AN EVENING IN A KALMUICK HUT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3128, 31 July 1922, Page 8

AN EVENING IN A KALMUICK HUT.

(By George A. Scott.)

U is a dreadful thing to acquire the reputation of being an authority on any particular subject. People always pester one with questions. “The says Lenin is a Kalmuick. What is a Kalmuick?” has been hurled at my unfortunate head for at least a year. .1 propose to answer the question once and for all time. The Kalmuieks are the most harmlass creatures in creation. .They are purebred Mongols, and the yinhabit the Astrakhan Steppe in the south of Russia. They live in circular canvas tents. How they come to be where they are is a mystery. They simply arrived, in some dim bygone age. Their presence is possibly explained by the fact that they are nomads. Their houses can ho erected and pulled down in a pitt’y; and the poorest among them possesses at least one camel. They are Mohammedans, and rejoice in mullahs, or priests, of fertile imagination. The winter of 1918 found me in midsteppe. I decided to stop at a Kalmuick lust. The owner sat at the door, dreamily turning the handle of a strangekuiking machine. It might have been anything from a mangle or a. glorified grindstone to a musical box. On the other hand, it rather resembled a phonograph. having hut one cylinder. It emitted no musical sound worth speaking of, and with every revolution its bulk increased. . Fascinated, 1 watched 1 it; and; at last understood. 1 had heard of these things. 1 was in the presence of a praying machine. Even as I stood, long prayers 1 , printed in Kalmuick, on Jong sheets of paper, were being devoutly wound to heaven. Click! The prayer had prayed itself out. or rather on. The handle-turner looked up with an affable grin, and began to take an unintelligent interest in me. He looked just like Lenin, I began to wonder whether they were related. I was alone in my interest in the prayer-windter. Others were with me, but their interests were purely valetudinarian in character. Darkness was stumbling too rapidly over the sky-line tor their peace of mind; and the thermometer was sinking from, moment to moment. Only the steppe stars looked warm and comfortable; for steppe stains arc golden, not silver. We proceeded to build a fire out-side the hut for the benefit of our weary bullocks and coughing, bad-tempered, cynical camels. Then, one by one, we crept through the circular opening. Other Kalmuieks entered the hut, and sang ns quaint, monotonous', musicloss little songs. Some of them looked quite prosperous, while others were welleducated. their fathers having waxed rich in herds, and so attained to the stlaus of country gentlemen. The revolution had relegated! them to hut life again, though they were in many cases hereditary nohlbs. The American Republicans and Democrats worship at the shrine of a. lord, and have lately paid the penalty, Oxford laughing to almost hysterical heights about the way in which Wansborough, an undergraduate member of St. John’s College and of the University la crosse team, fooled American reporters into believing that he was “Lord Wansborough.’’ ‘‘At Montreal the Lord Mayor, who welcomed the team, also said ho should like to meet Lord Wansborough,” said Hopkins who captained the team. “There was nothing to be done, but that ‘Wauee’ should come forward. The Lord Mayor shook hands warmly, and remarked, ‘I have shaken hands with Lord Roberts. 1 have shaken hands with Lord Desborough, and now T have much pleasure in shaking hands with Lord Wanshorough.’ ” This, however, was beaten by the man who hoarded the train, and, unable to see Wansborough—now becoming tired of bis notoriety—claimed to be an Oxford man, who knew “old Lord Wansbo rough very well.” “When we reached New York reporters besieged us to find out our_ nicknames, and were particularly delighted with Lord ‘Wance.’ Next day full-sized portraits of ‘England’s Titled Lacrosse Player—The Youngest Member of the House of Lords’ appeared in the papers. The thing went well. Bv the time we reached Baltimore Wansborougli had been made a duke.”