomy East. Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski

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СКАЧАТЬ hot water, and covered hermetically with many clouts. Into this the sorcerer threw herbs, muttering incantations in which the words "nostradamus" and "shugana" occurred most frequently. Then he proceeded to fumigate the cask ​with the smoke of burnt grass and herbs, drawing upon it with pitch some complicated signs.

      After an hour the diseased, who had become unconscious, was taken out of the cask; he was red like a boiled lobster; his eyes had a vacant stare. The wounds upon his lips, nose, and arms seemed to be even more horrible than they had been before. While the patient was recovering from his swoon, Sokolov made him drink a large glass of water taken from the cask in which he had spent an hour, and then took his head into both his hands, looked for a long time into his eyes, and said with a grave and commanding voice:

      "Go! go away, shugana, chygana of disease! The Black One wants it! The Black One commands you! Go! Go away!"

      I do not know if this cure benefited the leper, but I heard that the Government was obliged to establish a hospital owing to the rapid spread of leprosy in the districts of Yamburg and Gdov.

      The same Sokolov treated the typhus patients in an equally original manner. The sick, raving with fever, shivering with alternate heat and cold, was first laid down upon the snow for a few minutes, then wrapped into new raw linen and tied up with a strong cord.

      He was then fed forcibly with hot, soft, black bread mixed with the powder of dried and pulverised bugs, and on his belly one after another thirteen bricks, covered with secret signs and warmed to a considerable temperature, were laid amidst mysterious incantations.

      ​It was said that this treatment usually effected a speedy cure; in the particular case I witnessed, however, one of the sick died of peritonitis, and a member of the Petrograd Academy of Medicine, Dr. Abramychev, who happened to be one of the shooting party, brought Sokolov before the Court.

      But the protocol which was taken down on the spot was lost in the offices of the country police, who, as it transpired, frequently availed themselves of the "advice" of the wizard.

      The venereous patients were put for three to five days into a heap of horse-dung freshly brought out from the stables. Into that heap he planted seven little sticks of various lengths with rags attached to each, bearing certain signs and unintelligible words, such as "prys," "tachny," "habdyk."

      Cattle are usually cured by being fumigated with smoke of burning grass, mixed with ashes of burnt hair, dried frogs or bats; animal wounds are treated with the molten fat of the badger or rat. All this is enacted to the accompaniment of incomprehensible words or phrases, sometimes muttered or shouted aloud.

      In the province of Pskov, in the district of Ostrov, I witnessed the treatment of a strange disease which had broken out among horses and women. The tails and manes of horses as well as the tresses of women became sometimes so entangled that it was impossible to comb them out in any way. Medical science knows ​that this symptom follows the infection with a peculiar serous bacillus and that the disease occurs in marshy localities. The wizard, however, diagnosed it differently in his own way. He gave it out that the "house demon at nightfall plaits the women's tresses and the horses' manes, twisting and jumbling them because he was angry." To placate the demon a sacrifice must be offered.

      A forsaken cottage is chosen and the stove is lit, behind which are put rags and old fur coats so as to make it a comfortable place for the demon, who likes to lie softly.

      Then, with the blood of a black cock, a circle is drawn upon the floor, and inside the circle is put milk, honey, barley gruel and salt—a feast for the demon.

      This done, before the clock strikes midnight, a young girl with her hair down and her hands tied up is introduced into the heated and sultry room. The demon must devote his time to the victim's hair in the meantime and leave all the others alone. According to the belief of the villager, the demon is appeased; but frequently the poor girl becomes hysterical or goes mad with fright and horror. By way of compensation she is highly esteemed throughout the neighbourhood as one who "has seen the demon" and feasted with him and has been treated by her uncanny host with brandy, a bottle of which was placed beside her.

      The wizards practise even in large cities, in Petrograd, Moscow, Odessa, Kiev, and Charkov. It is true ​that their clients belong as a rule to the poor and humble classes, but sometimes quite unexpectedly they appear even in the palaces of the rich.

      I remember a case that happened In 1897, when I was coaching the children of a high official who lived in the beautiful palace of Prince Leuchtenberg, a relative of the Imperial family. One day my pupil came to me saying that the kitchen and the dining-room had become infested with bugs to such an extent that a "wizard" was called in to drive them out. We went to see the performance.

      The wizard, a little, rugged old man, had just caught a bug; he examined it carefully, lifted it close to his lips and began to whisper something to the insect, repeating frequently the word "ygh."

      He next drew a piece of chalk out of his pocket, wrote a sign upon its back, and let it go free.

      The bug immediately disappeared in a chink of the dresser, the man received his rouble and went home. Next day, as my pupil told me, the cook protested on oath to having seen with her own eyes how the marked bug went round from one hole to the other, collected all his fellows into a big party, and marched them out of the palace.

      "Did they take their luggage and forage with them?" I asked the boy.

      He laughed and said:

      "We shall ask the cook about it … yes, we must ask her—she's seen it"

      ​Going through Siberia in 1920, I happened to stay a night in a village. I was fatigued with long riding and covered with dust from head to foot, and I accepted eagerly my host's proposal to have a vapour bath.

      "I say," said the host to his wife, "don't let our guest go to the bath by himself. Send the boy for Maxim, that he may accompany him."

      "But I shall be able to manage without assistance," I protested vigorously.

      "No, sir, it can't be. Something evil may happen to you if you go without our wizard," gravely said mine host.

      "But why?" I asked in stupefaction.

      "Well, you see, sir, the devils have chosen our vapour bath as their dwelling-place and frighten people," explained the peasant in his slow way. "The other day they threw an old woman off the bench—she fell into the boiler and was scalded to death."

      I was not allowed to go all alone, but had to wait till Maxim came, a giant with a veritable mane of tousled grey hair and the white beard of a patriarch.

      When we approached the tiny bath-shed standing at the other end of the kitchen garden, Maxim halted and exclaimed:

      "Fiend, satan, black devil, small or large, angry or merry, it's I, it's I!"

      We entered.

      The bath was hot, sultry, close with the exhalation ​of charcoal. We lighted the fire under the pot, whereupon out of the darkness I saw projecting the dim shapes of various objects. The immense mass of a Russian stove, two rough benches, tubs with hot and cold water, a heap of stones, black and glowing, which served for creating vapour by having water poured over them.

      The faint, flickering flame of the fire was playing restlessly upon the floor, the walls, the ceiling, lighting up sometimes the bubbling surface of the water in the tubs.

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