again gently, and immediately out came two more, and we served them
just in the same manner, but were obliged to go all with them, and
lay them down by the idol some distance from one another; when,
going back, we found two more were come out of the door, and a
third stood behind them within the door. We seized the two, and
immediately tied them, when the third, stepping back and crying
out, my Scots merchant went in after them, and taking out a
composition we had made that would only smoke and stink, he set
fire to it, and threw it in among them. By that time the other
Scotsman and my man, taking charge of the two men already bound,
and tied together also by the arm, led them away to the idol, and
left them there, to see if their idol would relieve them, making
haste back to us.
When the fuze we had thrown in had filled the hut with so much
smoke that they were almost suffocated, we threw in a small leather
bag of another kind, which flamed like a candle, and, following it
in, we found there were but four people, who, as we supposed, had
been about some of their diabolical sacrifices. They appeared, in
short, frightened to death, at least so as to sit trembling and
stupid, and not able to speak either, for the smoke.
We quickly took them from the hut, where the smoke soon drove us
out, bound them as we had done the other, and all without any
noise. Then we carried them all together to the idol; when we came
there, we fell to work with him. First, we daubed him all over,
and his robes also, with tar, and tallow mixed with brimstone; then
we stopped his eyes and ears and mouth full of gunpowder, and
wrapped up a great piece of wildfire in his bonnet; then sticking
all the combustibles we had brought with us upon him, we looked
about 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 ran
and fetched their arms full of that. When we had done this, we
took all our prisoners, and brought them, having untied their feet
and ungagged their mouths, and made them stand up, and set them
before their monstrous idol, and then set fire to the whole.
We stayed by it a quarter of an hour or thereabouts, till the
powder in the eyes and mouth and ears of the idol blew up, and, as
we could perceive, had split altogether; and in a word, till we saw
it burned so that it would soon be quite consumed. We then began
to think of going away; but the Scotsman said, “No, we must not go,
for these poor deluded wretches will all throw themselves into the
fire, and burn themselves with the idol.” So we resolved to stay
till the forage has burned down too, and then came away and left
them. After the feat was performed, we appeared in the morning
among our fellow-travellers, exceedingly busy in getting ready for
our journey; nor could any man suppose that we had been anywhere
but in our beds.
But the affair did not end so; the next day came a great number of
the country people to the town gates, and in a most outrageous
manner demanded satisfaction of the Russian governor for the
insulting 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 thousand
strong. The Russian governor sent out messengers to appease them,
assuring them that he knew nothing of it, and that there had not a
soul in his garrison been abroad, so that it could not be from
anybody there: but if they could let him know who did it, they
should be exemplarily punished. They returned haughtily, that all
the country reverenced the great Cham Chi-Thaungu, who dwelt in the