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TRAVELS IN EASTERN HIGH ASIA

VOL. I.

LONDON : PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE

AND TARLIAMENT STREET

LT Col. Nicholas Michailovitch Prejevalsky.

MONGOL ^, A,

THE TANGUT COUNTRY,

5 AND THE

SOLITUDES OF NORTHERN TIBET

BEING A

"g^ttntibz of Щхп Hoars' ШтпЬй in ёивкхп piglj ^sia.

LIEUT.-COLONEL N. 1PREJEVALSKY,

OF ТНЛ RUSSIAN STAFF CORPS : ЫЕМ. OF THE IMP. RUSS. GEOG. SOC.

TRANSLATED BY

E. DELMAR MORGAN, F.R.G.S.

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY

COLONEL HENRY YULE, C.B.

LATE OF THE ROVAL ENGINEERS (beNGAl).

/.V TWO VOLUMES— VOL. L

ШйЬ Paps ixxxH llksiraibits.

LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, Mz\RSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,

CROWN BUILDINGS, iSS FLEET STREET. r^ 1876.

JCfd

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

vs^ It was at one of the meetings of the Russian ?^ Geographical Society in the winter of 1873-74 that V Colonel Prejevalsky, then recently returned from

^ his travels, first gave an account of his adventures

and experiences in the heart of Asia. ■^ Being personally acquainted with him, and hear-

ing that he was seeking a publisher for an English t version of his work, the idea suggested itself to me ^. of becoming the means of making known to English S readers these Russian explorations in countries of ^ daily growing interest. The task, however, would have been a difficult one had I not succeeded in ^ securing the all-valuable co-operation of Colonel > - Yule, who from beginning to end has assisted me '^^^ by his ready advice, suggestions, and amendments. "^ To Dr. Hooker, President of the Royal Society, \ my warmest thanks are also due for his kindness

S in revising the names of plants.

^ Most of the illustrations are from photographs

■*^ lent by Baron Fr. Osten Sacken, late President of the physical section of the Imp. Geog. Soc, and well known in Europe as geographer, explorer, and botanist. He has also furnished the plates ' Ovis

4250'?'7

vi TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

Poll' and ' Gyps Nivicola ' from his copy of Severt- soff's work on the Fauna of Turkestan. Of the remaining illustrations I am indebted for that of the Rhubarb Plant to Professor Maximovitch, of the Imperial Botanical Gardens of St. Petersburg ; three are from photographs by Mr. J. Thomson, whose splendid photographic albums of China and its people are deservedly admired, and the remainder are borrowed from the ' Tour du Monde.'

In the following translation, Avhile preserving the Author's meaning, I have endeavoured to re- move from the path of the reader those stumbling- blocks which might arise from following too closely the original idiom ; in this way Russian versts are rendered into English miles, Russian fathoms into feet or yards, degrees of Centigrade into Fahrenheit, old style dates into new style, &c.

I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to Mr. Clements Markham, C.B., Hon. Sec. R.G.S., for an introduction to the publishers of this work ; to Mr. Henry Dresser, F.Z.S. ; to Dr. Glinther, of the British Museum ; to Mr. Robert Harrison, of the London Library ; to Mr. Edward Weller, for the care and pains he has bestowed on the accompanying map ; and to Mr. Cooper, who has executed the engravings.

It only remains to say a few words about the Author.

Lieut. -Col. Prejevalsky was born in the govern- ment of Smolensk of parents belonging to the class of landed gentry. He received his education at the gym-

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. \n

nasiiim or public school of Smolensk, finishing his studies at the Academy of the Staff Corps. From early life he displayed a strong love for natural science, and it was to gratify these tastes that he applied for and obtained permission to serve in Eastern Siberia. Thither he proceeded in 1867, and there he remained two years, occupying all the time he could spare from his official duties in hunt- ing, shooting, and collecting objects of natural history. On his return to St. Petersburg in 1S69 he published his ' Notes on the Ussuri,' containing a great deal of information on the eastern boundaries of Russia in Asia. Soon after its appearance in 1870 Lieut.-Col. Prejevalsky prepared for his second greater expedition, for which his previous travels and studies had served as a preparation. His companion and helpmate throughout this arduous undertaking was Lieut. Pyltseff. I have only to add that, from a letter recently received from him, I learn that he is preparing for a third expedition, and that he hopes this time to penetrate to Lob-nor, and possibly from that quarter into Tibet.

E. DELMAR MORGAN.

London : Jam/aiy i, 1876.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

By Colonel H. Yule.

Within the last ten years the exploration of High Asia which, on our side at least, had long been languid, has re- vived and advanced with ample strides. So rapid, indeed, has been the aggression upon the limits of the Unknown that in the contemplation of a future historian of geogra- phical discovery it may easily seem that the contraction of those limits in our age might fitly be compared to the rapid evaporation of the cloud Avith which the breath has tinged a plate of polished steel.

It is hardly a dozen years since our mapmakers had to rely for the most important positions in Chinese Turkes- tan on the observations of the Jesuit surveyors of the eighteenth century; and as late as the publication of that well-known work of the Messrs. Michell, ' The Russians in Central Asia,' the issuC; in the appendix to that book, of a new and corrected transcript of those data, was regarded as of some geographical moment. The incidental notices contained in fragmentary extracts or translations from medieval Persian writers, and the details given in Chinese geographical works, often hard to understand, often them- selves (like Ptolemy's Tables) only a conversion into writ- ten statement of the graphic representations of loose and inaccurate maps, were painfully studied by those who desired to enlarge or recompile the geography of the great Central basin which lies between the Himalya and the Thian Shan. Indeed, from Samarkand eastward to the caravan-track which leads from the Russian frontier at Kiakhta to the gate of the Great Wall at Kalgan, a space of 47 degrees of longitude, we were entirely dependent on

X INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

such imperfect criticism of fragmentary sources as we have indicated. Almost the only scientific inroad on this im- mense territory, and that but trifling in its extent though high indeed in interest, was the excursion of Lieut. John Wood of the Indian Navy to the Great Pamir, in the winter of 1838. The scientific exploration and surveys of the Rus- sians were indeed slowly though surely advancing the march of accurate knowledge from the north ; but it was confined within the limits, vast indeed, of their own terri- tory, and touched the Thian Shan only near the western extremity of that mountain region.

With ourselves, exploration, in any extensive sense, beyond our Indian frontier had almost ceased for a great many years after the calamities of Kabul ; the only notable exceptions that I can call to mind being the advance of that accomplished botanist Dr. T. Thomson to the Karakorum Pass, and the journey of his colleague Capt, Henry Strachey, of the Bengal Army, across the western angle of Tibet Proper, from Ladak to Kumaon, in 1846. But like the Russians on their side, our survey officers had been gradually mastering the ground up to the limits of the states actually held by our feudatory the Maharaja of Jamu and Kashmir, and to those of the small Tibetan provinces near the Sutlej which fell to us as part of the Sikh dominions at the end of the first Punjab war. And so on both sides a base was secured for ulterior raids upon the Terra Incognita.

This Incognita was not indeed unknown in the sense in which Southern Central Africa was unknown before David Livingstone's first journey ; such sources as those to which we have referred above gave some general idea of what the region contained. But even where the Jesuit surveyors left maps, they had left, so far as we know, no narrative or description of the regions in question. And of Tibet in particular we had so little accurate knowledge that the latitude of its capital, the ' Paternal Sanctuary,' the Vatican and holy city of half Asia, was uncertain almost to the extent of sixty minutes.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xi

The first memorable incursion into the territoiy in question was the journey of Hue and Gabet in 1845-46.

The later writings of Hue, pieces of pretentious and un- trustworthy book-making, have thrown some shadow upon the original narrative ; some of his own countrymen have been disposed to look on his work as half a fiction ; and stories have even reached me from Russian sources which professed to recount confessions made by Hue of his having invented his own share in the narrative, and of his having received from Gabet on his deathbed, ' on board a boat in the Canton river,' or taken from his luggage after his death, the true journals on which the popular story of the Journey to Lhassa was founded. These stories are imaginative fabri- cations, as will be seen from the facts we are about to recapi- tulate. I confess, however, that, judging from the rubbish of Hue's later writings, my own impression long was that Gabet had been the chief author of the Souvenirs, and this was confirmed to me by a conversation with which the lamented M. Jules Mohl honoured me during his last visit to England.^ But his recollection, I now feel satisfied, had deceived him.

In the end of 1846, as Sir John Davis tells us, Mr. A. Johnston, his own secretary as Plenipotentiary in China, in proceeding from Hong Kong to Ceylon, found Pere Joseph Gabet, then on his way to France, a fellow-passenger with him, and heard from him many particulars of the journey. Mr. Johnston found these so curious and interesting that he noted down the principal circumstances, and on rejoin- ing his chief presented him with the MS., and Sir John sent it on to Lord Palmerston. ' Nothing more,' adds Sir John Davies, * was heard of the matter till the appearance of Hue's two volumes' (i.e. in 185 1). This is, however, a mistake, as I find by an examination, as careful as my time

^ M. Mohl told me an c4necdote of his visiting, about the time of Hue's publication, one of the vicars apostolic from the Eastern Mis- sions,— I think Monseigneur Pallegoix from Siam. The new book was lying on the table, and the bishop apologised, saying he ought to have left it in his bedroom ; ' a bishop ought not to be caught reading romances.'

xii INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

has allowed, of the volumes of the Annalcs de la Propaga- tion de la Foi.

The first notice of the journey that I find in this peri- odical is in vol. xix. pp. 265 scqq. (1847). This, after some introductory matter regarding the origin of the Mis- sion in Mongolia, gives a letter from Hue to M. Etienne, the Supt.-General of the Congregation of the Mission, dated Macao, December 20th, 1846, presenting a sketch of the journey up to their arrival at Lhassa, January 29th, i8zi6.i

The next paper bearing on the subject is in the same volume, and is a Notice siir la Pritre Boiiddhiquc, by M, Gabet, ' qui vient de rentrer pour quelques mois en France.'

Vol. XX. (p. 5) contains a letter from Gabet to M. Etienne, dated Tarlane, June 1842. It had been mislaid, and thus was not published till 1848. It describes a jour- ney to the Suniut country and the Great Kuren, i.e. Urga. This is the basis of the passages on that subject in the Souvenirs (vol. i. pp. 133 seqq).

In the same volume, p. 118, we have an extract from a report by Gabet, which continues the narrative of Hue's letter in vol. xix. down to their exit from Tibet. It is vague and dull, and presents a great contrast to his com- rade's vivacity. At p. 223 there is a fuller account by Gabet of their residence at Lhassa. It is curious that it does not contain a word of their swaggering conduct in presence of the mandarins, as described in the Souvenirs. Vol. xxi. (1849), and xxii. (1850), contain supplementary

* Among many other passages the following is unmistakably in the style of the Souvenirs : ' Tolon-noor est comnie une monstrueuse pompe pncumatique к faire le vide dans les bourses Mongoles.' It is characteristic, too, of the clever but pretentious abb(5 that he says the name Djao-iiaimati-soitme, applied to the town of Tolon-noor on the maps (since D'Anville's), is ' ^galement inconnu et incompris des Tatares et des Chinois.' Hue professes familiarity with Mongol, yet he is unable to interpret this name (applied, indeed, not properly to Tolon-noor, but to the site of Kublai's summer palace at Shangtu, twenty-six miles to the north of it). The words mean simply ' the hundred and eight temples.'

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xiii

letters or papers by Hue, and this finishes the series. The Souvenirs were published in 1851.

Gabet had then apparently already been sent to the Brazils, where he died ; • and I have no doubt the Souve- nirs were, as they purport to be, the work of Hue himself, based on the papers by both, of which extracts had been published in the Annalcs. I doubt whether even any extraneous aid of Parisian litterateurs was called in ; Hue himself was an adept in that vein, as his letters show.

Colonel Prejevalsky several times finds fault with Hue's inaccuracy in details, a subject which will be briefly noticed presently. And in one of the letters which was sent to Rus- sia during his journey, he even seems to imply a doubt of the genuine character of the narrative.'^ Of this he has probably thought better, as the expression of suspicion is not repeated in the present work. Indeed, Colonel Preje- valsky's own plain tale is the best refutation of such suspi- cions. For it is wonderful, to the extent of the coincidence

' Hue's manner of mentioning the fact is vague, and names no date. It is in the Preface to his second work, The Chinese Empire, which is itself dated in May 1854.

"^ ' In Koko-nor and Tsaidam the great caravan which Hue pro- fesses to have accompanied to Lhassa is perfectly well remembered, and it is somewhat astonishing that nobody has any recollection of the presence of foreigners among its members. Hue further asserts that he passed eight months at Gumbum {KoiDiboiun of Hue ; properly sKii-bum, V. p. xxxiv. infra] ; but I saw many lamas who had resided in that temple for thirty or forty years, and all solemnly assured me that there had never been a foreigner amongst them. On the other hand, in the Ala-shan country, the presence of two Frenchmen at Ninghia twenty-five years ago was distinctly remembered.' (In Pr. R. G. S., xviii. 83.) It is to be recollected that Hue and Gabet were disguised as lamas, and probably their real character was known to few.

And on the other hand, Prejevalsky himself (i. p. 135) mentions hav- ing seen, at one of the R. С missions in Mongoha, Samdadehiemba, the servant of Hue and Gabet, whom their readers remember as well as we remember Sancho or Sam Weller. ' He is of mixed Mongol and Tangutan race. He is fifty-five years of age, and enjoys excellent health ; he related some of his adventures to us, and described the different places on the road.' Here there is no insinuation that Sam- dadchiemba's stories were inconsistent with Hue's. Mr. Ney Elias was also acquainted with Samdadehiemba.

xiV INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

of their routes, how the representations of the ghb French priest and the Russian soldier agree. Only Prejevalsky's picture of the scene before him is a photograph, careful in accuracy, but not displaying much power of selection as to light or point of view; Hue's is the painting of a clever, perhaps too clever, artist, but still coloured from nature. Artist he is indeed, and as far as may be from science, but, after reading Prejevalsky's narrative, I have felt, more than ever before, the charm of Hue's vivacious touches ; more than ever, because the perusal of the Russian work convinced me that his pictures (I do not refer to the braggadocio, probably imaginary, of his conduct before Chinese officials) are true as well as clever. Who that has read the book, — though probably the generations that have risen since 1851, and that have had so much else to read may not have read them, — who can forget that inimitable picture of the yaks of the caravan, after fording the freezing waters of the Pouhain-gol, staggering under the load of icicles that depended from their shaggy flanks } ^ or that other of the wild company of the same species, nipt by the frost in swimming across the head-waters of the mighty Yangtse, and there frozen hard in cold death, the whole hairy herd of them .•' ^

^ ' Les boeufs h, longs poils ctaient de veritables caricatures ; impos- sible de figurer rien de plus drole ; ils marchaient les jambes ecartees, et portaient peniblement un enorme systeme de stalactites qui leur pendaient sous le ventre jusqu'h. terre. Ces pauvres betes etaient si informes et tellement recouvertes de glagons qii4l semblalt qii'ojt les ait mis conjire dans du sucre candP (ii. 201).

^ ' Au moment 011 nous passames le Mouroui Oussou sur la glace, un spectacle assez bizarre s'offrit h. nos yeux. Dcjh. nous avions re- marque de loin, pendant que nous dtions au campement, des objels informes et noiratres, ranges en file en travers de ce grand fleuve. Nous avions beau nous rapprocher de ces ilots fantastiques, leur forme ne se dessinait pas d'une maniere plus nette et plus claire. Ce fut seulement quand nous fumes tout pr5s, que nous pumes reconnaitre plus de 50 boiufs sauvages incrustes dans la glace. Ils avaient voulu, sans doute, traverser le fleuve h. la nage, au moment de la concrdtion des eaux, et ils s'ctaicnt trouvcs pris par les glagons, sans avoir la force de s'en dcbarrasser, et de continuer leur route. Leur belle tctc, surmontde de grandes cornes, dtait encore Ъ. ddcouvert ; mais le reste

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xv

The specific charges which Prejevalsky brings against Hue's narrative are the following : —

1. His description of the ford of the Pouhain-gol, a river flowing into the Koko-nor Lake from the westward, as an extremely difficult passage of a stream broken up into twelve branches ; whereas it forms but a single stream where the Lhassa road crosses it, and that only 105 feet wide, with a depth of one or two feet. (See this work, vol. ii. p. 158, and Hue, ii. p. 200.)

2. His entire omission to mention the high chain south of the Koko-nor.

3. His depicting the Tgaidam country as an arid steppe, whereas it is a salt-marsh, covered with high reeds.

4. His omitting to mention the Tsaidam river, though it is twenty-two times as wide as the Pouhain-gol.

5. What he says regarding the gas on the Burkhan Bota mountain ' is very doubtful,' says Col. Prejevalsky.

6. His representing the Shuga chain as very steep, whereas its gradients would, even as they are, bear a rail- way.

7. The chain of the Baian-kara-ula, 'about which Hue relates marvellous stories,' is only a succession of low ele- vations, never exceeding 1,000 feet above the plains that lie to the north, and only a little steeper towards the Murui-ussu. ' There is here no pass ' (i.e. I presume no col to be crossed), * and the road follows a stream down to the Murui-ussu.'

8. Hue speaks only oi crossing the Murui-ussu (or Upper Yangtse), after passing the Baian Kara ; but the Lhassa road lies along its banks the whole way up to its source in the Tang-la mountains, a distance of some 200 miles.

Now, Nos. 4 and б are, as Mr. Ney Elias has already pointed out, mistakes of Col. Prejevalsky 's own. Hue docs mention the Tsaidam river; he does not represent

du corps etait pris dans la glace, qui dtait si transparente, qu'on pouvait distinguer facilement la position de ces imprudentes betes ; on eut dit qu'elles etaient encore к nager. Les aigles, et les corbeaux leur avaient arrache les yeux' (ii. 219).

xvi INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

the Shuga range as very steep : ' Le mont Chuga etai't pen escarpe du cote que nous gravissions ' (ii. 213). The great trouble in passing it was owing to a strong icy wind and deep drifts of snow, in which they had to pitch their tent and dig for argols.

As regards No. 7 I can find in Hue no marvellous stories. He speaks, indeed, of the terrors of avalanches, though probably meaning only the perils of snow-drifts. The snow lay very deep when he passed, and it is conceiv- able, pace Col. Prejevalsky, that the course of a ravine may not have been the path adopted under such circumstances.

As regards No. 8 there is nothing I think in Hue abso- lutely inconsistent with his having followed up the great river after crossing it. But Prejevalsky himself is, according to his countryman Palladius, not quite correct in saying that the road in question follows the river to its source. And moreover there are three roads on towards Lhassa from the point where the river is crossed.'

In cases i and 2 it is probable that Hue was filling up a mere skeleton diary from memory, and the experience of many will recognise that in such a process natural features will sometimes exchange characteristics in the recollection. This has, possibly, been the case with the Pouhain-gol and the Tsaidam river in Hue's narrative ; whilst it is by no means made certain that there are not routes, more or less diverse, and parallel to one another, which are adopted according to circumstances.^ Altogether Col. Prejevalsky s criticisms are a little too much in the vein of Hue's countryman : Je nc crois pas atix tigrcs, moi, parceque je lien ai pas vii !'

As for No. 5, 'the gas on the Burkhan Bota,' it is absurd to make even the suggestion of bad faith in regard to this ;

' I derive these particulars from a Chinese Itinerary piibhshcd by Father Palladius in Russian, and kindly translated for me by Mr. Morgan.

- Hue, after quitting the shores of Koko-nor, travelled for six days to the westward, with very little southing, before reaching the Pouhain- gol. This indicates quite a different part of the river from that crossed by Col. Prejevalsky close to the lake.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xvii

it is only an instance of Hue's exceeding ignorance of nature, with all his cleverness. The passage is so curious in this light as to be worth quotation. At the foot of the mountain he says : —

' The whole caravan halted awhile, as if to question its own strength, . . A subtle and light gas was anxiously in- dicated, which they called pestilential vapour, and all the world seemed to be downcast and discouraged. After having taken the prophylactics which tradition enjoins, and which consist in munching two or three cloves of garlick, at last we began to clamber up the flanks of the mountain. Soon the horses refused to carry their riders ; we began to go afoot with short steps ; insensibly all faces grew pale ; the action of the heart was felt to be waning ; the legs would no longer do their duty ; presently we lay down, got up, and made a few steps in advance, then lay down again ; and in this deplorable fashion it was that the famous Burkhan Bota was crossed.'

All this is a vigorous description of the occasional effects of rarefied atmosphere on a person using bodily exertion. The very phrase used, les vapeiirs pcstilentielles, is a translation of the term Bisk ka hawa, or ' poison-air,' by which the pains of attenuated atmosphere are indicated on the Indian side of the Himalya. Even the cloves of garlick, mentioned by Hue, are the ancient Asiatic antidote used in such circumstances. Benedict Goes, in describing the passage of Pamir, speaks of the custom of using garlick, leeks, and dried fruits as ' an antidote to the cold,' which was so severe that animals could scarcely breathe it. Faiz Bakhsh and the Mirza both mention the use of dried fruits ; and Mr. Matthew Arnold refers to a variety of the same, I have no doubt with good authority.^

^ ' But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool, Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk-snow ; Winding so high, that, as they mount, they pass Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, Chok'd by the air, and scarce can they themselves VOL. L a

xviii INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

But then Hue goes on to talk foolishness about ' the carbonic acid gas Avhich we know is heavier than atmosphe- ric air ' — and so forth, and to tell how this carbonic acid gas caused a difficulty about lighting a fire. Marco Polo mentions the latter fact, but, belonging to the pre-scientific age, he attributes it to the great cold.^

In a Chinese Itinerary through Tangut and Tibet, already cited, I find a perfect explanation of Hue's strange talk. At a great many stations on both sides of the Murui-ussu (or Upper Yangtse), it is noted that there are ' noxious vapours ' at the camping-ground ; so no doubt Hue merely accepted and embellished the phrase of his travelling companions.

A more amusing illustration of this notion is given in Dr. Bellew's recent book, ' Kashmir and Kashgar,' where an Afghan follower, to whom he had given chlorate of potash, says : ' Yes ! I'll take this, and please God it will

Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries — In single file they move.' . . .

Sohrab and Rustutn.

The authority for the ' sugar'd mulberries ' is, as Mr. Arnold him- self has kindly informed me, Alex. Burnes. It is a pity that this vivid and accurate picture is a little marred to an Anglo-Indian ear by the misplaced accent of Kabul (as it ought to be). It was told characteris- tically of the late Lord Ellenborough that, after his arrival in India, though for months he heard the name correctly spoken by his coun- cillors and his staff, he persisted in calling it Cabool till he met Dost Mahommed Khan. After the interview the Governor-General announced as a new discovery, from the Amir's pronunciation, that Cabul was the correct form.

^ Another medieval antidote to the effects of attenuated atmo- sphere at great heights seems to have been the application of a лvet sponge to the mouth. It is mentioned by Sir John Maundevile in speaking of Mount Athos ; and by a contemporary of his, John de' MarignoUi, in reference to a lofty mountain in 'Saba,' probably Java.' His accuracy of expression is remarkable : ' From the middle of the mountain upwards the air is said to be so thin and pure that none, or at least very few, have been able to ascend it, and that only by keep- ing a sponge filled with water over the mouth.' Drs. Henderson and Bcllew, in crossing the high plateau to Kashgar, found chlorate of potash to be of great value in mitigating the symptoms of distress.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xix

cure me. But this dam is a poisonous air, and rises out of the ground everywhere. If you walk ten paces it makes you sick, and if you picket your horse on it, it spurts from the hole you drive your peg into, and knocks you senseless at his heels.'

Hue, whatever his cleverness as a painter of striking scenes, was not only Avithout science, but without that geo- graphical sense which sometimes enables a traveller to bring back valuable contributions to geographical know- ledge, even when without the means of making instrumen- tal observations.

A succession of political events during the last twenty years has greatly changed the state of things in Upper Asia, and has tended to the rapid widening of geographical knowledge. The chief of these events have been the revolt of the Mahommedan subjects of China in Eastern Turkes- tan and Dzungaria, followed by the advance of Russian authority into the basin of Hi, and by our own communi- cations with the new authorities in the Kashgar Basin ; the results of war with China in the establishment of Euro- peans at Peking, and the gradual abatement of the barriers that excluded them from the exploration of the interior provinces of China Proper ; and, lastly, the rapid spread of Russian power over Western Turkestan.

The journey of the unfortunate Adolphus Schlagintweit to Kashgar, where he was barbarously murdered in 1857, was the first achieved from the Indian side.

In the last twelve years Col. Montgomerie has been indefatigable in his organisation of expeditions into the Unknown region by trained Pundits. First Yarkand was reached ; then Lhassa ; and a variety of other geo- graphic raids were made upon Tibetan territory by this kind of scientific light-horse. But much as they have done to fill up blanks upon our maps, and to amend their accu- racy, it is impossible for us to regard these vicarious achievements with the same satisfaction that Ave derive from geography conquered by the daring and toil of Euro-

a 2

XX INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. '

pean travellers of the old stamp. These, however, have not been lacking either on the Russian side or on our own, nor, as we shall see, have France and Germany failed to contribute to the series of modern explorations in High Asia. Shaw and Hayward and Johnson were the pioneers of British exploration in Eastern Turkestan ; and these have been followed by the less perilous journeys of Sir D. Forsyth and his companions, by the ride of the latter across Pamir, and by their success in connecting, at least by preliminary survey, our own scientific frontier with that of Russia. Cooper's two daring attempts to traverse the for- midable barriers which- man, even more than nature, has set between India and China, are hardly within the field that we are contemplating

Since 1865-66 Armand David, like Hue and Gabet a Lazarist priest, but very unlike them in his zeal for natural science, has made a variety of adventurous journeys within the eastern borders of this little-known region. On one of these expeditions (1866) he devoted ten months to the study of the natural history of the Mongolian plateau in the vicinity and to the westward of Kwei-hwa-cheng or Kuku Khoto. In 1868 he visited the province of Szech- wan, and advanced into the independent and hitherto entirely unknown Tibetan highlands on its NVV. frontier, and thence into the eastern part of the Koko-nor territory. On this and previous journeys he claims to have discovered forty new species of mammals, and more than fifty of birds. Among the former are two new monkeys, living in very cold forest regions of the hill country just mentioned, and a new white bear. There has as yet been no publication in extcnsu of the journeys of this ardent and meritorious traveller.

Baron Richthofen, whose explorations of China have been at once the most extensive and the most scientific of our age, has traversed only a small part of the Mon- golian plateau ; but from his remarkable power of appre- hending, and of indicating in a few words, the most cha- racteristic features of structure and geography, he has

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxi

thrown more light on the physical character of the region, so far as he saw it, than any other traveller.

Our countryman, Mr. Ney Elias, who has shown a remarkable combination of a traveller's best gifts with sin- gular modesty in their display, has carried a new line of observations along the vast diagonal of Mongolia from the Gate at Kalgan to the Russian frontier on the Altai, through Uliassutai and Kobdo, a distance of upwards of 2,000 miles. To him these remarks are often indebted.

Dr. Bushell and Mr. Grosvenor have also passed the Wall at Kalgan to visit Dolon-nor, and Shangtu, the deso- late site of the summer-palace of the great KublaT.

We cannot attempt to recall even the chief names in the history of exploration from the Russian side, though I should be loath to leave unspecified the successful journey of that accomplished couple, Alexis and Olga Fedchenko, to the Alai Steppe, which is in fact a northern analogue of Pamir, separated from the southern plateaux, so called, by the mighty chain to which Fedclienko gave the name of Trans-Alai, the Kizil-yurt of our own Anglo-Indian tra- vellers. But of all modern Russian incursions on the tracts that we have designated as the Unknown, Lieut.-Col. Prejevalsky's has been the boldest, the most persevering, and the most extensive.

The scene of his explorations was that plateau of Mongolia of which we have so often spoken, and that region which rises so far above it, the terraced plains, and lofty deserts of Northern Tibet, which spread out at a level equal to that of the highest summits of the Bernese Oberland, whilst the ranges which buttress the steps of the ascent rise considerably higher.

Captain (now Lieut.-Col.) Prejevalsky was already known as an able explorer, when, in 1870, he was deputed by the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Petersburg, under the sanction of the War Department, to conduct an exploration into Southern Mongolia. With his companion he left Kiakhta on November 29, 1870, for Peking, where they remained till the spring.

xxii INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

The time was unfavourable for such a journey as was proposed ; for the Mahommedan rebellion in NW. China and the adjoining regions was in full blaze. Singanfu, the capital of Shensi, and famous capital of China in ancient times, had in the spring of 1870 been in- vested, and an invasion of Shansi, perhaps of Pechihli itself, had only just been barred by a timely check of the rebels at Tung-kwan, on the great south-west elbow of the Yel- low River, a point often, and in all ages of Chinese history, the key of important campaigns. About midsummer the strong frontier town of Kuku Khoto (or Kwei-hwa-cheng), in the border-land north of the Great Wall, was entirely blockaded from the side of Mongolia, whilst raids were frequently made into its suburbs. In October Uliassutai had been attacked, and the open part of the town burnt, and so greatly were the Chinese alarmed for Urga itself that they allowed it to be protected by a Russian garrison. Prejevalsky himself does not (in this work at least) state these sufficient reasons for delaying his expedition ; he rather seems to leave us to infer that the delay Avas part of the programme ; but we borrow the details from a notice by Mr. Ney Elias, who was himself in North China and cog- nisant of the circumstances. ^

It was impracticable, however, in such a state of things to carry out the journey projected, and in the meantime Colonel Prejevalsky determined on undertaking a pre- liminary and experimental journey to the busy town of Dolon-nor and the salt lake of Dalai-nor in Eastern Mon- golia, Returning to Kalgan, he reorganised his little cara- van, and on May 1 5 again ascended the Mongol table-land, and travelled westward parallel to its southern margin, and through the Tumet country,^ till they struck the western

' Pro. R. Geog. Soc, vol. xviii. p. 76.

^ Regarding this country of the Tumet, Mr. Ney Elias affords an

interesting anecdote : — ' While at Tientsin last spring, one J

G , a tide-waiter in the Customs service, and formerly a sailor,

told me that every winter, when the river was closed by ice, he Avas in the habit of going on a shooting excursion into Mongolia, beyond the Kou-pc-Ko pass, " but last winter," he coolly added, " I went to

1

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxiii

extremity of the Inshan mountains on the northern bank of the Hoang-ho. Thence they descended to Bautu, on the left bank of the river, and crossed into the dreary plains of the Ordos.

Their course lay now for nearly 300 miles Avestward, and parallel to the southern bank of the river, where it forms that great northern bend, familiar to all who have been in the habit of consulting maps of China. In all our maps the river is here represented as forming a variety of branches, but the main stream as constituting the most northerly of these. This bed still remains, but the river now flows in the most southerly of the channels, some thirty or forty miles farther south than it did in former times.

At the town of Ding-hu (called on former maps by the Mongol name Chaghan-subar-khan), the travellers crossed to the left bank of the Yellow River, and here they were in the province of Ala-shan, of which we have from Prejevalsky for the first time some distinct account. It forms a part of

Tibet." This assertion somewhat surprised me, and led to a cross- examination, by means of which I elicited, among other matters re- lating to his excursion, the following : — He had passed the Great Wall at Kalgan, and had ridden a seven or eight days' journey towards the west, when he arrived in a mountainous country, w^here there were yaks. He had " read in books " that yaks were found in Tibet. The natives called the country Tibet, and so did his Chinese cox- swain, who accompanied him. The people were " something like the Mongols," but spoke differently. Thinkmg he was mixing up his reading and experience for my special benefit and instruction, I left him, and thought no more of his story until some two months after- wards, at Kwei-hwa-cheng, 1 remarked that the Chinese pronounced the name of the Mongol tribe in that district Ti'miet or Timet, instead

of Toumet, and the truth of G 's story at once flashed across my

mind . . . and that he saw yaks there I have not the slightest doubt, for I have seen them in the same neighbourhood .... though of course not indigenous, as he apparently supposed.

' Having read of Tibet, and never having either read or heard of the Toumet Mongols, he easily picked up the Chinese pronunciation of the latter, and confusing the m and the b, told a story that would have earned for a preaching friar of the fourteenth century some very hard names.' — {Letter dated Sept. 29, 1873.)

xxiv INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Marco Polo's Tangut, and probably a part, at least, of Ala- shan is identical with his district of Egrigaia, of which the chief town was called CalasJian.

Twelve days' journey to the south-east brought the party to Din-yuan-ing (Wei-ching-pu of maps), the present capital of the principality, where they were well received by the Prince and his family, who has a deep impression of the greatness of the White Khan, i.e. of the Czar. This reception Col. Prejevalsky notes as the only hospitable welcome that they had met with ; and he hardly records any recurrence of the like.

From this place they made an excursion into the mountainous region of Ala-shan, which rises boldly from the valley of the Hoang-ho ; its highest summit, which they visited, reaching to 10,650 feet above the sea.

These wooded mountains afforded the traveller ample booty in his especial pursuit as a sportsman and zoologist. On returning from their excursion to the capital of Ala- shan, they found their means all but exhausted, and were compelled reluctantly to turn their faces Peking-wards ; on this journey keeping entirely to the left bank of the river, and of its old deserted bed, and following in great part, I have no doubt, the route of Marco Polo on his first approach to the Court of the Great Khan.

Prejevalsky, benefiting by the experience acquired on these journeys, employed himself for two months in pre- paring for a third expedition ; and himself acquiring at the same time, by practice at the Russian Observatory, some acquaintance with practical astronomy. A third start from Kalgan was made in March 1872.

They reached Din-yuan-ing on May 26, and some days later having joined a Chinese caravan travelled with it through Kansuh to the Lama monastery of Chobsen, about forty miles north of Sining-fu, a month's journey in all. From this point the Russians diverged to the mountains bordering on the Tatung river for the sake of collections in natural history ; and these \vere very abundant, affording 46 new species of birds, 10 species of mammalia, and 431

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxv

plants. They also investigated (^e I'isu, for the first time it is believed in modern days, the famous rhubarb plant in its native region. With a view to its cultivation in Russian territory, a quantity of seed was collected.

The traveller had, even at this point, become sensible that his means were inadequate to carry the party to Lhassa, and had, with a sore heart, to accept the inevitable. But he determined not the less to explore the basin of the great lake Koko-nor, and the Tsaidam region to the SW. of it.

At this time Sining-fu, Tatung, and Suhchau were in the hands of the Tungani or Chinese Mahommedan insur- gents. Kanchau and Lanchau, with several other cities, were held by the Imperialists. The whole country between the two parties was continually scoured by bands of free- booters, who carried on their devastations beneath the very noses of the Chinese troops.

The fame of the rifles and skill of the Russians kept the Tungani from all attempts to meddle with them ; and on September 23 they left Chobsen for the Koko-nor, passing right across the country haunted by the rebels. On the march they came on a large body of Tungani, but by putting a bold face on the encounter the little body of Russians utterly discomfited the robbers, луЬо turned tail and fled ignominiously. At last on October 14 they arrived in the basin of the Koko-nor, and pitched their tents on its shores, at some 10,000 feet above the sea. The steppe here is fertile and well peopled with both men and cattle. The people are both Mongol and Tangiitans, re- specting whom a few words will be found in the Supple- mentary Notes to Volume II.

After purchasing some camels there remained but some forty pounds in pocket. But sure of maintenance from their guns, Prejevalsky resolved to push on.

A high range of mountains was crossed in quitting the basin of the lake ; and the travellers then entered the region of Tsaidam, which he describes as a vast salt-marsh, covered with reeds, as if recently the bed of a great lake.

xxvi INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

This marshy hollow is said by the Chinese to stretch W, and N. to Lake Lob. Here a sore temptation presented itself to Prejevalsky, as at once traveller, zoologist, and sportsman, to diverge to the westward for a new species of game, — the Wild Camel.

This is a somewhat interesting subject ; for disbelief in the existence of the Wild Camel has been strongly expressed, — and indeed not long since by one of the greatest of scholars as well as geographical authorities on Central Asia. It is worth while, therefore, to observe that its existence by no means rests on the rumour heard by Prejevalsky. There is much other evidence ; none of it, perhaps, very strong taken alone, but altogether forming a body of testimony which I have long regarded, even without recent additions, as irresistible.

The following are the testimonies of which I have re- tained memoranda, but I believe there are several others in existence : —

L Shah Rukh's ambassadors to China (A.D. 1420) mid- way in the Great Desert between Kamul and Shachau, or thereabouts, fell in with a wild camel.* — П. The Persian geography called Haft Iklini ('The Seven Climates'), probably quoting from Haidar Razi, says of the Desert of Lob : ' This Desert contains wild camels, which are hunted.' ^ — in. In Duhalde we find the following from Chinese sources : ' Both wild and tame camels are found in the countries bordering on the north of China ... at present wild camels are only to be met with in the countries north-west of China.' ^ — IV. In the Journal of the * As. Soc. of Bengal,' ix. 623, I see that Sir Proby Cautley quotes Pallas as arguing, on Tartar evidence, that the wild camel is found in Central Asia. Cuvier ascribes this to the Buddhist custom of giving liberty to domestic animals. This may have been the origin of the breed, as of the wild horses of S. America and Queensland. But we see above

' See Cathay and the Way Thither, i. cc. "^ Notices ct Extraits, Sec, xiv. pt. i. 474. ' English folio cd. ii. 225.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxvii

that they have been known for at least 450 years. — V. 'Izzat Ullah, who travelled as a ' Pundit ' in the employment of Moorcroft, mentions that Khotan is said to abound in wild asses, wild camels, cattle, and musk-deer.^ —VI. Mr. R, Shaw, in his * High Tartary ' : ' The Yoozbashee says they (lyre- horned antelopes), go in large herds, as do also wild camels (J) in the great desert eastward ' (p. 168). — VII. Sir Douglas Forsyth, in a letter which he wrote to me from Shahidullah, on his last mission to Kashgar, mentioned that the officer who met them there had shot the wild camel in the Desert of Turfan. It was a good deal smaller than the tame camel. — VIII. The same gentleman in the printed report of his mission gives more detailed evidence, appa- rently from another native informant, which I quote below.^ IX. Mr. Ney Elias also received strong and repeated evi- dence of the existence of wild camels north of the Thian Shan ' from intelligent Chinese travellers, as well as from the native Mongols . . . Many of the former, who declared they had seen these animals between Kobdo and Hi, Uliassutai and Kuchen, I questioned as to their being really wild, or having become so subsequent to domestication ; but the answers were always emphatically that they had never been tame .... Moreover, the wild camels were always

1 y. R. As. Soc, vii. 319.

2 * The wild animals of Lob are the wild camel. ... I have seen one which Avas killed. . . . It is a small animal, not much bigger than a horse, and has two humps. It is not like a tame camel ; its limbs are very thin, and it is altogether slim built, I have seen them in the desert together with herds of wild horses. They are not timid, and do not run away at the sight of a man. They do nothing unless attacked ; they then run away, or else they turn and attack the huntsman ; they are very fierce, and swift in their action as an arrow shot from the bow ; they kill by biting and trampling under foot, and they kick too like a cow. They are hunted for the sake of their wool, which is very highly prized, and sold to the Turfan merchants.' — Rep. OH Mission to Yarkand in 1873, p. 53.

The word applied to the wild horse mentioned here is Kulan, which is the Turki name of the Tibetan Kya?ig, more properly a species of wild ass. This e'quivoqiie is probably at the bottom of the many mentions of wild horses ; but I would not say so positively.

xxviii INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

described to me as smaller in size and much darker in colour than tame ones,'' — X. Dr. Bellew says: 'The deserts on the east of this territory, in the vicinity of Lob .... are the home of the wild camel. It is still, as of old, hunted there, and is described as a very vicious and fleet animal, and of small size, not much larger than a large horse. A Kirghiz shepherd, who had resided for some years at Lob, told me that he had frequently seen them at graze, and had himself joined in many hunting expeditions against them for the sake of their wool, which is very highly prized for the manufacture of a superior kind of camlet.'^ — XI. The Russian Father Hyacinthe, in his memoirs on Mongolia, speaking of Middle Mongolia, says that there are found wild camels, wild mules, wild asses, wild horses, and wild goats, especially on the more westerly steppes.^ — XII. Captain Valikhanoff says that Chinese works very often speak of wild camel hunts, which formed one of the amusements of the rulers of the cities of Eastern Turkestan in past ages, though he could not get information regarding the animals."* — XIII. Several ad- ditional testimonies will be found cited by Ritter (iii. 341,

342).'

We have indulged in that digression after wild camels, which Prejevalsky denied himself. He passed on into the lofty and uninhabited desert of Northern Tibet, which extends for a width in latitude of some 500 miles, at an altitude of 14,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea, and reached

* Proc. R. Geog. Soc, xviii. 80.

2 Kashmir and Kashgar, p. 348.

^ Denkwiirdigkeiten tiber die Mongolei, p. no.

* Russians in Central Asia, p. 141.

^ Ritter (ii. 241), speaking of the ancient Turks of the Gobi, says ; — ' Their prisoners of war were compelled, like the Roman prisoners among the Germans, to act as their herdsmen. Sheep, oxen, asses, horses, and camels constituted their wealth. These -last have also existed in those tracts yr^w the inost ancient times in a mild state, so that we must believe this to be their natural habitat, and in all proba- bility they were first tamed by the Turk nomads.' I cannot find that Ritter has authority for the words which I have italicised ; perhaps they only represent his own impression.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxix

the upper stream of the Great Yangtse, known there to the Mongols as the Murui-ussu or Winding Water. In this region, uninhabited by man, wild animals abound ; wolves, argali or wild sheep, antelopes of various sorts, and above all the wild yak, are found in vast numbers. These last our traveller estimates to exist in millions ; strange, if it be true, that such a vast amount of flesh can derive nourishment and growth from those bleak and scanty pastures. For the individual animal also is of enormous bulk, an old male reaching to a weight of i, 600 lbs., measuring six feet to the hump, and eleven feet in length without the tail.

Their guns thus provided them with animal food in abundance, supplemented only with barley-meal and brick- tea. But their camels were utterly worn out and their funds exhausted, and thus Avithin less than a month's jour- ney of Lhassa they were compelled, with bitter regret, to turn their backs on that almost unvisited city. And the same causes compelled the travellers to leave unattempted an expedition to the mysterious Lob-nor, though the way was open, and a guide procurable. '

Retracing their steps over the plains of Tsaidam and the Koko-nor, they again devoted some weeks of spring to extending their zoological collections in the moist region of the Kansuh mountains; and then, after much toil and suffer- ing in crossing the desert tract of Ala-shan, they again reached Din-yuan-ing, where their pockets, not too soon, were replenished by a remittance from General Vlangali, at Peking. So wprn and ragged were they, that as they entered the town the Mongols bestowed on them what Prejevalsky evidently regards as one of the most oppro- brious of epithets ; they called them ' the very image of Mongols ' !

Whilst sending out their camels for three weeks' graz- ing, they renewed their zoological explorations of the

^ The true position of this lake, as well as its character, is very doubtful. See remarks in Marco Polo (2nd cd. i. 204), and by Mr. Ney Ellas in the Proc. R. Geo^. Soc. xviii. 83.

XXX INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

adjoining mountain region ; and then started on a journey never before attempted by any European, the direct route from Ala-shan across the Gobi to Urga.

This arduous journey had to be accomplished in the height of summer, and occupied from July 26 to Septem- ber 17. 'This desert,' the author says, speaking of the depressed basin on their route called the Galpin Gobi (3,200 feet), ' is so terrible that in comparison with it the deserts of Northern Tibet may be called fruitful. There, at all events, you may often find water and good pasture-land in the valleys ; here there is neither the one nor the other, not even a single oasis ; everywhere the silence of the Valley of Death.' Finally, after a week's repose at Urga, the travellers re-entered their country's frontier at Kiakhta, on October I, 1873.

Their toil had extended over three years, during which they had travelled upwards of 7,000 miles, of which they had laid down about half in routes surveyed for the first time, and accompanied by very numerous observations for altitude by the aneroid first, and afterwards by boiling point. The route surveys were checked by eighteen de- terminations of latitude ; and a meteorological record was kept throughout the journey. The plants collected amounted to 5,000 specimens, representing upwards of 500 species, of which a fifth are new. But especially impor- tant \vas the booty in zoology, which is Prejevalsky's own specialty, for this included '^^'j large and 90 smaller mammals, 1,000 specimens of birds, embracing 300 species, 80 speci- mens of reptiles and fish, and 3,500 of insects. The journey and its acquisitions form a remarkable example of resolu- tion and persistence amid long-continued toil, hardship, and difficulty of every kind, of which Russia may well be proud.

A defect in the constitution of the expedition which forces itself on the observation of a reader was evidently the want, not only of any sufficient knowledge of the lan- guages in use, but of any competent interpreter, — indeed, on a large part of the journey,' it would seem, of anyone

' See vol. ii. p. 1 1 1.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxxi

whatever worthy to be called an interpreter, — combined, as Mr. Elias has remarked, with a ' general inexperience of Chinese human nature.' The traveller himself is inclined to indulge somewhat strongly in contemptuous and inimical judgments of the people among whom he found himself; but this very contempt and hostility, with its sure reaction in ill-will from the other side, was certain to be aggravated by the difficulties of communication. The absence also, of a good interpreter renders it necessary to reject or doubt a good many of Col. Prejevalsky's interpretations of names.

Before closing these remarks it may be well to notice one or two points on which comment may be made more conveniently here than in the Notes appended to these two volumes.

One of the most novel and remarkable circumstances that come out in this narrative is the existence of an in- tensely moist mountain region in Kansu, to the north of the Hoang-ho, and on the immediate east of Koko-nor, This tract ^ constitutes there what Prejevalsky calls the * marginal range,' a feature everywhere characteristic of the plateau of Mongolia, i.e. a belt of mountain following and forming the rim of the plateau and the descent from it, but also rising considerably above the level of the plateau itself In this range, after a short and easy ascent from the side of the table-land, at a distance of only twenty- seven miles from the arid desert of Ala-shan, the travellers found themselves on a fertile soil, abounding in water, where rich grass clothed the valleys, dense forests darkened the steep slopes of the mountains, and animal life appeared in great abundance and variety.^ The rains, during their stay of some weeks in these mountains, in June and July, луеге incessant, and the humidity in their tents excessive. The facts are not very clearly brought out in the narra- tive, and the scientific records of the journey have not yet

^ See vol. ii. ch. iii.

'^ Here Col. Prejevalsky was able to study the real rhubarb plant on its native soil,— the first European who had seen it there, I beheve, since Marco Polo.

xxxii INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

been published. But we are told (ii. 102) that the most southerly chain of these mountains, viz. that which rises directly from the plain of Sining-fu, is without forest, at least on its southern slopes, and its alpine zone almost without a flora, — expressions which seem to indicate the humid and fertile mountain region as isolated between two arid tracts. Our information as to the mountain regions ■ still further south is very scanty indeed ; but the brief account of Pere Armand David's visit to the highlands on the south-east of the Koko-nor region, and nearly in the same meridian as that of which we have been speaking, describes a similar, but even moister climate. ' The at- mosphere was so charged with moisture that it sufficed to precipitate this in rain, if several men joined in making a loud noise and firing off their guns.' • The mountains were perpetually clothed in mist, which favoured the growth of conifers and rhododendrons ; of the last no less than six- teen species were collected. Further south, again, on the same meridian, we have Mr. Cooper's account of his journey from Ching-tu-fu into Eastern Tibet ; and here also we have a picture of heavy rains between July and Sep- tember (see pp. 219, 367, 395). We are here approaching the Irawadi valley and the mountains that bound Bengal on the east, where the summer rain is so heavy and regular. So that these Kansuh Alps, with their heavy rains and abundant vegetation, seem to fall within the north-western limit of a vast area over which the heavy summer rains, which in India accompany what we call the south-west monsoon, are the rule, presenting so strong a contrast to the dry summers and wet winters of the sub-tropical zone of Europe.' ^

Another subject which seems to require notice here consists of those characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism to which allusions frequently occur in Prejevalsky's narrative,

' Bull, de la Soc. Geog. for 187 1, pt. i., p. 465.

^ Indeed, it would seem, of the western shores of both continents. The area affected by these summer monsoons, or sea-winds precipi- tating moisture, appears to embrace Manchuria, the coast of the Gulf of Okhotsk, and the Amur region up to the Baikal. (See Dr. Wojeikofif, in Pfh-n/iann's MitthciliDigcn for 1870.)

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxxiii

especially that of the so-called * incarnate Buddhas.' Preje- valsky's allusions to the subject are somewhat crude and loose, insomuch that, hard matter as it is to grasp, and especially to put briefly, I must make the attempt, by aid of Koeppen's admirable book.

' Lamaism,' says Koeppen, ' is the Romanism of the Buddhist Church. The thorough-going development of the priestly power, both in itself and in its relations to- wards the laity, and, closely bound up with that, the erection of an outward, visible, and sovereign Church and ecclesiastical State, exercising rule over people and provinces ; — these form the essential character by which Romanism is distinguished from the older Christianity, and by which Lamaism is distinguished from the old Buddhism of India. Wherever these have in other respects departed from the earlier forms, whether in religious prac- tice, in discipline, or in worship, these departures have been, in the one case as in the other, but as means to an end.'

The similarities between Lamaism and Roman Catho- licism, moreover, extend so far beyond general character- istics of this kind, run into so many particulars, are often so striking, and sometimes so grotesque, that they have been contemplated with some dismay and perplexity by zealous missionaries of the Roman Church, from the Middle Ages downwards to our own. Indeed, it has been alleged, — but, be it said, it is an allegation which I have en- deavoured to verify without success, — that Pere Hue him- self, who had noted some of the superficial resemblances with his usual neatness of expression, was, on his return to Europe, astonished to find his book in consequence regis- tered in the Index ProJiibitornm of an ungrateful Congre- gation.

The details of resemblance between those peculiari- ties of Roman Catholicism which seem to persons out- side of its pale to have so little in common with the spirit of the New Testament, and the peculiarities of this other system, which, perhaps under analogous influences, VOL. I. b

xxxiv IXTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

has deviated so far from the original form of Sakya's doctrine, would be worthy of more careful study than they have yet received. And this study might, possibly, suggest wholesome considerations to some Avell-meaning persons among our countrymen j"ust now.

In its older forms Lamaism was a kind of Buddhism corrupted, on the one hand by the aboriginal Shamanism, and on the other hand by Sivaite magic and mysticism. It also allowed, at least in certain cases, of the marriage of priests, under varying conditions and limitations, kin- dred to those which strictly belonged to the character of the pure Brahman. Thus, certain of the hierarchy were allowed to live in the married state until an heir was born ; others until the son also had an heir. And the sacred dignities were thus often hereditary in the literal sense.

In the middle of the fourteenth century arose the great reformer of Lamaism in the person of Tsongkaba, born in the province of Amdo, at the spot now marked with con- sequent sanctity by the great monastery of Kunbum.' Tsongkaba was a reformer, manifestly, not in the spirit of Luther or Calvin, but rather in that of Francis or Dominic ; but we are not in a position to indicate very clearly the scope of his reforms. He did, however, evidently make some considerable effort to revert to the original practices of Buddhism. And the most visible and external of his reforms, the substitution of the yellow cap and robe for the red which had characterized the older Lamas, was an in- stance of this. Such also was the more important mea- sure of recalling the priesthood to a strict and universal profession of celibacy. The old Indian Buddhism did recognise wedded persons under certain secondary vows as lay brothers and lay sisters, but knew no such persons as married sramanas, or full members of the Church. Tsong- kaba also greatly checked, or strove to check, the inter- vention of magical practices among the faithful. These were excessively prevalent among the older Lamas, — as,

^ sKu-b/a/i (pronounced Ku-bum, or K'lai-bmn), 'the 100,000 images/ some thirty or forty miles south of Sining.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxxv

indeed, we may see from Marco Polo's repeated allusions to the diabolical arts of the sorcerer Bakshis of Tebet and Keshenmr. The reform did not, apparently, prohibit all magic, but only its grosser arts, distinguishing, as Koeppen felicitously expresses it, between white magic and black ; forbidding necromantic incantations, with regular sorcery and witch-broth-cookery, as well as vulgar tricks like fire- breathing, knife-swallowing, and the pretended amputation of the limbs, — or even the head, — of the performer by his own hand. These were all pet practices of the old red un- reformed Lamas, and still remain so. Tsongkaba's reform had great swing, and has long been predominant in num- bers and power.

He was, of course, canonized among his followers, and is generally regarded as having been an incarnation of the Dhyani Buddha ^ of the present world-period, Amitabha, though sometimes also of the Bodhisatvas, — or Buddhas designate, — Manjusri and Vajrapani. His image is found in all the temples of his Yellow Church, often between those of its two Pontiffs, the Dalai Lama of Lhassa, and the Lama Panchhan Rinbochhi of Tashilunpo.

The reforms of Tsongkaba led to, or at least culmi- nated in, a new development of Lama doctrine and order ; from one point of view, in the establishment of a regular papacy, — though dual or bicephalous ; from another point of view, in that of a peculiar system of succession such as has, probably, no parallel on earth.

Thus there exist since his time two chief prelates and pontiffs of the Yellow Church, exercising both spiritual and temporal power, — two popes, in fact, each within his own dominion ; the one at Lhassa, the Dalai Lama, as he is best

' The Dhyani Buddhas (or Buddhas of contemplation) belong to the complex subtleties of northern Buddhism. The human Buddha performing his work upon the earth has a celestial reflexion, or repre- sentative, in the world of forms, who is a Dliythii Buddha. A Bodhi- satva is one who has fulfilled all the conditions necessary to the attainment of Buddahood (and its consequent Nirvana), but from charity continues voluntarily subject to reincorporation for the benefit of mankind.

b 2

xxxvi INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

known to us, by a Mongol term, signifying ' The Ocean ; ' the other at Tashilunpo (' The Hill of Grace') or Digarchi, styled in Tibetan the Panchhan Rinbochhi, or ' Most Excel- lent Jewel.' In rank, sanctity, and spiritual dignity these may be regarded as equal ; but in extent of temporal dominion the Lhassa Pontiff vastly surpasses his colleague.

These two Princes of the Church are in a manner inde- feasible. Whenever one or other shuffles off this mortal coil he proceeds to resume it again under the form of a child born to succeed to the dignity, and indicated by miraculous signs as the reincarnation of the departed Pon- tiff. This is the system of supernatural succession of those reborn saints whom the Mongols term KJiubilghan.

The history of its institution is buried in obscurity ; but the old Red-cap hierarchy, at least in some of its sects, had established the hereditary character of the higher eccle- siastical dignities. To preserve this was impossible under the celibate enforced by Tsongkaba ; and the system of succession by pretended reincarnation may have been a scheme artfully devised to preserve union among the Yellow sect, who might easily have been split by the discords and intrigues of an elective papacy, as those causes again and again split the Catholic world, until it came under the compressive force exercised upon it by the existence of seceding Churches. However that may be, it came to pass, sooner or later, that not only those two chief pontiffs, but also the secondary and tertiary dignitaries of the hierarchy came to hand on their succession in the same supernatural manner.

The transmigration of souls, or what is most simply described by that expression, is well known to be a pro- minent doctrine of all Buddhism. Among the northern Buddhists also, after many centuries, had arisen a doctrine (derived probably from the Hindu Avataras) which repre- sented the Bodhisatvas (i.e. potential or designate Buddhas, awaiting in a celestial repose the time of their accomplished Buddhahood) as occasionally and voluntarily assuming human form. Thence by a third step Lamaism evolved its

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxxvii

climax in this doctrine of contiiuiotis incarnations, main- taining the succession to high spiritual dignity on earth.

Th.Q Bicddhas of the past, — those culminations of spiritual progress who have attained and accomplished their day in that supreme position, vanish in Nirvana and return no more. But the Bodhisatvas, for the weal of mankind, become thus repeatedly embodied on earth. This volun- tary incarnation is a different thing from the ordinary re-birth of metempsychosis. The latter is a fate incumbent on every living soul till it be freed from all impurity. But voluntary incarnation is the peculiar privilege of those sin- free souls alone which have wrought their way out of the toils of transmigration. Transmigration, in short, from a Buddhist point of view, is a natural, whilst reincarnation is a siipcy'datural process.

This doctrine, no doubt, had early seeds, but it ex- panded to its full development only in the fifteenth cen- tury, and in the Yellow Church of Tsongkaba.

The Dalai Lama of Lhassa is always looked on as the incarnation of the Bodhisatva Avalokite^vara, the special guardian of Tibet. The Panchhan Rinbochhi is regarded immediately as the re-born Tsongkaba, but therefore ultimately as the Dhyani Buddha Amitabha. So that, as regards the spiritual rank and doctrinal authority that he represents, the latter would, perhaps, stand highest ; but he of Lhassa preponderates in temporal dominion, and conse- quently in ecclesiastical influence.

It is very obscure how this double popedom arose ; but the most probable deduction from the fragmentary facts accessible is that the Lhassa pontificate is somewhat the oldest, going back to very near the age of Tsongkaba, and that the Panchhan Rinbochhi dates from the foundation of the great monastery of Tashilunpo, circa 1445-47. ^^ know that in 1470 both existed, for both in that year received seals and diplomas from the Chinese Emperor.

For a considerable time the two were only the arch- priests of the Yellow sect, and were so regarded by the chiefs of the Reds, who held an analogous position. But

xxxviii INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

since the invasion of Tibet in 1643, by the Mongol Gushi Khan, who depressed the Reds, and established the Dalai Lama as temporal sovereign of the greater part of Tibet, no such equality exists. The chief prelates of the Red sects in Tibet Proper, in Bhotan, and in Ladak, have now long been in a kind of dependence on the Yellow papacy, and are, both in Lhassa and in Peking, counted among the KhutiikJitits or Monsigjiori of the Lamaitic hierarchy. I have no doubt that Rome, so fertile in analogies with Lamaism, could furnish a perfect parallel ; but the nearest that occurs to my scanty knowledge is the position of the priests of the Greek rite in Sicily, or that which a high Catholic prelate Avas recently alleged to have desired to recognise in certain would-be deserters of the Church of England.

The KJmUikhtus, — Monsignori, as I have just called them, or perhaps Cardinals, as Pere Hue himself calls them, — form the second order in the hierarchy, and in Tibet Proper, like the Roman cardinals up to 1870, they hold the civil administration of the provinces in their hands. They also are counted among reincarnate saints. The best known of them is that patriarch of Mongolia who, since 1604, dwells at Urga, the most powerful and revered of all the Lama hierarchy after the Two Jewels of Central Tibet.^ Next to him is the second Mongolian patriarch, dwelling at Kuku Khoto ; Avhilst a third represents Lamaism at the Court of Peking.

After these come the commoner herd of re-incarnates, \vho are numerous, insomuch that a great many monasteries in Mongolia and Tibet have an incarnate saint, or * Livine Buddha,' as they are sometimes called by travellers, for their abbot. These are the CJuiberons of Hue ; the Gige?ts of Prejevalsky. And the Red-caps themselves, who in former times admitted of succession by natural descent,

have now adopted this supernatural system.- |

5 * ^ See Prejevalsky, i. pp. 11-13. This is the personage wljom Hue

calls Guison Tiiinba. i

* P. Armand David tells a curious story of the ' living Buddha ' of

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxxix

Till the end of last century the designation of the successor to all posts in the hierarchy, by this alleged reincarnation, lay in the hands of the ecclesiastics, who pulled the wires, however varied the manner in which the play of identification was played. But for many years past the Court of Peking has been the practical determiner of this mystic succession.

Enough of introduction. I add but one word more. In looking back to the cursory review of recent exploration with which these remarks were commenced, I cannot but note, with some feeling of self-vindication in regard to time and labour heretofore spent in the elucidation of the great Venetian traveller of the Middle Ages, that all the ex- plorers whom I have named have been, it may be said with hardly a jot of hyperbole, only travelling in his fo )t- steps, — most certainly illustrating his geographical notices.

If Wood and Gordon and Trotter have explored Pamir, so did Messer Marco before them. Shaw, Hay- ward, and Forsyth in Kashgar ; Johnson in Khotan ; Cooper and Armand David on the eastern frontier of Tibet ; Richthofen in Northern and Western China ; Ney

a monastery in the Urat country, north of the Hoang-ho. This abbot was rich, and having amassed 30,000 taels he devoutly determined to make an offering of it to the Grand Lama at Lhassa. He set out, accordingly, with a great retinue of monks. But these were excessively averse to the idea of carrying all their silver to Lhassa ; probably they chanted in Mongol something like the medieval Latin rhymes Rome : —

' О vos bursa: turgida: Lassam veniatis, Lassac viget physica bursis constipatis I'

So, in crossing a river, they pitched in their own living Buddha and carried back the treasure. The abbot was, however, cast up on the shore, and continued his journey to Lhassa, whence he had returned, two or three years before P. David's visit, to his ancient convent. The brethren, in the belief that their superior had quitted his former shell, had duly selected a young Mongol as his re-incarnation. ' Their dis- gust, therefore, was great to see their old chief reappear. The popular feeling was in favour of the old abbot ; but the monks, with their ill- gotten gear, were too strong, and the unlucky Gigeii was obliged to retire to a remote monastf^rv. n-i-mrn bo livod as a simple Lama.

xl INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Elias and Bushell in Mongolia ; Paderin at Karakorum ; Prejevalsky in Tangut ; all have been tracking his steps and throwing light, consciously or unconsciously, on his Herodotean chapters. And yet what a vast area that he has described from personal knowledge remains beyond and outside of the explorations and narratives of these meritorious travellers !

There remains but to add that the engagement to assist Mr. Morgan in the production of this work was made, some eighteen months ago, under circumstances which afforded leisure for the task. The promise has had to be kept under very different circumstances of place and occupation ; and this must be the apology for some oversights, and perhaps some repetitions, in the Notes and Introduction.'

H. YULE.

London : February 23, 1876.

^ Almost along with the revised proofs of these pages I have re- ceived Mr. Markham's publication of the journeys of Bogle and Manning ; not in time to benefit by it, unless by a few minor insertions in the Supplementary Notes.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

Four years ago, thanks to the suggestion of the Imperial Geographical Society, warmly seconded by the Minister of War, whose intelligent co-operation in all scientific matters is so well known, I was ap- pointed commander of an expedition to Northern China, with the view of exploring those remote regions of the Celestial Empire, about which our knowledge is of the most limited and fragmentary kind, derived for the most part from Chinese litera- ture, from the descriptions of the great thirteenth- century traveller — Marco Polo, and from the nar- ratives of the few missionaries who have from time to time gained access to these countries. But such facts as are supplied by all these sources of information are so vague and inaccurate that the whole of Eastern High Asia, from the mountains of Siberia on the north to the Himalyas on the sou h, and from the Pamir to China Proper, is as little explored as Central Africa or the interior of New Holland. Even the orography of this vast plateau is most imperfectly known, and as to its physical nature — i.e. its geology, climate, flora, and fauna — we are almost entirely ignorant.

xlii AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

Nevertheless this terra incognita, exceeding in extent the whole of Eastern Europe, situated in the centre of the greatest of all the continents, at a higher elevation above the level of the sea than any other country on the face of the globe, with its gigantic mountain ranges and boundless deserts, presents from a scientific point of view grand and varied fields of research. Here the naturalist and the geographer may pursue their respective studies over a wide area. But great as are the attractions of this unknown region to the traveller, its difficulties may well appal him. On the one hand, the deserts, with all their accompanying terrors — hurricanes, lack of water, burning heat and piercing cold, must be encountered ; on the other, a suspicious and bar- barous people, either covertly or openly hostile to Europeans.

For three consecutive years we faced the difficul- ties of travel in the wild countries of Asia, and only owing to unusual good fortune attained our object of penetrating to Lake Koko-nor and to the upper course of the Blue River (Yang-tse-Kiang) in Northern Tibet.

Good fortune, I repeat, never forsook me through- out my journey, from beginning to end. In my young companion, Michail Alexandrovitch Pyltseff, I had an active and zealous assistant, whose energy never failed in the most adverse circumstances ; whilst the two Trans-Baikal Cossacks, Pamphile Chebayeff and Dondok Irinchinoff, who accompanied us in the second and third )cars of our travels, were brave

AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xliii

and Indefatigable men, who served the expedition faithfully and loyally. I should also mention with equal gratitude the name of our late envoy at Peking — Major-General Alexander Gregorievitch Vlangali ; for he was chiefly instrumental in organising the expedition, and he was its warmest supporter from first to last.

But although fortunate in the moral support I received, on the other hand the material resources of our expedition were extremely inadequate, and this circumstance impaired its efficiency. To say nothing of the privations which we experienced on the journey, entirely owing to the want of money, we were unable to provide ourselves even with the requisite good instruments for taking observations. For instance, we had only one mountain barometer, which soon broke, and I was obliged to have re- course to the ordinary Reaumur thermometer to determine heights by boiling water,^ obtaining less accurate results ; for magnetic observations луе had nothing but a common compass adapted for this purpose at the observatory of Peking. In fact, our outfit, even of the most necessary instruments for scientific observations, was of the most meagre description.

In the course of nearly three years,^ in traversing

' Parrot's thermometer, which I took with me from St. Peters- burg for measuring akitudes, broke during the journey through Siberia ; however, in such a journey as ours, this instrument would have been too troublesome, and almost impossible to protect from breakage.

* From November 29, 1870, to October i, 1873, '-e. from the day of our departure from Kiakhta to the day of our return to that place.

xliv AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

Mongolia, Kan-su, Koko-nor, and Northern Tibet, we travelled i i,ioo versts (7,400 miles), 5,300 (3,530 miles) of which, i.e. the whole distance out, were sketched by means of the compass. This map, which is appended on the reduced scale of 40 versts (or about 2б| miles) to the inch,^ has been based on 18 astronomical observations for latitude, which I determined by means of a small universal in- strument.^

The magnetic declination was ascertained at nine places, and at seven the horizontal influence of the earth's maofnetism. Four times a week we took meteorological observations, frequently noting the temperature of the earth and water, and the mois- ture of the atmosphere with the psychrometer. We determined the altitudes with the aneroid and boil- ing water. Our researches were chiefly directed to physical geography and the special study of mam- malia and birds ; Ave made ethnological observations whenever circumstances would permit. We also collected and brought home 1,000 specimens of birds belonging to 238 different genera, 130 skins of mammalia, large and small, comprising 42 kinds ; about 70 specimens of reptiles ; 1 1 descriptions of fish ; and more than 3,000 specimens of insects.

Our botanical collection includes the flora of all

^ Reduced again, in the English version accompanying this trans- lation, to a scale of slightly more than one-half that amount per inch.

^ The longitude of these points, \vhich unfortunately could not be determined, was found approximately by projecting my route survey between the latitudes fixed, and by taking into account the declination of the needle.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xlv

the places we visited — 500 to 600 kinds of plants represented by 4,000 specimens. Our small minera- logical collection contains samples of the minerals of all the mountain ranges we visited.

Such are the scientific results of our journey ; and these met with warm approbation, not only from the Geographical Society, but from the different men of science who volunteered their services to classify them.

The academician K. T. Maximovitch kindly undertook the description of the flora, which will form the third volume of the present edition of our travels. The second volume will comprise our spe- cial studies on the climate of those parts of Inner Asia that we visited, and notes on the zoology and mineralogy will be contributed by A. A. Inostrant- seff and K. T. Kessler, professors at the St. Petersburg University; A. T. Moravitz, the ento- mologist ; N. A. Severtsoff, W. K. Tachanoffsky, the zoologists ; and A. A. Strauch, academician. All these savants have generously assisted me in clas- sifying the different kinds of animals, plants, and minerals mentioned in the pages of this book.

Lastly, I must express my earnest gratitude to Colonel Stubendorff of the Staff Corps, and Colonel Bolsheff of the Topographical Department, who have taken a keen interest in compiling the map from my route survey ; and also to Fritsche, director of the Peking Observatory, who gave me hints as to the astronomical and magnetic observations, and kindly undertook to work these out. This first volume of

xlvi AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

our travels comprises descriptions of the physical geography and ethnography of the country we visited, and also a narrative of the progress of the expedition. The two following volumes will treat of special subjects, and will appear — the second in December of the present year, and the third a year later, i.e. at the end of 1876.

N. PREJEVALSKY. St. Petersburg : January i, 1875.

i

CONTENTS

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAPTER I.

FROM KIAKHTA TO PEKING.

Eve of departure — Post across Mongolia — Mode of conveyance — Departure from Kiakhta — Physical features of the country north of Urga — Temples there — Brick-tea — The Kutukhtu and Chinese Policy towards Lamaism — Description of the town — Disposal of the dead— Government — The Dungans — The Gobi — Its character — Its vegetation and inhabitants — The post-road — Argols — Rapacity of crows— The Sand-grouse {Syrrhaptes) — The Mongol lark — The Alpine hare — The Steppe antelope {Dzeren) — Antelope-shooting — The native methods of hunting — Pastures of the Chakhar Mongols — Characteristics of people — Border-land of the Mongolian Plateau — Town of Kalgan or Chang-kia-kau— Tea caravans — Chinese Impositions on Mon- gols — The Great Wall — Compradors and their Dialect — * Pigeon-Russian' — Road to Peking — Chinese inns and cuisine — Descent into great plain of China — Arrival at Peking .

CHAPTER II.

THE MONGOLS.

The Mongols — Physical characteristics — Modification of cha- racter on the Chinese border— Pigtail introduced — Costume — The Yurta or Felt Tent — Uncleanliness — Tea-drinking— Food and beverages — Gluttony — Animal food — Cattle — Importance of their herds— Indolent habits — Physical capabilities and de- fects— Cowardice — Sagacity and obtuseness — Curiosity — Points of the compass — Estimation of distance — Calendar and Year-

РЛСК

xlviii CONTENTS OF

PAGE

Cycle — Language and diversities —Literature — Love of gossip — Songs — Mongol women — Marriage customs and domestic relations — Hospitality and polite customs — Freedom of man- ners— Lamaism — Religious service — ' От viani padmi Jiom ' — The Dalai Lama — Pilgrimages— The Clergy — Monasticism — Superstitions — Masses for the dead — The Author's view of Missions — Administrative organisation of the Mongol tribes — Grades of rank among chiefs, and their salaries — Population — Laws, punishment, and taxation — Military force — Decay of martial spirit 47

CHAPTER IIL

THE SOUTH-EASTERN BORDER OF THE MONGOLIAN PLATEAU.

Peking — First impressions — The sti'eets and walls — European establishments — Preparations for the journey — Fire-arms and outfit — Insufficiency of funds and its consequence — Financial Arrangements — Chinese Currency — Inconvenience of the Copper Currency^Passport — Departure from Peking — Pre- liminary tour to the North — Ku-pe-kau gate in wall — Migra- tion of wild-fowl — Road to Dolon-nor — Wood on the way — Jehol— Fauna of the route — Goitre — Khingan Range — Dolon- nor— Idol foundry^ — Shandu River — Tsagan Balgas — Sandhills called Guc/tin, gu7'bu or ' the 33 ' — A Steppe-fire on the Dalai- nor — The Lake Dalai — Birds on the lake — Mocking-bird — Surveying difficulties — Mode of surveying — Suspicions of the Natives — The Route plotted daily — Road back to Kalgan — Steppe horses — Imperial pasture lands — Climate of South- Eastern Mongolia — The two-humped camel — Its habits, uses, &c. — Arrival at Kalgan 90

CHAPTER IV.

THE SOUTH-EASTERN BORDER OF THE MONGOLIAN

PLATEAU — {contimied).

Reorganisation of the Party — Fresh start from Kalgan — R. C. Missions — Samdadchiemba, Hue's companion — Dishonest con- vert— Vigilance needed against thieves — Shara-hada Range — Suma-hada Range — The Argali ; its habits and incidents of chase — Late spring — Lifeless aspects — The Urute country and Western Tumites — Tedious purchase of sheep — Dumb bar- gaining— Difficulties in purchase of milk — Our traffic with the Mongols — Throw off the trading character with advantage —

THE FIRST VOLUME. xlix

TAGE

Rude treatment from Chinese — The strong hand necessary — Difficulties about change — The In-shan mountain system — First sight of Hoang-ho — Tent flooded — Bathar Sheilun temple — The mountain antelope — Its extraordinary jumps — Chinese soldiers — Munni-ula mountains — Their flora, fauna, and avi- fauna— Legends regarding them — Ascent of the range — Chinese demand for stags' horns^ Vicissitudes of inountain sport — Im- . pressive scenery — Pass across range — Valley of the Hoang-ho — City of Bautu — Interview with Commandant — Search for lodging — Mob rudeness — We are made a show of — Departure from Bautu — Passage of the Hoang-ho — Mihtary opium smokers 132

CHAPTER V.

ORDOS.

Definition of Ordos — Nomads contrasted with settlers — Historical sketch — Divisions— The Hoang-ho and its floods — Route up the Valley — Depth, width, and navigation of river — Old channels ; deviation of its course — Disputes about boundaries — Flora of the valley — Scanty vegetation — Liquorice root — Aspect of valley changes — Kuzupchi sands — Terrors of the desert — Legends — Oases and their vegetation — Sterility of the valley — Birds and animals— Traces of Dungan insurrection — A stray camel — Intense heat — Lake Tsaideming-nor — Opium cultivation — Bathing — Superstition about the tortoise — Flight of Chinghiz-Khan's wife — Tradition of Chinghiz-Khan — The White Banner — Tomb of Chinghiz-Khan — The Kara-sulta, or Black-tailed antelope — Shooting these antelope — Their haunts in the desert — Ruined temple of Shara-tsu — Scarce population — Wild cattle — Their origin and habits — Two bulls shot — Fishing ; Mosquitoes — Salt lake ; Ruins of city — Order of march ; sweltering heat — Water ! the halt — Wolfish appetites ; evening — Loss of a horse ; Djuldjig — Arbus-ula range ; Ding- hu — Crossing Hoang-ho — Interview with Mandarin — Showing our guns — Baggage examined — Mandarin robs us — Embar- rassing situation — Under arrest — Explanations — We take our departure 180

CHAPTER VL

ALA-SHAN.

The Eleuths — Extent and character of Ala-shan — Sandy tracts of Ala-shan — Flour of the Sulhir grass — Flora and Fauna of Ala- shan — Birds of Ala-shan — Population of Ala-shan — Mongols of

VOL. I. С

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

ГАСЕ

Ala-shan — Lake Tsagan-nor — Route to Din-yuan-ing — Arrival there — Din-yuan-ing and the Prince — The Prince of Ala-shan and his family — The Gigen — Lama Baldin-Sordji — Curiosity of the people — Intercourse with the younger Princes — Questions about Europe — Openings for trade — Stories about the Dalai Lama — ' Shambaling,' the Promised Land — State visit to the Prince — Interview with Prince Ala-shan — Views of the Anglo- French war — We proceed to the mountains — Mountains of Ala-shan — Birds of Ala-shan mountains — Mammals of Ala- shan — The kuku-yamans or mountain sheep — Shooting them in the mountains— A frightened herd — Desperate leap — Return to Din-yuan-ing — Obliged to retrace our steps .... 231

TABLE OF NOTES TO VOLUME L

NOTES BY MR. MORGAN.

Great Floods in China 271

The Gandjur or Kanjur : the Sacred Literature of Tibet . . 272

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES BY COL. YULE.

On the meaning of the word Z?<^7wi 274

On the word ' Gigen ' 275

On the terms ' Pehhng ' and ' Fanqui ' 276

On Kumiz and Dardsun ib.

Tartar Manners at Food 277

Mongol Orientation ib.

The Chinese Year 278

The Mongol Alphabet 280

The Khata {Kkadak), or Ceremonial Scarf 281

Om Mane Padme Hum ! 282

The Obo 283

Tsagan Balgas 284

Dumb Bargaining ib.

Shambaling 2S5

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TO

THE FIRST VOLUME.

Map of Eastern Asia, showing Col. Prejevalslcy's and Hue's Routes. Col. Prejevalsky's Route Survey Map.

1. Portrait of Author Frontispiece.

2. Chinese Cart in front of the Russian Consul's House

at Urga, being a Facsimile of that in which the Author travelled from Kiakhta to Kalgan (from a Photograph lent by Baron Fr. Osten Sacken, Hon. Corn Mem. R.G.S.) to face page 4

3. General View of Ta-kuren (Urga) (from a Photo-

graph lent by Baron Fr. von der Osten Sacken) . „ „ 8

4. Street in Urga (borrowed from the 7"t>«r </?< J/i9«^i?) „ „ 14

5. The Yurta, or Felt Tent (from a Photograph lent by

Baron Fr. Osten Sacken) . . . . . „ ,, 50

6. Mongol Girl (from a Photograph lent by Baron Fr.

Osten Sacken) .......„„ 69

7. Group of Khalkas Mongols (borrowed frorii the

To7ir du Monde) „ „ 84

8. Ruins of Emperor's Summer Palace (from a Photo-

graph by J. Thomson, Esq., F.R.G.S.) . . „ „ 102

9. Mongol Cavalry (from a Photograph lent by Baron

Fr. Osten Sacken) ...... Ф^^g^^ 182

10. Mongol Soldier (from a Photograph lent by Baron

Fr. Osten Sacken) „ 225

[I. Ruins of Chapel of Sisters of Mercy at Tien-tsin, destroyed by Chinese Rioters (from a Photo- graph by J. Thomson, Esq., F.R.G.S.) . . „ 254

TRAVELS IN MONGOLIA.

CHAPTER I.

FROM KIAKIITA TO PEKING.

Eve of departure — Post across Mongolia — Mode of conveyance — De- parture from Kiakhta — Physical features of the country north of Urga — Temples there — Brick-tea — -The Kutukhtu and Chinese у towards Lamaism — Description of the town — Disposal of the dead — Government^The Dungans — The Gobi — Its character — Its vegetation and inhabitants — The post-road — Argols — Ra- pacity of crows — -The sand-grouse {Syrrhaptes) — The Mongol lark — The Alpine hare — the Steppe antelope (/>я^г^;г)— Antelope-shoot- ing— The native methods of hunting — Pastures of the Chakhar Mongols — Characteristics of people — Border-land of the Mon- golian Plateau — Town of Kalgan or Chang-kia-kau^Tea caravans — Chinese Impositions on Mongols — The Great Wall — Compradors and their Dialect — ' Pigeon-Russian ' — Road to Peking — Chinese inns and cuisine — Descent into great Plain of China — Arrival at Peking.

Early in November 1870, after posting through Siberia, I arrived with my young companion, Michail Alexandrovitch PyltsefT, at Kiakhta, where our journey through MongoHa and the adjacent countries of Inner Asia was to begin. At Kiakhta we were at once sensible of our approach to foreign countries. The strings of camels in the streets of the town, the sunburnt faces and prominent cheekbones of the VOL. 1. в

1.^

2 PASSPORT.

Mongols, the long pigtails of the Chinese, the strange and unintelligible language, all plainly told us we were about to bid a long farewell to our country and all dear to us there. Hard as it was to reconcile ourselves to the thought, we were some- what cheered by the prospect of soon commencing a journey which had been the dream of my early childhood. Entirely in the dark as we were in re- gard to our future wanderings, we resolved first of all to go to Peking, there to obtain a passport from the Chinese Government, and then to start for the remoter regions of the Celestial Empire. This advice was given us by General Vlangali, at that time our Ambassador in China, who from first to last assisted the expedition by every means in his power, and whose generous forethought contributed more than anything to its ultimate success. After- wards, on our first march from Peking, we saw the advantage of having a passport direct from the Chinese Foreign Office, instead of one from the Frontier Commissioner at Kiakhta. Such a pass- port gave us far greater importance in the eyes of the local population, a very material consideration in China, and (it must be confessed) in other countries also.

Europeans have the choice of two modes of conveyance from Kiakhta to Peking; either by post- horses, or by caravan camels engaged by special bargain with their owners.

Postal communications through Mongolia were established by the treaties of Tien-tsin (1858) and

*

POSTAL COMMUhUCATIONS. 3

Peking (i860). By these conventions the Russian Government acquired the right of organising at its own expense a regular transmission of both Hght and heavy mails between Kiakhta, Peking, and Tien-tsin, The Mongols contract to carry the post as far as Kalgan, the Chinese, the rest of the way. We have opened post-offices at four places : Urga, Kalgan, Peking, and Tien-tsin. At each of these a Russian official is stationed, who superintends the post-office, and attends to the regular despatch of the post. The light mails leave Kiakhta and Tien- tsin three times a month : the heavy mails only once a month. The latter are carried on camels escorted by two Cossacks from Kiakhta, while the former are accompanied only by Mongols, and are carried on horses. They are usually taken from Kiakhta to Peking in two weeks ; while the heavy mails take from twenty to twenty-four days. The cost to our Government of maintaining the post through Mon- golia is about 1 7,000 rubles (2,400/.) ; the receipts at all the four offices amounting altogether to 3,000 rubles (about 430/.).^

The Chinese Government has also undertaken to transport, from Kiakhta to Peking and back, every three months, at its own cost, for the convenience of our clerical and diplomatic Missions at Peking, a heavy post not exceeding 26 cwts. in weight each time.

1 There is another post-road between Urga and Kalgan, estabhshed by the Chinese for themselves. From this road another one to Ulias- sutai branches off on the border of the Khalkas country, near the station of Sair-ussu.

В 2

4 MODE OF CONVEYANCE.

On extraordinary occasions when papers of great importance have to be transmitted to our Ambas- sador at Peking, or by him to his Government, it is arranged that Russian officers may be . despatched as couriers," notice being given a day before the despatch of the messenger to the Chinese governor at Kiakhta and the Ministry of War at Peking. Horses are then prepared at all the Chinese and Mon- golian stations, and the entire distance of i,ooo miles may in this way be accomplished in a two-wheeled Chinese government cart in nine or ten days. No charge is made for this special service, but according to established custom, the Russian officer presents a gratuity of three silver rubles (about 8^-.) at each station. Another mode of communication across Mongolia is by hiring a Mongol who undertakes to transport the traveller by camel caravan across the Gobi. This is the way in which all our merchants travel on their way to China for business purposes, or on their way back to Russia. The traveller usually disposes himself in a Chinese cart, which presents the appearance of a great square wooden box, set on two wheels, and closed on all sides. In the fore part of this machine there are openings at the sides, closed with small doors. These holes serve the traveller as a means of ingress and egress to his vehicle, in which he must preserve a recum- bent position head foremost, in order that his legs may not be on a higher level than his head. The shaking in this kind of car baffles description. The smallest stone or lump of earth over which one

-^=- ■^rm^^j'amvji^

CHINESE CART.

The vehicle represented in the above woodcut belonged to the Amban or Governor of Urga, and was photographed in front of the house of the Russian Consul, where this functionary hap- pened to be paying an unofficial visit. The cart in which our author travelled, and which is described in the te.\t, resembled the one shown on this page.

DEPARTURE FROM KIAKHTA. 5

of the wheels may chance to roll produces a violent jolting of the whole vehicle and consequently of its unfortunate occupant. It may easily be imagined how his sufferings may be aggravated when travel- ling with post horses at a trot.

In a conveyance of this kind, hired from a Kiakhta merchant, we determined to proceed with camels through Mongolia to Kalgan. Our con- tractor лvas a Mongol луЬо had brought a quantity of tea to Kiakhta and was returninor for a fresh

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load. After some negotiations, we finally agreed with him for the transport of ourselves, one Cossack, and all our baggage, to Kalgan for 70 lans (140 rubles, 2qI)}

The journey was not to take more than forty days, a comparatively long time, as the Mongols usually convey travellers from Kiakhta to Peking in twenty-five days, but the price charged for this acce- lerated speed is proportionately higher. I wished to acquaint myself as far as I could with the nature of the country through which I was about to travel, and, therefore, a slow rate of progress was rather an advantage to me than otherwise. A Cossack of the Buriat tribe belonging to the Trans- Baikal force Avas ordered to accompany us as interpreter of the Mongol language. He proved to be an excellent dragoman ; but being the son of a rich man, and disliking the hardships of travel, he soon became so

^ Lan appears to be the Russian way of representing the word Avhich French and English sinologues write usually as Hang, viz. the tael, or Chinese ' ounce of silver.' — Y.

6 NORTHERN MONGOLIA.

home-sick that I was obhged to send him back, and received two new Cossacks in his stead.

At length, towards the evening of November 29, new style/ we started on our journey. The harnessed camel set in motion the cart which contained myself and companion and our common friend, a setter, ' Faust,' brought with us from Russia. Soon we left Kiakhta behind, and entered Mongolia. Fare- well my country, a long farewell ! shall we ever see thee again, or shall we never return from that distant foreign land ?

For the w^hole distance of about 200 miles " from Kiakhta to Urga the appearance of the country quite equals that of the best parts of our Trans- Baikalia ; here we see the same abundance of trees and water, the same luxuriant pasturage on the gentler slopes of the hills ; in fact, there is nothing to remind the traveller of his proximity to the desert. The absolute height of the region between Kiakhta and the river ^ Kara-gol averages 2,500 feet ; then the country rises till it attains at Urga an elevation of 4,200 feet above the level of the sea. This ascent forms the outer northern border of the vast plateau of the Gobi.

' All the dates in this translation hare been reduced to the new style. — M.

"^ According to a recent traveller, the distance from Urga to Kiakhta is 176 miles. See ' Rough Notes of a Journey made in the Years 1868-73,' p. 19. Tnibner, 1874.— M.

•^ The word gol is the Mongol for river, and is always added to the name of a river, in the same way as nor (more correctly nur, lake) to the name of a lake, and daban (range) or ula (mountain) to the name of a range or a mountain. [See Supplementary Note.]

ITS PHYSICAL FEATURES. 7

The district between Klakhta and Urga may be generally described as hilly, but the elevations are not great, and most of the hills are round. The ranges have an easterly and westerly direction, and are totally devoid of lofty peaks and steep bluffs ; the passes are, therefore, not high, and the ascents and descents are orradual.

Three of these ranges following the road to Urga are distinguished from the rest by their greater elevation : one on the north bank of the river Iro ; a second, the Manhadai, in the centre ; and third, the Mukhur, close to Urga. The only steep and lofty pass across these mountains is the Man- hadai, which may be avoided by taking a more circuitous road to the east.

The district we are describing Is plentifully watered ; its chief rivers are the Iro and Kara-gol, flowing into the Orkhon, a tributary of the Selenga. The soil is mostly black earth or loam, well adapted for tillage ; but agriculture has not yet been Intro- duced Into this region, and only a few acres, about 100 miles from Klakhta, have been cultivated by Chinese settlers.

The hilly belt of country between Klakhta and Urga is well wooded. But the trees, which chiefly grow on the northern slopes of the hills, are far inferior In size, shape, and variety to the Siberian timber. The prevailing kinds are fir, larch, and \vhlte birch, interspersed with a few cedars, ash, and black birch. The hill-sides are occasionally dotted with sparse clumps of wild peach and acacia, and the

8 ARRIVAL AT URGA.

rich grass supplies abundant food for the cattle of the Mongols all the year round.

Of the animal kingdom we found few varieties in winter. The most common kinds were the grey partridge {Perdix barbatd), hare {Lepus Tolai), and Alpine hare {Lagomys Ogotono) ; wintering larks {Otocoris albigula), and linnets {Fringilla liuota), along the road-side in large flocks. Handsome red- billed jackdaws {Fi^egillus graculus) became more numerous as we approached Urga, where they actu- ally build their nests in the house occupied by our Consul, The natives told us there were numbers of roe in the woods, as \vell as wild swine and bears. In fact, the fauna of this district, as well as its flora, is quite of a Siberian character.

After a Aveek's journey, we arrived at the town of Urga, where луе passed four delightful days with the family of the Russian Consul, J. P. Shishmareff.

The town of Urga, the chief place of Northern Mongolia, is situated on the river Tola, an affluent of the Orkhon, and is well known to all the nomads under the name of Bogdo-Kuren or Ta-Kuren, i.e. sacred encampment; its name of Urga, derived from the word Urgo (palace), was given it by the Russians.

The town is divided into two halves — the Mon- golian and Chinese. The former is called Bogdo- Kuren, and the latter, not quite three miles to the east of it, bears the name of Mai-mai-cheng, i.e. place of trade. In the centre, half-way between the two parts of Urga, well situated on rising ground near

W^b.m

m

гйа

TEMPLE OF MAIDARI. 9

the bank of the Tola, is the two-storied house of the Russian Consul, with its wings and outbuildings.

The population of Urga is estimated at 30,000. The inhabitants of the Chinese town are all Chinese officials or traders. Both these classes are forbidden by law to live with their families, or lead a tho- roughly settled life. But the Chinese generally evade the law by keeping Mongol concubines. The Manchu officials, however, bring their families with them.

The most striking features in the Mongolian town are the temples, Avith their gilt cupolas, and the palace of the Knttikkt^t, or living representative of the Divinity.

The exterior of this palace differs but slightly from the temples, the chief of which in size and architectural pretensions is the shrine of Maidari, the future ruler of the world. ^ This is a lofty, square building, with fiat roof and battlemented walls. The image of Maidari, raised on a pedestal, occupies a central position in the interior ; he is represented in a sitting posture with a beaming expression of face. This image measures 'x,'^^ feet in height, and is said to weigh about 125 tons : it is of gilt brass, manufac- tured at the town of Dolon-nor,'^ and brought in pieces to Urga.

Before the image of Maidari is placed a table

^ Maidari is the Mongol form of the Indian Maitreya, the name of the Buddha that is next to come, the fifth of the World-period in which we live. — Y.

* This town is on the south-east border of Mongolia, and is the chief place for the manufacture of Mongol idols.

lo BRICK-TEA.

covered with votive offerings, amongst which I noticed a common glass stopper. Numbers of other lesser deities (biirkhans) are ranged round the walls, which are also adorned with a variety of pictures of sacred subjects.

Besides the temples and a few Chinese houses, the remaining habitations of the Mongolian town con- sist of felt tents (yurtas) and little Chinese houses, each standing in its own plot of land, surrounded by a lio-ht fence. Some of these small enclosures stand

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in rows, so as to form a kind of street, others are grouped together without any apparent order or regularity. The market square occupies a central position ; here four or five Russian merchants have opened shops and ply a retail trade, and are also engaged in the transport of tea.

The standard of value most current in Urga, as well as throughout Northern Mongolia, is brick-tea, Avhich, for this purpose, is often sawn up into small lumps. The value of goods sold in the market and shops is reckoned by the number of bricks of tea : for instance, a sheep is worth from 12 to 15 bricks; a camel 120 to 150; a Chinese pipe from 2 to 5, and so on. Russian banknotes and silver rubles are accepted in payment by the people of Urga, and usually by all the natives of Northern Mongolia; but Chinese lans are preferred, and brick-tea is by far the most acceptable, especially among the poorer classes. Anyone, therefore, desirous of making pur- chases in the market, must lug about with him a sackful or cartload of heavy tea-bricks.

LAMA ISM AND THE KUTUKHTU. л

The population of the MongoHan part of Urga is chiefly composed of lamas, — i.e. of the clergy. At Bogdo-Kuren they number as many as 10,000. This statement may appear an exaggeration, but if the reader take into consideration the fact that a third of the whole male population of Mongolia belongs to the lama class, he will not doubt its accuracy. There is a large training-school at Urga for boys destined to become lamas ; it is divided into three faculties, viz. Divinity, Medicine, and Astrology.

Urga ranks in the estimation of the Mongols next to Lhassa,^ in Tibet, for sanctity.

In these two towns the principal religious digni- taries of the Buddhist world reside. In Lhassa, the Dalai Lama, Avith his assistant Pan-tsin-Erdeni ; ^ in Urga, the Kutukhtu, or third person in the Tibetan patriarchate.

According to the Lama doctrine these digni- taries are the terrestrial impersonations of the God- head, and never die, but are renewed by death. They believe that after death their souls pass into the bodies of newly-born boys, and thus re-appear to men under fresher and more youthful forms. Search is made in Tibet for the new-born Dalai Lama,

' Lhassa, the capital of Tibet, is called by the Mongols Munhu- tsu Cthe ever sacred).

''■ Pan-tsin-Erdeni does not reside in Lhassa itself, but at the monastery of Chesi-Lumbo [i.e. at the place which is variously called in our maps Teshu-lumbo, Jachi-lunpo, and Shiggatzi, at least 120 miles from Lhassa. It is scarcely correct to call the Panjan Irdeni or Panjan Rimbochi, the personage whom Lieut. Samuel Turner visited as envoy from Warren Hastings in 1783, and whom he calls the Teshoo Lama, the 'assistant ' of the Dalai-Lama. — ^Y.].

12 CHINESE POLICY.

according to the instructions of his predecessor. In the same way the Kiitukhtu of Urga is generally sought for in Tibet, in accordance with the pro- phetic indications of the Dalai Lama. When the newly-born saint is discovered, an immense caravan is sent from Urga to convey him to Bogdo-Kuren ; and a thank-offering for his discovery, amounting to 30,000 lans in money, and sometimes even more, is presented to the Dalai Lama.

During our stay at Urga the throne of the Kutukhtu remained unoccupied, the holy potentate having died a year or two before ; and although his successor had been discovered in Tibet, the Mon- gol embassy could not make their way thither, owing to the Mahomedan (Dungan) insurrection, which had extended to Kan-su, through which lies the road from Urga to Lhassa.

Besides the Kutukhtu of Urga, there are other Kutukhtus or Gigens in other temples in Mongolia and at Peking itself, but they are all inferior in rank to their brother of Bogdo-Kuren, and when they appear before him they must prostrate themselves like other mortals.

The Chinese Government fully appreciates the extraordinary influence which these Gigens and Lamas exercise over the ignorant nomads, and on this account protects the whole religious hierarchy in Mongolia. In this way the power of the Chinese is perpetuated, and the hatred generally entertained by the Mongols for their oppressors somewhat abated. The Gigens, individually and as a class,

DESCRIPTION OF URGA. 13

are, with very few exceptions, of very limited under- standing. Brought up under the watchful guardian- ship of the neighbouring lamas, they have no oppor- tunity of cultivating their intellects even in the ordinary affairs of life, and exist in a little world of their own. The whole education even of the most important among them consists of elementary in- struction in the Tibetan language and the Lamaist books, and even this knowledge is often most super- ficial. Accustomed from infancy to be looked on as living deities, they seriously believe in their own divine origin and renewed birth ^ after death. Their intellectual inferiority ensures the ascendancy of the attendant lamas, who do not scruple to poison clever boys whose lot it has been to belong to this sacred class. Such a fate is said not unfrequently to befall the Kutukhtus of Urga through the connivance of the Chinese Government, which dreads the rivalry of any independent personage at the head of the Mongol hierarchy.

The Kutukhtu of Urga is very wealthy, and besides the offerings of enthusiastic devotees he owns 150,000 slaves, who inhabit the environs of Urga, and other parts of Northern Mongolia. All these slaves are under his immediate authority, and form the so-called Shdbin class.

Outwardly the Mongol part of Urga is dis- gustingly dirty. All the filth is thrown into the streets, and the habits of the people are loathsome.

' The Gigens whom we met during our journey never made use of the expression ' at my death,' but always ' at my renewed birth."

14 DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD.

To add to all this, crowds of starvino- be2f2fars assemble on the market-place ; some of them (mostly poor old women) make it their final resting place. It would be difficult to picture to oneself anything more revolting. The decrepid or crippled hag lies on the ground in the centre of the bazaar with a covering of old pieces of felt thrown to her by way of charity. Here she will remain, too weak to move, covered Avith vermin and filth, imploring alms from the passer-by. In winter the cold winds cover her den with the snowdrift, beneath which she drags out her miserable existence. Her very death is of an awful nature ; eye-witnesses have told us how, when her last moments are approaching, a pack of dogs gather round and wait patiently for their victim to breathe her last, when they devour her corpse, and the vacant den soon finds another such occupant. In the cold winter nights the stronger beggars drag the feeble old women out into the snow, where they

Ml

are frozen to death, crawling themselves into their holes to avoid that fate.

But these sights are not the only ones of the sacred city. More sickening scenes await the tra- veller if he resort to the cemetery, which is situated close to Urga. Here the dead bodies, instead of being interred, are flung to the dogs and birds of prey. An awful impression is produced on the mind by such a place as this, littered with heaps of bones, through which packs of dogs prowl, like ghosts, to seek their daily repast of human flesh.

No sooner is a fresh corpse thrown in than the

GOVERNMENT. 15

dogs tear it to pieces, and in a couple of hours nothing remains of the dead man. The Buddhists consider it a good sign if the body be quickly de- voured ; in the contrary event they believe that the departed led an ungodly life. The dogs are so accustomed to feed in this way that when a corpse is being- carried through the streets of the town to

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the cemetery the relations of the deceased are in- variably followed by dogs, sometimes belonging to his own encampment (yurta).

The government of Urga, together with the two eastern aimaks (khanates) of the Khalkas, or of Northern Mongolia, viz. those of Tushetu-khan, and Tsitseng-khan, is in the hands of two ambans or governors. One of them is always a Manchu sent from Peking, the other, one of the local Mongol princes. The two remaining aimaks of the Khal- kas, those of the Djasaktu-khan and Sain-noin, are under the Tsiang-tsiun (commander-in-chief) of Uliassutai.

Although the Mongol Khans who govern these aimaks are absolute masters in all that concerns the internal affairs of their khanates as sovereign princes, they, nevertheless, own allegiance to their Chinese rulers, who are the jealous guardians of Chinese ascendancy over the nomads.

During our stay at Bogdo-Kuren луе heard ter- rible reports of the Dungans, i.e. the Mahomedan insurgents, who had j'ust plundered Uliassutai, and threatened Urga with a similar fate. Their appre- hensions for this city, which is of such importance in

1 6 DESERT OF GOBI.

the eyes of the nomads, induced the Chinese to march hither 2,000 of their own soldiers, and to assemble 1,000 Mongol troops. But the notorious cowardice of these fighting men afforded a very insufficient safeguard to Urga, and the Russian Government was obliged to send a considerable force (600 infantry and Cossacks, with two guns) to pro- tect the consulate and the tea trade. This detach- ment remained at Urga more than a year, and thanks were due entirely to it if the insurgents re- linquished their attack on Bogdo-Kuren.

At Urga the Siberian character of Northern Mon- golia ceases. On crossing the Tola the traveller leaves behind him the last remaining stream ; and here too, on Mount Khan-ola, considered sacred ever since the Emperor Kang-hi hunted there, ^ he must take his last look at forest scenery. Southwards, as far as the borders of China Proper, lies the same desert of Gobi,^ which extends like an enormous girdle across the plateau of Eastern Asia, from the western spurs of the Kuen-lun to the Khingan moun- tains, which divide Mongolia from Manchuria.

The western part of this desert, especially be- tween the Thian-shan and Kuen-lun, is entirely unexplored even at the present day. The eastern half is best known along the Kiakhta and Kalgan

' It is probable that the sacredness of Khan-ola is due to a more ancient and notable circumstance, viz. that the great Chinghiz-Khan was buried there ; see ' Ouatremere, H. des Mongols,' p. 117 seqq, ; and ' Marco Polo,' bk. i. ch. li. note 3. — Y.

''■ 'J"he word Gobi in Mongol literally means a waterless barren plain almost devoid of grass. The word for stcp])e is Tala.

DESERT OF GOBI. 17

road, which crosses it diagonally. Here the barome- trical levels of Fuss and Bunge in 1832, the journeys of Timkowski, Kowalevsky, and other savants, some of whom have generally accompanied our ecclesiastical missions to China, have enlightened us on the topo- graphy and physical character of this part of Asia. Lastly, the recent journey of the astronomer Fritsche on the Eastern Gobi, and my own observations in its south-eastern, southern, and central parts, have supplied, not merely conjectural but most accurate data concerning the topography, climate, flora, and fauna of the eastern half of the great desert of Central Asia.

The barometrical levellinof of Fuss and BuuQ-e first exploded the theory, till then prevalent among geo- graphers, of the great height (8,000 feet) of the whole Gobi, reducing it to 4,000 feet. Further ob- servations by the same savants proved that in the direction of the Kiakhta-Kalran caravan road the absolute height of the plateau in the middle part sinks to 2,400 feet, or as Fritsche will have it, even to 2,000 feet ; and this depression continues for about sixty-five miles, but does not extend far to the east, as Fritsche's journey showed, nor to the west, as we found on our march from Ala-shan to Urga, through the centre of the desert. It should also be mentioned that the Eastern Gobi is not so thoroughly desert in character as it becomes towards the south and west. Thus, the plains in Ala-shan, and in the vicinity of Lake Lob, are sterile and desolate in the extreme. VOL. I. с

i8 THE GOBI PROPER.

As we have before stated, the Siberian character of the country, with its mountains, forests, and abun- dant supply of water irrigation, ceases near Urga, and from hence southwards nature assumes the true Mongohan aspect. After the first day's journey the traveller finds everything changed.

A boundless steppe, slightly undulating in some parts, in others furrowed with low rocky ridges, fades away in the bluish misty distance of the horizon without any break in its sameness. Here and there may be seen numerous herds and flocks of Mongols grazing, and their encampments frequently stand near the roadside. The road is so good as to be perfectly practicable for a tarantass.

The Gobi Proper has not yet begun, and the belt of steppe we are describing, with its soil of mingled clay and sand, clothed with excellent grass, serves as a prelude to it. This belt extends from Urga to the south-west along the Kalgan road for about 130 miles, and then imperceptibly shades off into the sterile plains of the Gobi Proper.

Even the Gobi is rather undulating than flat, although you sometimes come on tracts of perfectly level plain, extending unbroken for many miles to- gether. These level tracts are particularly frequent in the central part of the plateau, whereas in the north and south there are plenty of low hills either in detached groups or in prolonged ridges, rising only a few hundred feet above the surrounding plains, and for the most part consisting of bare rocks. Their ravines and valleys are all marked by dry water-

ITS VEGETATION AND INHABITANTS. 19

courses, which only contain water after heavy- rains, and even then for not more than a few hours. Along these water courses the inhabitants dig wells to supply themselves with water. No running streams are met with the whole way from the River Tola to the borders of China Proper, i.e. for about 600 miles ; the rains in summer forming temporary lakes in the loamy hollows which soon dry up during the severe heat.

The soil of the Gobi Proper is composed of coarse reddish gravel and small pebbles interspersed with different stones such as occasional agates. Drifts of yellow shifting sand also occur, although of a less formidable character than those in the southern part of the desert.

Vegetation finds no sustenance here, and the Gobi produces even grass but scantily. Completely barren spots are certainly rare along the Kalgan road, but such grass as grows is less than a foot high, and hardly conceals the reddish-grey surface ; only in those places where the gravel is replaced by clay, or in the hollows where the summer moisture is longer retained, a kind of grass called by the Mongols Diri- siLu {Lasiagi'ostis splendtns), grows in clumps four to five feet high, and as tough as wire. Here and there too some solitary little flower finds an asylum, or if the soil is saline the budarhana [Kalidiu??t gracile), the favourite food of camels, may be seen. Every- where else the wild onion, scrub wormwood, and a few other kinds of Compositcc and Gramiiied, are the prevailing vegetation of tlie desert. Of trees and

с -1

20 THE POST ROAD.

bushes there are absolutely none ; indeed, how could there be, in such a region ? Putting out of question the natural impediments to vegetation, the winds of winter and spring blow day after day with such violence that you see even the humble shrubs of wormwood uprooted by them, rolled into bundles, and driven across the barren plain !

The population in the Gobi Proper is far more scanty than in the steppe country which precedes it. Indeed, none but the Mongol and his constant com- panion the camel, could inhabit these regions, desti- tute alike of water and timber, scorched by an almost tropical heat in summer, and chilled in winter to an icy cold.

The barrenness and monotony of the Gobi pro- duce on the traveller a sense of weariness and depression. For weeks together the same objects are constantly before his eyes : cheerless plains, covered in winter with the yellowish withered grass of the preceding year, from time to time broken by dark rocky ridges, or by smooth hills, on the summit of which the swift-footed antelope {Antilope giUtu- rosa) occasionally casts a light shadow. With heavy measured tread the laden camels advance ; tens, hundreds, of miles are passed, but the changeless desert remains sombre and unattractive as ever. . . . The sun sets, the dark canopy of night descends, the cloudless sky glitters with myriads of stars, and the caravan, after proceeding a little further, halts for the night. The camels show unmistakable satisfac- tion at being freed from their burdens, and lie down

RAPACITY OF CROWS. 21

at once near the tents of their drivers, who busy themselves in preparing their unsavoury meal. In another hour men and beasts are asleep, and all around reigns the deathlike silence of the steppe, as though no living creature existed in it. . . , Besides the post road, which is farmed by Mongols, there are other routes across the Gobi from Urga to Kalgan which are usually followed by the caravans. At certain distances ^ along the post road wells are dug and tents pitched which serve as stations, but alonsf the caravan-routes the number and size of the Mongol encampments depend on the quality and quantity of pasturage. These roads, however, are only frequented by the poorer inhabitants, who earn a livelihood from passing caravans either by begging, pasturing camels, or by the sale of dried argols (dung of animals), which is an article of great value both for the domestic use of the nomads and for travellers, as it is the only fuel in the whole Gobi.

Our days dragged on with tedious monotony. Following the central caravan-route we generally started at midday and marched till midnight, averag- ing twenty-seven to thirty-three miles per diem. During the daytime my companion and I generally went on foot a-head of the caravan and shot any birds we saw.

The crows soon came to be looked on as our bitter enemies, on account of their unbearable rapa- city. Soon after we started I noticed some of these

* There are forty-seven post stations between Urga and Kalgan, along a distance of about 660 miles.

22 RAPACITY OF CROWS.

birds pursuing the baggage camels which followed our cart, and after perching on the packs fly away with something in their beaks. On a closer investi- gation, I discovered that they had torn a hole in one of the provision bags, and were purloining our rusks. They would hide their plunder somewhere on one side of the road, and then return again for more. After this discovery, all such thieves were summarily shot ; but others soon appeared in their stead, to share a like fate.

This went on every day till we reached Kalgan. The rapacity of the crows in Mongolia surpasses belief. These birds, so shy with us, are there so impudent as to steal provisions almost out of the tents of the Mongols. Nay, they will actually perch on the backs of the grazing camels, and tear their humps with their beaks. The foolish, timid animal only cries at the top of its voice, and spits at its tormentor, who returns again and again to the back of the camel until it has inflicted a large wound by means of its powerful beak. The Mongols consider it wrong to kill birds, and so they cannot rid them- selves of the crows, which accompany every caravan across the desert. It is impossible to leave any food outside the tent without its being instantly stolen by these audacious birds, who, if they can find nothing better, will tear the undressed hides off the boxes of tea. These crows and the kites in summer were our inveterate foes throughout the expedition. Many a time they robbed us of small skins which we had prepared for our collection, to say nothing

SAND-GROUSE. 23

of the meat they stole ; but many hundreds of them paid the penalty of their lives for their unceremo- nious effrontery.

The only other members of the feathered tribe which we saw in the Gobi were the sand-grouse and Mongol larks. Both these kinds are peculiarly cha- racteristic of Mongolia.

The sand-grouse [Syrrkaptes paradoxus),^ disco- vered and described at the end of the last century by the celebrated Pallas, is distributed over the whole of Central Asia as far as the Caspian Sea, and is occasionally met with as far south as Tibet. This bird, called Boildurtc by the Mongols, and Sadji by the Chinese, only inhabits the desert, where it feeds on the seeds of different grasses (dwarf wormwood, suihh'-, 8lc.), upon which it entirely de- pends for food in winter. In the cold season vast numbers flock together in the desert of Ala-shan, attracted by the seeds of the sidJiir {Agriophylhim Gobicuni), of which they are very fond. In summer some of them appear in Trans- Baikalia, where they breed. Their eggs, three in number, are laid on the bare ground, where the hen bird sits staunchly, although the bird is in ordinary circumstances timid. In winter they are often compelled by the cold and

^ Or Syrrkaptes Pallasii, allied to the Pterodcs to which the name sand-grouse is, I believe, more usually applied, but with some curious peculiarities. This bird, whose proper home is in the steppes of North-Eastern Asia, and which is described by Marco Polo under the name of Barguerlac (Turki Baghirtlak), visited England in con- siderable numbers between 1859 and 1863, but has not since, I be- lieve, renewed its immigration, so far from its natural habitat (see Marco Polo, 2nd ed., i. 265, and the references there). — Y.

24 THL MONGOL LARK.

snowstorms to take refuge in the plains of Northern China, where they may be seen in large packs ; but as soon as the weather moderates they return to their native deserts. Their flight is remarkably rapid, and when in large numbers the whirring sound made by their wings is heard a long way, resembling the noise of an approaching storm. ^ They are very awkward runners on the ground, probably owing to the peculiar formation of their feet, the toes almost growing together, and the sole being covered with a horny substance like the hoof of a camel.

After their morning meal, the sand-grouse always resort to some spring, well, or salt-lake to drink. Here they will not alight till they have first de- scribed two circles in the air to assure themselves of safety, and after hurriedly satisfying their thirst they fly off again. They will sometimes fly long distances to the water.

The Mongol lark {^Mcla^iocorypha Mongolica) is only met with occasionally on the desert tract ; its habitat is in the grassy portions of the Gobi, and there in winter it is found by hundreds and thou- sands. Those we saw were mostly in the Southern Gobi ; they are also not uncommon in China, at all events during winter.

The Mongol lark is the best songster of the Central Asian desert. In his music he rivals his European congener. He has also a remarkable

' Marco Polo's recollection of this characteristic is condensed into the words ' moult volant.^ — Y.

THE MONGOL LARK. 25

power of imitating the notes of other birds, intro- ducing them into his own melody. Like our lark, he sings as he soars up to the sky, or when perched on a stone or stump of a tree. The Chinese call him bai-ling, and delight in his song, often keeping him as a cage-bird.

Like the sand-grouse, the Mongol lark visits the north, and breeds in Trans-Baikalia, although it pre- fers remaining in Mongolia, where it makes its nest on the ground like the European species, depositing three or four eggs in a little hole. In the desert of Mongolia, where the cold weather lasts all the spring, these larks form their nests late in the year, and we found their fresh-laid eggs in the beginning, and even the end, of June. Wintering in those parts of the Gobi where little, if any, snow falls, they with- stand the severest cold (as much as -34° Fahr.),^ find- ing shelter in the tufts of dirisitn, the small seeds of which are at this season their chief food. This, and similar observations we have made, lead to the opi- nion that many of the feathered tribe are driven southwards in winter by want of food, and not by cold.

The Mongol lark is found as far south as the northern bend of the Yellow River, and then avoid- ing Ordos, Ala-shan, and the mountains of Kan-su, it re-appears in the steppe near Lake Koko-nor. Two other kinds of larks also winter in the Gobi in very large numbers (Otocoris albjgtcla, Alatida pis- poldta), and the Lapland ortolan {Plectrophanes Lap-

' Л lower temperature even than this was recorded at Urga.

2б THE ALPINE HARE.

ponied) ; the latter, however, is mostly seen in the country of the Chakhars, i.e. on the south-eastern border of the Gobi.

Of mammalia peculiar to this desert only two characteristic kinds can be mentioned : the Alpine hare and antelope.

The Alpine hare (Lagomys Ogotono), or, as the Mongols call it, the Ogolono, belongs to the order of rodents, and is from the form of its teeth regarded as closely allied to the hare. It is about the size of the common rat and burrows in the earth, invariably choosing for its habitat the grass steppes, particularly where the ground is uneven, and the valleys in the mountains of Trans-Baikalia and the north of Mon- golia. It is never found in the barren desert, and, therefore, does not inhabit the central and southern Gobi.i

The ogotono is a curious little animal of a sociable disposition, and where one of its burrows is found some tens, hundreds, or even thousands more will invariably be near it. In winter, when the cold is intense, they never leave their holes,^ but as soon as the temperature becomes warmer they come out and sit at the entrance sunning themselves, or scamper from one burrow to another. The poor ogotono has so many enemies that it must be con- stantly on the look-out for danger. It will some- times only venture half-way out of its hole, raising

'^ The ogotono is very numerous in the grass plains of South- eastern Mongolia.

^ These little animals arc never dormant in winter.

THE ALPINE HARE. 27

its head to assure itself of the absence of danger. Steppe-foxes, wolves, but especially buzzards, hawks, kites, and even eagles, daily destroy countless num- bers of these little animals. The skill with which the winged assailants seize their prey is remarkable. I have often seen a buzzard descend so rapidly on its victim as not to give it time to retreat into its burrow, and an eagle on one such occasion swooped down from a height of at least 200 feet. The buzzard {Bitteo ferox) feeds entirely on the ogotono ; but such is the rapidity with which they breed that this wholesale destruction is probably the only way of checking their excessive increase. Curiosity is a distinctive trait of this animal ; it will allow a man or dog to approach within ten paces of it, then sud- denly disappear in its hole ; but, in a few minutes its head may be seen at the entrance, and, if the object of its fears has removed a little further away, it will venture out and resume its former position. Another of its habits, peculiar also to other kinds of this tribe, is to lay in a store of hay for winter use, stacking it at the entrance of its home. The hay is collected towards the end of summer, carefully dried and made into little stacks weighing from four to five or even ten pounds. This serves for its couch underground and for food during the winter ; but very often the labour is in vain and cattle devour its store. In such case the unfortunate little creature is reduced to feed on the withered grass which grows near its burrow.

The ogotono can exist a long time without water. In winter it can quench its thirst with snow, and in

28 STEPPE ANTELOPE.

summer with rain, or if there be no rainfall, with dew, which, however, is rare ; but the question is what does it find to drink in spring and autumn, when for months together no rain or snow falls on the plateau and the atmosphere is excessively dry ?

This little animal is found as far south as the northern bend of the Hoang-ho, beyond which it is replaced by other kinds.

The dzeren {Antilope giitturosa) is a species of antelope, about the size of the common goat, cha- racteristic of the Gobi desert, especially of its eastern or less barren part. It is also met with in Western Mongolia, ^ and in the environs of Lake Koko-nor, which is the southern limit of its distribution.

These antelopes are gregarious, their herds some- times numbering several hundred or even thousand head in those parts where food is plentiful, but they are most frequently seen in smaller numbers of fifteen to thirty or forty head ; although they avoid the neighbourhood of man, they always select the best pasturage of the desert, and, like the Mon- gols, migrate from place to place in search of food, sometimes travelling great distances, especially in summer, when the drought drives them to the rich pasture lands of Northern Mongolia, and as far as the confines of Trans- Baikalia. The deep snows of winter often compel them to travel several hundred miles in search of places almost or entirely free from snow. They belong exclusively to the plains, and

' There arc no dzerens in Ala-shan on account of the utterly desert and barren character of that country.

ANTELOPE-SHOOTING. 29

carefully avoid the hilly country, but sometimes appear in the undulating parts of the steppe, par- ticularly in spring, attracted by the young grass, which shoots up under the influence of the sun's warmth. They shun thickets and high grass, ex- cepting at the time of parturition, which is in May, when the doe seeks the covert to conceal her new- born offspring. But a few days after their birth the fawns follow their mothers about everywhere, and soon rival the fleet-footedness of their sires. They very seldom utter any sound, though the males oc- casionally give a short loud bleat. Nature has en- dowed them with excellent sight, hearing, and smell ; their swiftness is marvellous, and their intelligence well developed, qualities which prevent their falling so easy a prey, as they otherwise would, to their enemies — man and the wolf.

Antelope-shooting is a difficult business, both be- cause the animal is so shy, and because even when hit mortally it will often get away. In the open steppe a man cannot approach within 500 paces of them, and if they are once startled you may say twice that distance. Their careful avoidance of any cover makes it next to impossible to stalk them in the open plain. It is only in those parts of the steppe that abound in hillocks that a man can get within 300 yards, or sometimes, but rarely, within 200 yards, and even then he cannot be certain of his quarry. Granted that at 200 yards, with a good rifle, you are sure of your aim, on the other hand, your bullet does not kill unless it chance to hit the

Зо MODES OF HUNTING ANTELOPE.

head, heart, or lungs. In any other case the dzeren escapes, although perhaps mortally wounded, and is often lost to the hunter, for it runs faster with a broken leg than a good horse can gallop. For this sport you must have a rifle with a long point-blank range, because it is almost impossible to judge dis- tances accurately in the steppe. You must have a rest for your rifle, such as the native sportsmen of Siberia use, otherwise you will be apt to find that, after having walked quickly for a considerable dis- tance, your hand is shaky just when you want to take your aim ! In fact on entering the deserts of Asia the sportsman must lay aside his European experiences and learn a great deal from the native hunters.

The Mongols, armed with their poor matchlocks, hunt the dzerens in the following way. In those parts of the steppe where antelope abound they dig small pits at certain distances apart. These holes at first excite mistrust, so the animals are left alone for some weeks to get used to them. The hunters then repair to their allotted stations, and conceal them- selves in the pits, while others make a wide circuit to windward driving the herd towards the am- bush, and no gun is fired till they are within a distance of fifty paces or even less. The drivers must know their business and be thoroughly familiar Avith the habits of the animal, otherwise their labour will be lost. They must never gallop suddenly up to the herd, because if they do the antelope almost always escape. The usual plan is to make a circuit

FIRST SIGHT OF ANTELOPE. 31

round the herd, slowly narrowing the circle with repeated halts, or else to ride on one flank at a foot's pace, gradually edging the herd towards the ambush.

The natives have another mode of hunting dzerens. A Mongol, mounted on a quiet and well- trained camel, rides over the steppe. On seeing antelope he dismounts, and leading his camel by the bridle quietly approaches the herd, concealing him- self as much as possible by keeping step with the camel. At first the antelope are startled, but seeing only a camel quietly browsing, they allow the hunter to approach within a hundred paces, or even nearer. Towards the end of summer the dzerens are very fat, and are eagerly hunted by the Mongols for the sake of their delicate flesh, and also for their skins, which are made into winter clothing. The nomads, how- ever, rarely wear the skins themselves, but sell them to Russian merchants at Urga or Kiakhta. Dzerens are also snared in traps made in the shape of a shoe, of tough grass {dirisiLu). When caught by the leg in one of these, the animal lames itself in its struof- gles to get free, and is unable to move.

The dzeren have even a more deadly enemy than man in the wolves. Whole herds, according to Mongol description, meet their death from these. And they are also subject at certain periods to epi- demics, which, as I myself witnessed in the winter of 1871, commit great ravages among them.

It was on our way to Kalgan, some 230 miles from Urga, that we first saw the dzeren. I need not dwell on the impression produced by the first sight

32 CHAKHAR MONGOLS AND THEIR COUNTRY.

of a herd of these antelope on myself and com- panion. We went after them day after day, to the extreme dissatisfaction of our Mongols, who had to wait hours for us, and at length became so discon- tented that we could only appease them by giving them a share of the spoil.

Notwithstanding the barrenness and desolate appearance of the Gobi, the road to Kalgan was kept amply alive by the tea-caravans which passed us by the dozen daily. I will presently describe one of these caravans, but now let us go back to the plateau of Mongolia.

After leaving the Khalka country, we passed through the land of the Sunni Mongols, and left behind the most barren part of the Gobi, entering a more fertile belt, which forms a fringe on the south-east, as a like belt does on the north, to the wild and barren centre of the plateau. The surface of the country now becomes more uneven, and is, covered with excellent grass, on which the Chakhar Mongols pasture their numerous herds. These people are the frontier police of China Proper, hav- ing been enrolled in the government service, and divided into eight banners. Their country is about 130 miles in width, but its length from east to west is nearly three times as much.

Owing to their constant intercourse with the Chinese, the Chakhars of the present day have lost not only the character, but also the type, of pure Monq-ols. Prescrvino- the native idleness of their past existence, they have adopted from tlie Chinese

CHAKHAR MONGOLS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 33

only the worst features of their character, and are degenerate mongrels, without either the honesty of the Mongol or the industry of the Chinaman. The dress of the Chakhars is the same as that worn by the Chinese, whom they resemble in features, having generally a drawn or angular, rather than a flat or round face. This change of type is produced by frequent intermarriages between the Chakhar men and Chinese women ; the offspring of this union of race is called Erlidzi. Other Mongols, particularly the Khalkas, detest them as much as they do the Chinese, and our drivers always kept watch at night while travelling through this country, because they said that all its inhabitants луеге the greatest thieves.

The Chakhar country is badly Avatered, but a few lakes may now and again be seen, the largest of which is Lake Anguli-nor. It is only when you get near the border of the plateau, and after you have passed some small streams, that the first signs of cultivation and settled life appear. The Chinese villages and cultivated fields plainly tell the traveller that he has at last left the wild desert behind him, and has entered a country more congenial to man.

At length, far away on the horizon, can be dis- cerned the dim outlines of that range which forms so distinct a definition between the high chilly pla- teau of Mongolia and the warm plains of China Proper. This range is thoroughly Alpine. Steep li ill-sides, deep valleys, lofty precipices, sharp peaks often crowned with overhanging rocks and an ap-

VOL. J, D

34 BORDER OF MONGOLIAN PLATEAU- k'ALC AN.

pearance of savage grandeur, are the chief charac- teristics of the mountains, alon^ the axis of which is carried the Great Wall Like many other ranges of Inner Asia, which have a lofty plateau on one side and low plains on the other, this presents no ascent from the side of the plateau. To the very last the traveller makes his way through undulating hills, until a marvellous panorama is suddenly dis- closed to his view. Beneath his feet are rows upon rows of lofty mountains, precipices, chasms, and ravines, intermingled in the wildest confusion ; beyond lie thickly populated valleys, through which glide winding rivers. The contrast between that which has been passed and that which lies before is wonderful. The change of climate is not less remarkable. Hitherto, durino- the whole of our march, frosts were of daily occurrence, sometimes exceeding —34° Fahr., and always accompanied by strong north-west winds without snow. Now, as we descended, the temperature grew warmer at every step, and on arriving at Kalgan the weather was spring-like, although it was yet early in January ; so marked was the change in a distance of about seventeen miles, separating this town from the com- mencement of the descent. The high land has a height of some 5,400 feet, whereas the town of Kal- gan, at the entrance to the plains, is only 2,800 feet above the level of the sea.^

This town, called by the Chinese Chang-kia- kau, commands the pass through the Great Wall,

' Kalgan is derived from the Mongol word Kha/i^ui, i.e. a barrier.

KALGAN. 35

and is an in^portant place for the Chinese trade with Mongoha.^ Kalgan numbers 70,000 inhabitants, who are entirely Chinese, but include a great many Mahomedans, known throughout China by the name of Hzuei Hwei. Two Protestant missionaries, and several Russian merchants enoraored in the tea-car- rying trade, reside here. Notwithstanding the in- creased importation of tea by sea, and the consequent diminution of the land transport, 200,000 chests are still annually sent from Kalgan to Urga and Kiakhta, each weia"hins;- 108 lbs. This tea is brouo;ht to Kal- gan from the plantations near Hankau," partly by land and partly by steamers, to Tien-tsin ; one-half is then delivered to Russian merchants for further transport, and the remainder is forwarded to Kiakhta or Urga^ by the Chinese themselves. The Mon- ^^ols are the carriers, and earn large sums from this business, which only lasts during the autumn, winter, and early spring (up to April). In summer all the camels are turned out to grass on the steppe, where they shed their coats and recruit their strength for fresh work.

The caravans of tea form a very characteristic feature in Eastern Mongolia. In early autumn, i.e. towards the middle of September, long strings of camels may be. seen converging on Kalgan from all quarters, saddled, and ready to carry a burden of

1 Russian cloth, plush and furs are also sent hither.

"^ This town is on the lower Yangtszc-Kiang, or Blue River ; in it are the establishments of the Russians and other Europeans engaged in the tea-trade.

^ Some of the tea is left here for the consumption of the Mongols.

D 2

Зб TEA-CARA VANS.

four chests of tea (a little under 4 cwts.) on their backs across the desert. This is the usual load of a Mongol camel, but the stronger ones bear an addi- tional fifth chest. The Mongols contract to carry tea either direct to Kiakhta or only to Urga, beyond which place the mountains and frequent deep snows are formidable obstacles to the progress of camels. The tea is only transported in this manner as far as Urga ; it is conveyed the rest of the way in two- wheeled bullock-carts.

The average cost of the transport of one chest from Kalgan to Kiakhta is equivalent to three lans (or taels) ; each camel can therefore earti twelve lans (or about 3/. los.). The caravan generally accom- plishes two journeys from Kalgan to Kiakhta during the winter, the owner earning about 7/. by each of his animals. Two drivers are usually placed in charge of twenty-five camels and their loads ; the cost of transport is therefore very small, and the contractor realises a large profit, after deducting for losses by the death of camels from fatigue and starvation. The caravan camels are often rendered unfit for service by sore feet, lameness, or galled backs, occasioned by careless loading. If the lame- ness be caused by worn-out hoofs, the Mongols bind the animal, throw him on the ground, and sew a piece of leather over the injured hoof, which answers the purpose of a sole, and generally effects a cure ; a sore-backed camel is unfit for further use that season, and is let loose on the steppe to recover. Taking into account the percentage of lost and damaged

CHINESE IMPOSITIONS ON MONGOLS. n

camels, the owner of some dozens of these animals may gain a large profit ; but many carriers have several hundred camels, and of course their earnings are proportionately greater. One would suppose that the Mongols would grow rich in this way, but in fact it is otherwise, — hardly one of them taking home a few hundred rubles, and almost all the money passes into the hands of the Chinese.

The latter impose upon the simple-minded Mon- gols in the most scandalous way. On the arrival of the autumn caravans, the Chinese ride out to meet them, and invite the owners to stay with them. Lodgings are given gratis, and every attention is shown. The unkempt Mongol, to whom the Chinese at any other time does not deign to speak, now lounges on the couches of his host, the rich merchant, who generally waits upon his guest in person, and anticipates his slightest wish. The Mongol accepts all this hospitality as genuine, and authorises his host to settle accounts for him with the merchant whose tea he contracts to carry. This is exactly what is required by the Chinaman. On receiving the money, always paid in advance, he swindles his client in the most unconscionable way, and then offers him first one and then another article, charging double price for all. Part of the money is then kept back for taxation and fees to officials, and more is expended on entertainment, until the Mongol takes his departure from Kalgan with a mere fraction left of his large earnings. Some of this, too, he is compelled to devote to religious uses,

425077

38 THE GREAT WALE

SO that he returns home in spring nearly empty- handed.^

The land transport is so expensive that the price of brick-tea, which is exclusively consumed by the Mongols and inhabitants of Siberia, is increased by three times the cost of its production. A caravan takes from thirty to forty days on the road from Kalgan to Kiakhta, according to agreement with the contractor.

The tea chests are first covered with thick woollen cloths, wdiich are afterwards stripped off, and the boxes sewn up in undressed hides, and des- patched to European Russia, on carts or on sledges, according to the season of the year. Kalgan, as we have said, commands one of the passes through the Great Wall, which we beheld for the first time. It is built of large stones, cemented together with mortar. The wall itself is tapering, 21 feet high, and about 28 feet wide at the foundation. At the most important points, less than a mile apart, square towers are erected, built of bricks laid in mortar, as headers and stretchers. The size of the towers varies considerably, the largest measuring 42 feet on each side at the base, and the same in height.

The wall winds over the crest of the dividing range, crossing the valleys at right angles, and block- ing them with fortifications. At such places alone could this barrier be of any advantage for defensive

^ See in Hue a clever description of the way in which the Mongol is swindled. Hue's ' Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet, et la Chine,' vol. i. 173.— Y.-

THE GREAT WALL. .39

purposes. The mountains, inaccessible by nature, are nevertheless crowned by a wall as formidable as that which bars the valleys.

What could have been the object of this gigantic work ? How many millions of human hands must have laboured at it ! What a vain expenditure of national strength ! History records that this wall Avas built, upwards of two centuries before the birth of Christ, by the Chinese sovereigns, to protect their empire from the inroads of the neighbouring nomads ; but we also read that the periodical irruptions of the barbarians were never checked by this artificial barrier, behind which China ever lacked, and even now lacks, that sure defence of a nation — moral strength.

The Great Wall, however, which the Chinese estimate to be about 3,300 miles long, and which is continued on one side into the heart of Manchuria, and on the other a long way beyond the upper course of the Yellow River, is very inferior in those parts more remote from Peking. Here it was built under the eyes of the Emperor and his chief officers of state, and is therefore a gigantic work ; but in those distant localities, far removed from the super- vision of the superior government, the celebrated Great Wall, which Europeans are wont to regard as a characteristic feature of China, is nothing but a dilapidated mud rampart, 21 feet high. The mis- sionaries Hue and Gabet mention this fact ^ in the

' See Hue's ' Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie,' &с. Paris, 1850, vol. ii. p. 28.

4® COMPRADORS, AND THEIR DIALECT.

description of their journey through MongoHa and Tibet ; and we ourselves, in 1872, saw a wall of this kind on the borders of Ala-shan and Kan-su.

We passed five days at Kalgan, where we met with the greatest kindness from M. Matrenitsky and some others of our countrymen, who, in their mer- cantile capacity, manage the tea-carrying trade for the Russian firms at Hankau. Their residences are outside the town of Kalgan, near the entrance of the beautiful valley by which we descended : a situation which has the advantage of escaping the dirt and smells, — those inseparable adj'uncts of every town in the Celestial Empire.

Like other foreigners in China, the Russians at Kalgan transact business through the medium of compradors, i.e. Chinese who are entrusted to con- duct negotiations with their countrymen ; but some of the Kalcran merchants know enouo^h Chinese to do business for themselves, and others are brought into direct intercourse with the Mongol carriers. At Tien-tsin, however, and all the other ports of China open to Europeans, every mercantile house must have its compradors. They transact all the business, and rob their employers so outrageously that in a few years a comprador is generally able to set up a business establishment of his own.

The compradors living with foreigners learn to speak the language of their master, whatever may be his nationality. The Russian language is less easily acquired than any other, on account of the difficulty of pronouncing the words and mastering

' PIGE ON-R и SSI Л N: 41

the construction of the sentences. ' Quickly thy viastcr s /loots,' once said a comprador at Kalgan to me on seeing me shoot rock-pigeons on the wing. ' Thy food zuill not zuillf enquired the same indivi- dual, offering me at the same time something to eat. We met several such grammarians at Urga. One of them had the reputation of having formerly manu- factured false Russian bank-notes, which he circu- lated among the Mongols. On asking him if he still continued this occupation, he replied : ' Ноги is that possible now thy paper bad is? write write — (i.e. the text on the bank-note) — -fczu few onr people do can, biit the face (i.e. the portrait) very wonderful is.' The Mongols, however, are not particular about the artistic merit of the bank-note ; and we saw several false notes at Urga, the portraits on which were simply drawn by hand.

Another comprador thus expressed his opinion to me of foreigners residing in China : ' Thy people same as Pehling-Fanqui ^ not ; thy people our people odali ^ good ; Pehling-Fanqui bad are.' I could not help being flattered at hearing such praise from a Chinaman, who thus assured me ' that луе were not at all like the French and English, but the same as the Chinese who good are.'

However, this opinion, which may have been only that of the individual, does not free the Russian from the general hatred which the Chinese entertain

* Pehling is the Chinese for Englishmen j Fanqui for Frenchmen. "^ Odali means 'same as' in the dialect of Trans- Baikalia,

42 ROAD TO PEKING.

for all Europeans, and from the nickname applied to all of us of Yang-kzuei-tsz, i.e. ' foreign devil.'

The European will hear himself called by no other name ; and on our first entrance into China Proper we experienced all the miseries which await the traveller from the West within the limits of the Celestial Empire. But of this later. I will now continue my narrative.

With the assistance of our countrymen at Kalgan we hired two riding-horses for the journey to Peking, and some mules for the baggage. Europeans usually travel in litters carried between two mules, but we preferred riding, because we could see the country better in this way than in closed litters.

The distance from Kalgan to Peking is about 140 miles, usually performed in four days. Several halts are made on the road at inns, most of which are kept by Mahomedan emigrants from Eastern Turkestan. Good inns are very difficult of access for the European, who is shown into mean caravan- serais, where he is charged double, triple, and even ten times the usual price. But after sitting for six or seven consecutive hours in the saddle, chilled with the night air, one is glad of any shelter. In spite of the well-known liberality of Europeans, such is the hatred to the ' foreign devils ' that we were sometimes refused a night's lodging, notwithstanding the intervention of our Chinese mule-drivers. This befell us at the town of Sha-chang, where we were obliged to ride for an hour from one inn to another, offering ten times the usual charge, before obtaining shelter in a dirty, cold room.

CHINESE INNS AND CUISINE. 43

Our Ignorance of the language was another great hindrance to us, especially at the stations where we Avanted something to eat. Fortunately, I had writ- ten down at Kalgan the names of some Chinese dishes which served as our memL to Pekino-. I do

О

not know how others may like the taste of Chinese cookery, with its flavour of sesamum oil and garlic ; but, as for us, the messes in the Inns were simply disgusting — the more so because we saw haunches of asses' meat In the butchers' shops, and always had well-grounded suspicions that we were fed on the same. The Chinese themselves show no repug- nance to any kind of nastiness, and will even eat dogs' flesh. On our second visit to Kalgan we saw some Chinese butchers buy a camel suffering from the mange so badly that its whole body was one mass of sores, and then and there cut it up and sell the meat. Any animal that has died Is eaten, as a matter of course, and the asses sold In the meat shops have never come by their death in a violent manner, for such is the meanness of this people that they will never willingly kill a beast of burden for the sake of its meat, If It has any work left in it. The reader can now form an idea of the relish with which Europeans, fully aware of the coarse gastro- nomical tastes of their hosts, partake of the dishes served In Chinese Inns.

On leaving Kalgan, and turning his back on the border range, a wide, thickly-populated, and highly cultivated plain lies before the traveller. The cleanly appearance of the villages affords a striking contrast to the towns. The road is very animated ;

44 DESCENT INTO GREAT PLAIN OF CHINA.

— Strings of asses laden with coal, mule-carts, litter- bearers, and scavengers pass along. In all the vil- lages and towns full-grown men may be seen all day long on the roads, with a basket in one hand and a spade in the other, collecting animal dung, which is used for manuring the fields and for fuel.

Twenty miles from Kalgan, on the edge of the plain, stands the large town of Siuen-hwa-fu, sur- rounded, like all the Chinese towns, with a battle- mented mud wall, like the Kitai-gorod at Moscow. After leaving it, the road enters the mountains, fol- lowing a gorge through which flows the rapid and wide stream of the Yang-ho. In the narrower and more intricate parts of the defile the road is hewn out of the rocks, and it is altogether well adapted for wheeled conveyances. After passing the town of Tsi-ming, we again enter a plain, about nine miles wide, extending towards the v/est between two chains of mountains, one of which we have just crossed ; the other, higher and far grander, forms the outer bar- rier of the second descent by which the table-land of Eastern Asia subsides into the plain which extends eastward to the Yellow Sea.

The elevation of the country between Kalgan and Chadau, which stands at the entrance to the last range of mountains, is very even, and the jour- ney is continued over high land.^ At Chadau the descent of the second range, called Si-shan by the Chinese, begins. Like the Kalgan mountains, this

' Kalj^an is 2,800 feet, Chadau (Chatow or Chatao of our maps) i,6oo feet, above the sea.

PASS OF GIVAN-KAU. 45

range is only developed fully on the further side, i.e. towards the plain at its base.

The road follows the pass of Gwan-kau the whole way from Chadau as far as the town of Nan- kau, situated at the egress from the mountains. The pass is only 70 to 80 feet wide at first, and is shut in by stupendous rocks of granite, porphyry, grey marble, and silicious slate. The road was once paved with stone-flags, but is now completely out of repair, and almost impassable for equestrians, although the Chinese drive their two-wheeled carts over it, as well as caravans of camels, laden with tea.

Along the crest of this range is built the second, so-called inner, Great Wall, far greater and more massively built than that of Kalgan. It is composed of great slabs of granite, with brick battlements on the summit ; the loftiest points are crowned with watch-towers. Beyond it are three other walls, about two miles apart, all probably connected \vith the main barrier. These walls block the pass of Gwan-kau with double gates, but the last of all in the direction of Peking has triple gates. Here may be noticed two old cannon, said to have been cast for the Chinese by the Jesuits,

Immediately after passing through, the defile Avidens, although its wild, weird appearance con- tinues for some distance further. Mountain torrents and cascades rush noisily down the rocks, and at the foot of overhanging cliffs Chinese houses appear everywhere, with their vine}'ards and small orchards of fruit-trees. At len^rth the traveller arrives at the

4б ARRIVAL AT РЕК IXC.

town of Nan-kail, i,ooo feet below Chadau, from which it is only fifteen miles distant.

Thus the entire width of the border of the pla- teau, from the summit of the descent above Kalgan to the entrance into the plain of Peking at Nan-kau, is about 130 miles. Towards the west it probably widens, dividing into a number of parallel chains, abuttmg on the northern bend of the Hoang-ho, while to the east the distinct ranges unite in one broad belt of mountains, which continues to the Gulf of Pechihli in the Yellow Sea.

Peking^ is only one day's journey, i.e. about 35 miles, from Nan-kau. The country is a plain, hardly above the sea level, wdth an alluvial soil, con- sisting of clay and sand, highly cultivated in all parts. The frequent villages, groves of cypress, tree-j'uniper, pine, poplar, and other trees marking the burial- places, lend variety and beauty to the landscape. The climate is warm ; at a season when in Russia severe frosts are prevalent, the thermometer here at noon rises many degrees above freezing point in the shade. Snow is rare ; if it fall occasionally at night, it generally thaws the next day. Wintering birds abound, and we saw thrushes, mountain finches, greenfinches, bustard, rooks, kites, pigeons, and wild ducks.

Nearer to Peking the population is so dense that villages grow into towns, through which the tra- veller is unconsciously approaching the wall of the city, until at last he finds himself to have entered tlie far-famed capital of the East.

' Pckincj is onlv 120 feet above the sea level.

NORTHERN OR KHALKA MONGOLS. 47

CHAPTER 11.

THE MONGOLS.

The Mongols — Physical characteristics — Modification of character on the Chinese border — Pigtail introduced — Costume — The Yuria or Felt Tent — Uncleanliness — Tea-drinking — Food and beverages — Gluttony — Animal food — Cattle — Importance of their herds — Indo- lent habits — Physical capabilities and defects— Cowardice — Saga- city and obtuseness — Curiosity — Points of the compass — Estimation of distance — Calendar and Year-Cycle — Language and diversities — Literature— Love of gossip — Songs — iMongol women — Marriage customs and domestic relations — Hospitality and polite customs — Freedom of manners — Lamaism — Religious service ' Cm mani padmi hom' — The Dalai Lama — Pilgrimages — The Clergy — Mo- nasticism — Superstitions — Masses for the dead — The Authors view of Missions — Administrative organisation of the Mongol tribes — Grades of rank among chiefs, and their salaries — Population — Laws, punishment, and taxation — Military force — ^Decay of martial spirit.

The present chapter is specially devoted to the Eth- nology of Mongolia, in order that in continuing the narrative of our journey, anecdotes relating to the in- habitants may be mentioned incidentally and not dwelt on in detail. In describing the physical geo- graphy and nature of the country we visited, and the various episodes of our wanderings, the most notice- able traits of its inhabitants might have been scat- tered here and there through the volume, and thus have escaped the attention of the reader. To avoid this, I resolved to devote an entire chapter to a descrip- tion of the people of Mongolia and the peculiar cha- racteristics of their nomad life, merely making casual

48 MONGOLS ON THE CHINESE BORDER.

mention of them afterwards. Let us begin with their external appearance, taking as our model the inhabitants of the Khalkas country, where the purity of the Mongol race is best preserved.

A broad flat face, with high cheek-bones, wide nostrils, small narrow eyes, large prominent ears, coarse black hair, scanty whiskers and beard, a dark sunburnt complexion, and, lastly, a stout thick-set figure, rather above the average height : such are the distinguishing features of this race. In other parts of Mongolia, but especially on the south-east, where for some distance it borders with China Proper, the original type is much less distinct ; and, although the nomads reconcile themselves with difficulty to a settled life, still in some way their neighbours have exercised such influence over them that in those dis- tricts lying immediately outside the Great Wall they have almost become Chinese. With few excep- tions, the Chinese Mongol still dwells in his yurta or felt tent, tending his herds ; but in appearance and still more in character he is a decided contrast to his northern brethren, and bears a close resemblance to his adopted countrymen He follows their fashions in his dress and domestic habits ; and, owing to frequent intermarriages with their women, his coarse flat fea- tures are cast in the more recrular mould of the

О

Chinese face. His very character has unciergone a remarkable change ; the desert has become distaste- ful to him, and he prefers the populous towns of China, where he has learnt the advantages and plea- sures of a more civilised existence. But, in thus gradualh' dej)arting from liis former life, the Chinese

I

COSTUME OF BOTH SEXES. 49

Mongol adopts only the worst qualities of his neigh- bour, retaining his own inherent vices, until he has become a degenerate mongrel, demoralised, instead of rising to a higher social grade, under Chinese in- fluence.

The Mongols, like the Chinese, shave the head, only leaving sufficient hair on the crown to plait into a long tail behind, whilst the heads of their lamas are left entirely bare.^ Whiskers and beard, naturally of scanty growth, are worn by none.

The pigtail was introduced into China by the Manchus, after their conquest of the Celestial Empire about the middle of the seventeenth century. Since then it has been considered an external mark of sub- mission to the reigning (Ta-tsin) dynasty, and all Chinese subjects are compelled to wear it.

The Mongol women allow the hair to grow, and plait it in two braids, decorated with ribbons, strings of coral, or glass beads, which hang down on either side of the bosom. Silver brooches, set with red coral, which is highly esteemed in Mongolia, are fas- tened in the hair. The poorer women substitute common beads for coral, but the brooches, which are secured above the forehead, are generally of silver, or as a rare exception, of brass. Large silver ear- rings and bracelets are also customary.

The dress of the Mongols consists of a kaftan or 1оп2: robe made of blue daba,'"^ Chinese boots, and

' They use Chinese knives in shaving, and soften the hair with warm water.

* Chinese cotton stuff,

VOL. I. E

50 THE YURTA OR FELT TENT.

a wide hat turned up at the brim. Shirts or under- clothing of any kind are unusual ; warm trousers, sheepskin cloaks, and fur caps are worn in winter. In summer the dress, consisting of Chinese silk, is sometimes more elaborate ; the robe or fur cloak is always fastened round the waist with a belt, to which are attached those invariable appendages of every Mongol, a tobacco pouch, pipe, and tinder-box. Besides these, the Khalka people carry a snuff-box, which they offer on first meeting an acquaintance. But the pride of the Mongol lies in the trappings of his horse, which are thickly set with silver.

The dress of the women differs from that of the men ; their upper garment is a short sleeveless jacket without a belt. The dress, however, of the fair sex, and style of wearing the hair, varies in different parts of Mongolia.

The universal habitation of the Mongol is the felt tent or yurta, which is of one shape throughout the country. It is round, with a convex roof, through an opening in which smoke escapes and light is ad- mitted. The sides are of wooden laths, ^ fastened together in such a way that, when extended, they re- semble a lattice with meshes a foot square. This frame-work is in several lengths, which, when the yurta is pitched, are secured with rope, leaving room on one side for a wooden door three feet high, and about the same in width. The size of these dwellings varies, but the usual dimensions are from 1 2 to 15 feet

* The wood required for yurtas is mostly broug^lit from the Khalka country, which abounds in forests.

UNCL EA N LIN ESS. 5 1

in diameter, and about 10 feet high in the centre. The roof is formed of Hght poles attached to the sides and doorway by loops, the other ends being stuck into a hoop, \vhich is raised over the centre, leaving an aperture 3 to 4 feet in diameter, which answers the double purpose of chimney and window.

When all is made fast, sheets of felt, of double thickness in winter, are drawn over the sides and door and round the chimney, and the habitation is ready. The hearth stands in the centre of the inte- rior ; facing the entrance are ranged the burkhans (gods), and on either side are the various domestic utensils. Round the hearth, where a fire is kept burning all day, felt is laid down ; and in the yurtas of the wealthier classes even carpets for sitting and sleeping on. In these, too, the walls are lined with cotton or silk, and the floors are of wood.

This habitation is indispensable to the лvild life of the nomad ; it is quickly taken to pieces and re- moved from place to place, whilst it is an effectual pro- tection against cold and bad weather. In the severest frost the temperature round the hearth is comfortable. At night the fire is ptit out, the felt covering drawn over the chimney, and even then, although not warm, the felt yurta is far more snug than an ordinary tent. In summer the felt is a good non-conductor of heat, and proof against the heaviest rain.

The first thing which strikes the traveller in the life of the Mongol is his excessive dirtiness : he never washes his body, and very seldom his face and hands. Owing to constant dirt, his clothinq-

52 TEA-DRINKING.

swarms with parasites, which he amuses himself by kilHng in the most unceremonious way. It is a common sight to see a Mongol, even an official or lama of high rank, in the midst of a large circle of his acquaintances, open his sheepskin or kaftan to catch an offending insect and execute him on the spot between his front teeth. The uncleanliness and dirt amidst which they live is partly attributable to their dislike, almost amounting to dread, of water or damp. Nothing will induce a Mongol to cross the smallest marsh where he might possibly wet his feet, and he carefully avoids pitching his yurta any- where near damp ground or in the vicinity of a spring, stream, or marsh. Moisture is as fatal to him as it is to the camel, so that it would seem as if his organism, like the camel's, were only adapted to a dry climate ; he never drinks cold water, but always prefers brick-tea, a staple article of consump- tion with all the Asiatic nomads. It is procured from the Chinese, and the Mongols are so passion- ately fond of it that neither men nor women can do without it for many days. From morning till night the kettle is simmering on the hearth, and all mem- bers of the family constantly have recourse to it. It is the first refreshment offered to a guest. The mode of preparation is disgusting ; the vessel ^ in which the tea is boiled Is never cleansed, and is

* Their domestic utensils are anything but numerous. They are — an iron saucepan, for boiling their food in, teapot, a skimmer, a leathern skin or wooden tub to hold water or milk, a wooden trough for serving the meat in. To these must be added an iron fire-dog, tongs to hold the argols, and occasionally a Chinese axe.

FOOD AND BEVERAGES. 53

occasionally scrubbed with argols, i.e. dried horse or cow dung. Salt water is generally used, but, if un- obtainable, salt is added. The tea is then pared off with a knife or pounded in a mortar, and a handful of it thrown into the boiling water, to which a few cups of milk are added. To soften the brick-tea, which is sometimes as hard as a rock, it is placed for a few minutes among hot argols, which impart a flavour and aroma to the whole beveraee. This is the first process, and in this form it answers the same purpose as chocolate or coffee with us. For a more substantial meal the Mongol mixes dry roasted millet in his cup, and, as a final relish, adds a lump of butter or raw sheep-tail fat (kurdiuk). The reader may now imagine what a revolting com- pound of nastiness is produced, and yet they con- sume any quantity of it ! Ten to fifteen large cup- fuls is the daily allowance for a girl, but full-grown men take twice as much.^ It should be mentioned that the cups, which are sometimes highly orna- mented, are the exclusive property of each indi- vidual ; they are never washed, but after every meal licked out by the owner ; those belonging to the more wealthy Mongols are of pure silver, of Chinese manufacture ; the lamas make them of human skulls cut in half, and mounted in silver. The food of the Mongols also consists of milk prepared in various ways, either as butter, curds, whey, or kumiss. The curds are made from the unskimmed milk, which is

' Mongols have no regular hours for meals : they eat and drink whenever they feel disposed, or have the opportunity.

54 FOOD AND BEVERAGES.

gently simmered over a slow fire, and then allowed to stand for some time, after which the thick cream is skimmed off and dried, and roasted millet often added to it. Ihe whey is prepared from sour skimmed milk, and is made into small dry lumps of cheese. Lastly, the kumiss {iaj^astwi),^ is pre- pared from mares' or sheep's milk ; all through the summer it is considered the greatest luxury, and Mongols are in the habit of constantly riding to visit their friends and taste the tarasum till they generally become intoxicated. They are all inclined to indulge too freely, although drunkenness is net so rife among them as it is in some more civilised countries. They buy brandy from the Chinese when they themselves visit China with their caravans, or from itinerant Cliinese merchants, who in summer visit all parts of Mongolia, exchanging their wares for wool, skins, and cattle. This trade is very profitable to the latter, as they generally sell their goods on credit, charging exorbitant interest, and receiving payment in kind, reckoned at prices far below the real value.

Tea and milk constitute the chief food of the Mongols all the year round, but they are equally fond of mutton. The highest praise they can bestow on any food is to say that it is ' as good as mutton.' Sheep, like camels, are sacred ; indeed all their do- mestic animals are emblems of some good qualities. The favourite part is the tail which is pure fat. In autumn, when the grass is of the poorest description, the sheep fatten wonderfully, and the fatter the

' See S^\pplementary Note.

MANNER OF EATING. ■ 55

better for Mongol taste.^ No part of the slaughtered animal is wasted, but everything is eaten up with the utmost relish.

The gluttony of this people exceeds all descrip- tion. A Mongol will eat more than ten pounds of meat at one sitting, but some have been known to devour an average-sized sheep in the course of twenty-four hours ! On a journey, when provisions are economised, a leg of mutton is the ordinary daily ration for one man, and although he can live for days without food, yet, when once he gets it, he will eat enough for seven.

They always boil their mutton, only roasting the breast as a delicacy. On a winter's journey, when the frozen meat requires extra time for cooking, they eat it half raw, slicing off pieces from the surface, and returning it again to the pot. When travelling and pressed for time, they take a piece of mutton and place it on the back of the camel, underneath the saddle, to preserve it from the frost, луЬепсе it is brought out during the journey and eaten, covered with camel's hair and reeking with sweat ; but this is no test of a Mongol's appetite. Of the liquor in which he has boiled his meat he makes soup by adding millet or dough, drinking it like tea. Before eating, the lamas and the more religious among the laity, after filling their cups, throw a little into the fire or on the ground, as an offering ; before drink-

' They have a remarkable way of killing their sheep : they slit up the creature's stomach, thrust their hand in, and seize hold of the heart, squeezing it till the animal dies.

5б ANIMAL FOOD J CATTLE.

ing, they dip the middle finger of the right hand into the cup and flick off the adhering drops.^

They eat with their fingers, which are always disgustingly dirty ; raising a large piece of meat and seizing it in their teeth, they cut off with a knife, close to the mouth, the portion remaining in the hand. The bones are licked clean, and sometimes cracked for the sake of the marrow ; the shoulder- blade of mutton is always broken and thrown aside, it being considered unlucky to leave it unbroken.

On special occasions they eat the flesh of goats and horses ; beef rarely, and camels' flesh more rarely still. The lamas will touch none of this meat, but have no objection to carrion, particularly if the dead animal is at all fat. They do not habitually eat bread, but they will not refuse Chinese loaves, and sometimes bake wheaten cakes themselves. Near the Russian frontier they will even eat black bread, but further in the interior they do not know what it is, and those to whom we gave rusks, made of rye- flour, to taste, remarked that there was nothing nice about such food as that, which only jarred the teeth.

Fowl or fish they consider unclean, and their dislike to them is so great that one of our guides nearly turned sick on seeing us eat boiled duck at Koko-nor; this shows how relative are the ideas of people even in matters which apparently concern the senses. The very Mongol, born and bred amid

' Thib is one of the ancient Mongol practices. Sec ' Marco Polo,' and cd., i. p. 300. — V^

IMPORTANCE OF THEIR HERDS. 57

frightful squalor, who could relish carrion, shuddered when he saw us eat duck a Г EiLVOpeenne.

Their only occupation and source of wealth is cattle-breeding, and their riches are counted by the number of their live stock, sheep, horses, camels, oxen, and a few goats — the proportion varying in different parts of Mongolia.^ Thus, the best camels are bred among the Khalkas ; the Chakhar country is famous for its horses, Ala-shan for its goats ; and in Koko-nor the yak is a substitute for the cow.

The Khalka country ranks first in the wealth of its inhabitants, who are mostly well oh""; even after the cattle-plague had destroyed countless oxen and sheep, large herds were still owned by individuals, and there is hardly a native but possesses some hun- dred of the fat-tailed sheep. In Southern Mongolia, i.e. in Ordos and Ala-shan, the sheep are of a differ- ent breed, and at Koko-nor they have yet another kind with horns eighteen inches lonof. As all the

о о

requirements of life : milk and meat for food, skins for clothing, wool for felt, and ropes, are supplied by his cattle, which also earn him large sums by their sale, or by the transport of merchandise, so the nomad lives entirely for them. His personal wants, and those of his family, are a secondary considera- tion. His movements from place to place depen J on

^ The price of cattle varies in different parts of the country thus ;

In Khalka In the Chakhar In Koko-nor. country. country.

Sheep . . 2 to 3 . . 2 to 3 . . I to i^ . ^.^i^^^^

Oxen . . 12 „ 15 . . 15 . . 7 „ 10 ( ians=

Camels • . 3° » 35 • • 40 . . 25 [ ^s. Ы.

Horses . . 12 „ 15 . . 15 . . 25 J per head.

58 INDOLENT HABITS.

the wants of his animals. If they are well supplied with food and water, the Monpol is content. His skill and patience in managing them are admirable. The stubborn camel becomes his docile carrier ; the half- tamed steppe-horse his obedient and faithful steed. He loves and cherishes his animals ; nothing will induce him to saddle a camel or a horse under a certain age ; no money will buy his lambs or calves, which he considers it wrong to kill before they are full-grown. Cattle-breeding is the only occupation of this people ; their industrial employment is limited to the preparation of a few articles for domestic use, such as skins, felt, saddles, bridles, and bows ; a little tinder, and a few knives. They buy everything else, including their clothes, of the Chinese, and, in very small quantities, from the Russian merchants at Kiakhta and Urofa. Mining: is unknown to them.

о о

The inland trade is entirely one of barter ; and the foreio^n trade is confined to Peking and the nearest towns of China, whither they drive their cattle for sale, and carry salt, hides, and wool to exchange for manufactured eoods.

The most striking trait in their character is sloth. Their whole lives are passed in holiday making, which harmonizes with their pastoral pursuits. Their cattle are their only care, and even they do not cause them much trouble. The camels and horses graze on the steppe without any watch, only requiring to be watered once a day in summer at the neighbouring well. The women and children tend the flocks and herds. The rich hire shepherds, who are mostly

EXCELLENT HORSEMANSHIP. 59

poor homeless vagrants. Milking the cows, churning butter, preparing the meals, and other domestic work, falls to the lot of the women. The men, as a rule, do nothing but gallop about all day long from yurta to yurta, drinking tea or kumiss, and gossiping with their neighbours. They are ardent lovers of the chase, which is some break to the tedious mono- tony of their lives, but they are, with few exceptions, bad shots, and their arms are most inferior, some having flint-and-steel muskets, while others have nothlnof but the bow and arrows. An occasional pilgrimage to some temple, and horse-racing, are their favourite diversions.

With the approach of autumn the Mongols throw off some of their laziness. The camels, which have been at pasture all the summer, are now collected together and driven to Kalgan or Kuku-Khoto^ to prepare for the transport of tea and merchandise to and from Klakhta, and to carry supplies from Kuku-Khoto to the Chinese forces stationed between Ullassutai and Kobdo. Some few are employed in carrying salt from the salt lakes of Mongolia to the nearest towns of China Proper. In this way, during the autumn and winter, all the camels of Northern and Eastern Mongolia are earning large profits for their owners. With the return of April, the trans- port ceases, the wearied animals are turned loose on the steppe, and their masters repose in complete Idle- ness for five or six months.

The Mongol is so Indolent that he will never

' Kwci-hwa-chcne.

бо PHYSICAL CAPABILITIES AND DEFECTS.

Avalk any distance, no matter how short, if he can ride ; his horse is always tethered outside the yurta, ready for use at any moment ; he herds his cattle on horseback, and when on a caravan journey nothing but intense cold "will oblige him to dismount and warm his limbs by walking a mile or two. His legs are .bowed by constant equestrianism, and he grasps the saddle like a centaur. The wildest steppe-horse cannot unseat its Mongol rider. He is in his ele- ment on horseback, going at full speed ; seldom at a foot's pace, or at a trot, but scouring like the wind across the desert. He loves and understands horses ; a fast galloper or a good ambler is his greatest delight, and he will not part with such a treasure, even in his direst need. His contempt for pedestrianism is so great that he considers it* beneath his dignity to walk even as far as the next yurta.

Endowed by nature with a strong constitution, and trained from early childhood to endure hard- ships, the Mongols enjoy excellent health, notwith- standing all the discomforts of life in the desert. In the depth of winter, for a month at a time, they accompany the tea-caravans. Day by day the ther- mometer registers upwards of— 20° of Fahrenheit, with a constant wind from the north-west, intensi- fying the cold until it is almost unendurable. But in spite of it they keep their seat on their camels for fifteen hours at a stretch, with a keen wind blowing in their teeth. A man must be made of iron to stand this ; but a Mongol performs the journey backwards and forwards four times during the

MONGOL COWARDICE. 6i

winter, making upwards of 3,000 miles. As soon as you set him to do other work, apparently much lighter, but to which he is unaccustomed, the result is very different. Although as hard as nails, he cannot walk fifteen or twenty miles without suffering great fatigue ; if he pass the night on the damp ground he will catch cold as easily as any fine gentle- man, and, deprived of his brick-tea, he will never cease grumbling.

The Mongol is a slave to habit. He has no energy to meet and overcome difficulties ; he will try and avoid, but never conquer them. He wants the elastic, manly spirit of the European, ready for any emergency, and willing to struggle against adversity and gain the victory in the end. His is the stolid conservatism of the Asiatic, passive, apathetic and lifeless.

Cowardice is another striking trait of their cha- racter. Leaving out of the question the Chinese Mongols, whose martial spirit and energy has been completely stamped out, the Khalka people are vastly inferior to their ancestors of the times of Chinghiz and Okkodai.^ Two centuries of Chinese sway,^ during which their warlike disposition has been systematically extinguished and suffered to stagnate in the dull round of nomad existence, have

^ Okkodai, the third son and successor of Chinghiz-Khan, estab- lished his capital at Karakorum, and founded the walls and palace in 1234. See ' Marco Polo,' 2nd ed., i. p. 228. — M.

2 That is to say, from the time when the Khalkas became subject to China in 1691, during the reign of Kanghi. Western Mongolia, the so-called Dzungaria, was conquered by the Chinese in 1 756.

б2 SAG AC/TV AND OBTUSE NESS.

robbed them of every trace of prowess and bravery. The recent incursions of the Diingans into their territory proved how degenerate they had become. The very name of Hwei, Hzuei, i.e. Mussulmans, created a panic and caused them to fly ignominiously without offering the least resistance to their foes. And yet every advantage was on their side ; they were in their own country, and were of course well acquainted with the localities — a matter of some importance in warfare, particularly in an arid desert like the Gobi ; they could always outnumber the Dungans, who were badly armed and undisciplined. But, despite all this, the latter ravaged Ordos and Ala-shan, captured Uliassutai and Kobdo, although defended by Chinese regulars, invaded the Khalka country several times, and would have taken Urga had it not been for the presence of some Russian soldiers.

We cannot deny that, besides cunning, dissimula- tion and deceit, — qualities especially prevalent among the natives of the border-land of China, — the Mongols exhibit great sagacity. Among those of pure blood immorality is chiefly confined to the lamas ; the common people, or, as they are called, the Kara- Kuiig, i.e. black folk, when uncontaminated by Chinese or lama teaching, are kind and simple- minded. But even their sagacity Is very one-sided. The intimate knowledge they have of their native plains excites one's admiration ; they will extricate themselves from the most desperate situation, fore- tell rain, storms, and other atmospheric changes ;

7...

CURIOSITY; POINTS OF THE COMPASS. 63

follow the almost imperceptible tracks of a stray horse or camel, and are sensible of the proximity of a well ; but when you try and explain to them the simplest thing which does not come within their daily routine, they will Из1ец with staring- eyes and repeat the same question without understanding your answer. The obtuseness of the Mongol is enough to exhaust one's patience ; you are no longer talking to the same man you knew in his native state, you have now to do with a child, full of curiosity, but incapable of understanding what you tell him. Their inquisitiveness is often carried to an excess. When the caravan enters a populous district, the inhabi- tants appear from all sides, some of them from a distance, and after the usual salutation, ' iitendic,' i.e. * How do you do ? ' they begin asking you ' Whi- ther are you travelling?' 'What is the object of your journey ? ' ' Have you nothing to sell } ' ' Where did you buy your camels ? ' and ' How much did you pay for them ? ' and so on. No sooner is one gone than another takes his place ; sometimes a troop rides up, always with the same questions. At the halting-place your patience is sorely taxed. Hardly are the camels unloaded before they are upon you, examining and handling your property, and even entering your tent. The smallest article excites their curiosity ; your arms, of course, but even such trifling objects as boots, scissors, padlocks, are all handled in turn, and they all ask you to give them first one thing, then another. There is no end to it. Every new-comer begins afresh, and the pre-

б4 ESTIMATIOX OF DISTANCE.

vioiis visitors explain and show him all your posses- sions, and, if they get the chance, make off with something by way of a keepsake.

One of their peculiarities cannot fail to arrest the attention of the stranger, and that is, their habit of moving from place to place without ever using the words right or left, as though the ideas they express were unknown to them. Even in the yurta a Mongol will never say to the right hand or to the left, but always such or such a thing is cast or west of him. It may be worth mentioning here that the points of their compass are the reverse of ours ; their north is our south, and therefore the east is on the left, not on the right, of their horizon.^

They calculate distances by the time occupied in travelling with camels or horses, and have no other accurate scale of measurement. If you ask how far it is to any given place, the answer is always so many days' journey with camels, or so many days' ride on horseback. But as the rate of travelling and length of marches vary according to circum- stances and the disposition of the rider, they never fail to add ' if you ride well,' or ' if you travel slowly.' A day's journey in Khalkas is twenty-eight miles with camels, and from forty to forty-seven on horses. About Koko-nor they travel more slowly with the former, not over twenty miles a day. A good camel will average about three miles an hour with a load on its back, or four without one.

The unit in the Mongol's scale of distances is a

' Sec Supi)lcnicntary Note.

CALENDAR AND YEAR-CYCLE. 65

day and a night ; he has no idea of dividing them into hours. Their almanac is the same as the Chinese, and is printed at Peking in Mongol cha- racters. The months are all lunar, some containing twenty-nine, others thirty days. Hence there is a week over every year to complete the revolution of the earth in its solar orbit. Every fourth year the extra weeks make a month, which is added to the winter, summer, or one of the other seasons, accord- ing to the calculations of the Peking astronomers.^ This month has no special name, but is called after one of the others, so that in Leap-year there are two Januaries or two Julys, &c. The new year com- mences on the first day of the white month, Tsagan Sar, corresponding with the middle of February ; which marks the beginning of spring, and is kept as a great holiday in all Buddhist countries. The ist, 8th, and 1 5th days of every month are also festivals, and are also called Tserting?

Their cycle is twelve years, each year having the name of some animal, thus : —

Tlie 1st year Kuhigima (mouse). Tlie 7th year Mori (horse). „ 2nd „ Ukyr (cow). „ 8th „ Hofii (sheep).

„ 3rd „ Bar (tiger). „ 9th „ Meehit (monkey).

„ 4th ,, Tolai (hare). „ loth „ Takia (fowl).

„ 5th „ Z?c (dragon). „ nth ,, AW^i?/ (dog).

„ 6th „ Л/<?о-^ (serpent). „ 12th „ Hakhai {^\^.

Five of these cycles make a larger one, answering to

' See Supplementary Note.

"^ On the New Year's Day, or White Feast of the Mongols, see ' Marco Polo,' 2nd. ed. i. p. 376-378, and ii. p. 543. The monthly festival days, properly for the Lamas days oi fasting and worship, seem to differ locally. See note in same work, i. p. 224, and on the Year-cycle, i. p. 435-— Y.

VOL. L F

66

DIVERSITIES OF LANGUAGE.

our century. A man's age is computed by the lesser cycles ; thus, if you are twenty-eight you are said to be in the year of the hare, i.e. two complete cycles of twelve years in each have elapsed since your birth, and you have entered the fourth year of your third cycle.

With regard to the language, I must confess that, with the multifarious occupations of the expedition, and in the absence of a good dragoman, we were unable to study it closely, or pay much attention to the different dialects. This was a serious omission, but it was chiefly caused by our want of funds ; if we had been able to dispose of ample means, I could have hired a good interpreter thoroughly conversant with his business ; but circumstanced as we were, ours could not spare a minute for days together for his proper duties ; and his limited intelligence made him of very little use on occasions when tact and address were required.

The Mongolian language prevails throughout the country. It is rich in words, and has several forms and dialects, which, however, are not very distinct, except as between Northern and Southern Mongolia, where the difference is strongly marked.^ Words in use among Southern Mongols are perfectly

Among Khalkas. In Ala-shan. Khalat (Tunic) is Zupsa Labishik Bowl is Imbu . Haisa

Cloth „ Tsimbu. Dahar

Gunpowder „ Dari . Shoroi Milk „ Su . . Yusu

Hither „ Nasha . Naran

Thither „ In-shi . Tigehi

' Thus-
Among	Khalkas.	In Ala-shan.
Night	is	Shuni	. Su
Sheep	■>■>	Honi	. Hoi
Evening	»>	Udishi	. Ashin
Teapot	»	Shahu	. Debir
Boots	5»	Gutul	. Gudusu
Meat	J)	Mahan	. Ideh
Cloak	»	Dehl	. . Dibil

LITER A TURE. 67

unintelligible to the Khalkas, and the pronunciation of the former is softer ; thus, k, ts, ck, become respectively kh, ck; and g, e.g. Tsagan (white), be- comes C/iagan, Kuku-hoto becomes khuhu-khoto, and so on.

Even the construction of the sentence changes, and our interpreter sometimes could not understand expressions used by the Mongols of the South, although he could not explain why they were unin- telligible. All he would say was, ' They talk non- sense.'

It appears to me that very few Chinese words have been introduced into the Mongol language, but that in the neighbourhood of Koko-nor a great deal is derived from the Tangutan. In South-Eastern and Southern Mongolia, Chinese influence prevails, and is evidenced in the character of the people as well as in their language, not so much from the number of foreign words introduced into it as by a general change, and a more monotonous and phleg- matic pronunciation than that of the true Khalka Mongols, who talk in loud, energetic accents.

The written characters, like the Chinese, are arranged in vertical columns, but are read from left to right. ^ There are a good many printed books, the Chinese Government having appointed a special commission, at the end of the last century, to trans-

' The present Mongol letters were acquired in the thirteenth cen- tury of our era, in the reign of Kublai-Khan. [See Supplementary- Note.]

F 2

68 LOVE OF GOSSIP.

late Into Mongol historical, educational, and religious works. The numerals are also peculiar to the people, and are used in business transactions equally with the Manchu. There are schools at Peking and Kalgan for teaching the language, and an almanac and some books are from time to time printed in it. The lettered classes are the princes, nobles, and lamas, the latter also learning Tibetan, the princes and nobles Mongol and Manchu. The common people are in general illiterate. All Mongols are fond of talking. Their greatest pleasure is to sit and chat over a cup of tea. On meeting them, their first question is, ' What's the news ? ' and they will ride twenty or thirty miles to communicate some bit of gossip to a friend. In this way rumours fly through the country with astounding celerity, almost equal to the telegraph. During our journey, the inhabitants, hundreds of miles ahead of us, knew all about us, down to the smallest details — of course with all sorts of exaggerations.

The first thing which strikes a stranger in talking to them is the frequent use of the words ise and sc^ both signifying ' very good,' and occurring in nearly every phrase. They are also used as affirmatives, ' yes,' ' it is so.' In receiving an order or listening to an anecdote from an official, the Mongol utters his invariable tse or se. If he wish to express a good or bad quality in anything, approval or cen- sure, besides repeating these two syllables, and sometimes without, he holds up the thumb or fore- finger of the right hand, as the case may be, the

Ш

MONGOL GIRL.

Madame de Bourboulon, who accompanied her husband across Northern Mongolia on their way from Shanghai to Moscow in 1862, describes the occupants of a Yurta as follows :

'They wore vests of green and red velvet, and over these a long robe of violet silk falling to the feet, which were shod with boots of purple leather decorated with glass beads. Their costume was in other respects the same as their father's, with the exception of their long and fine black hair divided into numberless small tresses, intermixed with ribbons and coral beads." — /,,■ 'lour du Monde, xi. p. 248.

SOJVCS. MONGOL WOMEN. 69

former for praise, the latter for blame. He addresses

his equal as nokor, i.e. ' comrade, ' as we should say

( • > sir.

Their songs are always plaintive, and relate to their past life and exploits.^ They usually sing on a caravan journey, and occasionally in the yurta, but the women's voices are not heard so often as the men's. Troubadours or wandering minstrels always secure an appreciative audience. Their musical instruments are the flute and guitar ; we never saw them dance, and they are probably unskilled in the art.

The lot of the woman is most unenviable. The narrow sphere of nomad life is even more restricted for her. Entirely dependent on her husband, she passes her time in the yurta nursing the children and attending to domestic duties. In her spare time she works with the needle, stitching clothes or some piece of finery made of Chinese silk. Some of the handiwork is in good taste and beautifully finished.

A Mongol can only have one lawful wife, but he may keep concubines, who live with the real wife, the latter taking precedence in rank and ruling the household ; her children enjoy all the rights of the father, while those of the concubines are illegitimate, and have no share in the inheritance. An illecjiti-

о

mate child can be legitimised by the sanction of government.

At the marriage festivals the relatives of the

' The most common song in Mongolia is ' Dagn-khara,' i.e. 'The Song of the Black Colt.'

70 MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

husband are treated with respect ; those of the wife are of no account. To ensure the happiness of the young couple an auspicious reading of the stars ^ under which they were born is indispensable. If the omens are unpropitious, the marriage does not take place.

The bridegroom pays the parents of the bride, according to agreement, sometimes a good sum as purchase-money, either in cattle, clothes, or, more rarely, in coin ; the wife provides the yurta, with all its fittings, as her portion.'"^ If the marriage turn out unhappily, or even to gratify some whim or caprice, the husband may put his wife away, but the latter may also desert a husband who is not affec- tionate. In the first case the purchase-money is not usually returned, and the man may only retain part of the dower ; but if the wife desert her husband she must repay part of the ante-nuptial settlement. This custom often gives rise to little romantic episodes, enacted in the heart of the steppe, which never find their way into a novel.

The women are good mothers and housewives, but unfaithful wives. Immorality is most common, not only among the married women, but also among the girls. Adultery is not even concealed, and is not regarded as a vice. In the household the rights

^ They reckon their period of twelve years by the signs of the Zodiac. [Surely the Author here means to refer to the Cycle signs (supra, p. 64), not the Zodiac. — Y.]

" A full description of a Mongol wedding will be found in ' Tim- kowsky's Travels,' vol. ii. pp. 303-311, and in Hue's ' Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartaric et le Thibet,' vol. i. pp. 297-301.

AND DOMESTIC RELATIONS. 71

of the wife are nearly equal to those of the husband, but in all out-door arrangements, as in moving camp, paying debts, buying and selling, the authority of the men is supreme, and no reference even is made to the women ; but, as there is no rule without an exception, so we have seen Mongol ladies who not only managed their household, but interfered in other affairs as \vell — in fact, completely henpecked their husbands.

The appearance of the women is not attractive. The typical features of their race, the flat face and high cheekbones, spoil their looks ; and the rough life in the yurta, exposure to the weather and dirt, deprive them of any feminine grace and delicacy, and all attractiveness to European eyes. As a rare exception, but only in some princely families, a beauti- ful face may now and then be seen, its fortunate possessor being surrounded by a crowd of adorers, for the Mongols are very susceptible to the charms of the fair sex. The women are far less numerous than the men, a fact which is accounted for by the celibacy of the lamas. The Mongol is an excellent father, and passionately fond of his children. When- ever we gave them anything they always divided it equally among all the members of their family, were it a lump of sugar, and the portion of each individual only a crumb. The elders are always held in great respect, especially old men, whose opinions and commands are implicitly followed. They are very hospitable. Any one who enters the yurta is regaled with tea and milk, and, for old acquaintance sake, a

\

(

0^

72 HOSPITALITY

Mongol will Open a bottle of brandy or kumiss, and will even slaughter a sheep.

On meeting an acquaintance, or even a stranger, the Mono-ol salutes him with a ' mcndu ' * viendic-seh- beina! A pinch of snuff is interchanged, and the greeting is renewed * mal-seh-bcinal ' ta seh-beina^ i.e. * How are your cattle } ' This is always one of the first questions, and they make no enquiry after your health until they have learned that your sheep, camels, and horses are fat and well to do. In Ordos and Ala-shan the usual greeting is ' Avmr se' ' Are you well ? ' but in Koko-nor it is substituted by the Tangutan ' Tehimi' ' How do you do ? ' The friendly pinch of snuff is unusual in Southern Mongolia, and unknown in Koko-nor. Some amusing anecdotes are related, illustrating the custom of enquiring after cattle in the case of young travellers, journeying for the first time from Kiakhta to Peking. A young officer, bearing despatches for Peking, and happen- ing to change horses at one of the Mongol stations, he was soon surrounded by natives, who began their respectful enquiries as to the health of his sheep, &c. Learning from the interpreter the meaning of their questions, he emphatically shook his head and denied possessing any ; but they could not believe that a personage of his exalted rank could exist without sheep, cows, horses, or camels. We often had the most detailed questions asked us, such as : 'In whose care had we left our cattle before our departure on so long a journey ? ' ' What was the weight of the kurdink (fat tail) on each of our sheep ? ' * Did we

АЛ'П POLITE CUSTOMS. 73

enjoy the luxury of eating this dehcacy at home ? ' How many good amblers did we possess, and how many fat camels?' In Southern Mongolia, as a mutual token of good-fellowship, hadaki (silk scarves) are interchanged by the host and his guest ; these scarves are bought of the Chinese, the quality vary- ing with the rank of the recipient.^

When these salutations are over, tea Is offered, and, as a special mark of civility, lighted pipes are handed round. The visitor never wishes his host good-bye on taking his departure, but gets up and walks straight out of the