Near Bombatu, where we halted, the grass was luxuriant, and our half-starved ponies enjoyed it thoroughly. But, unfortunately, when our beasts are in clover our men are fagged out. Tellig especially, who has had most of the work, is nearly done for want of sleep and from constant exposure on the back of his camel.
There was no end to the ox-cart caravans that passed us on the way to China. There are between 100 and 200 carts in each, and they followed so close on one another that it seemed as if there was a continuous line of them for the whole length of a night's march. Their tinkling bells have a strange, but not unpleasant, effect as they move slowly along.
On the 15th September the lama made an excuse of buying sheep for himself and us, to halt at 9 a.m. some miles south of the steppe Guntu-gulu. We had been but two days without meat, but the Mongols had eaten nothing for six days. We had made several ineffectual attempts to buy sheep, and that very morning we had concluded a bargain for one, but the owner in catching the sheep missed his mark as he sprang forward to clutch it, and fell sprawling on his face. Of course we laughed, in common with the Mongol spectators, and whether the fellow was angry at being the occasion of merriment to us, or whether he considered his accident as a providential intimation that he was to sell no sheep that day, I cannot tell; but he obstinately declined to have anything more to say to us on the subject of sheep-selling.
The pony I had got at Tsagan-tuguruk had gone all to the bad with his feet. The roads had been very stony all the way, and his hoofs were too far gone to bear rough travelling. I bartered him, therefore, for two good sheep, and now I had only the skeleton of Dolonor left.
High mountains appeared fifteen miles east of us (if one may venture to estimate distance in such a country), and we began to hope for something like scenery. It blew fresh and cold from S.-W., and in the afternoon it came round to N.-W., a regular choinar salchin, or north wind, a word of horrible signification to Mongols. And if dreaded in September what must it be in January? I often wondered how the wretches get through their dreary winter. They are taken very suddenly with these cold northers. The day may be fine, and almost oppressively warm. A cloud comes over, and drops as much water as you would get out of a watering-pan. Then the north wind pipes up, and in a few hours you have made the transition from a tropical summer to worse than an Arctic winter, for the biting wind cuts into the bone.
In the face of a sharp norther we entered on the steppe Guntu-gulu, which seemed to be about five miles broad, but it proved the best part of a day's march, so deceptive are distances without prominent marks. A scene occurred in the steppe which delayed us a night, and might have proved serious enough to arrest our progress altogether. One of our guns went off in the cart (we always kept them loaded and handy), the charge went through some bedding, then the wooden back of the cart, and ricochetted from a wooden bar outside, miraculously clearing the camel that was following within two yards of the cart, and describing a curve over the whole line; one of the pellets hit the lama who was bringing up the rear, at a distance of full sixty yards, and made a groove on the outside of the flap of his ear. It bled profusely; in fact, the first notice he had of the injury was the streams of blood that suffused his neck and shoulders. He roared in terror, thinking he was at least killed; stopped the caravan; dismounted from his camel, and committed himself to the care of Tellig and the Kitat lama. The tent was hastily put up, and all made ready for a halt. Tellig and the others were greatly alarmed, and disturbed in their minds, and we were somewhat uncertain of the view their superstitious fanaticism might lead them to take of the affair. Luckily we had just got clear of another very large caravan, and were spared the officious assistance of a crowd of people. There was a pool of water close by, and we sent for repeated supplies of it, washing the ear, and letting it bleed freely. The wound was nothing at all, but the profuse bleeding frightened the Mongols. Our policy was to look wise; and my companion being provided with a neatly got-up little case containing various articles of the materia medica, it was produced, and inspired a proper amount of blind faith in the minds of our Mongol friends. The wound was washed with arnica, and a piece of sticking-plaster put on it so successfully, that it completely stopped the bleeding, and made a very neat finish. The Mongols looked on with much wonder and reverence at our proceedings, and if any idea at retaliation for the injury had crossed their minds, it was now giving place to a feeling of gratitude for our surgical assistance. The lama was helpless from fright, and we had him lifted to his tent, where we made him recline on a bed that had been extemporised for him with boxes and things packed behind him on the windy side. A towel was tied round his head to keep the cold out, and he was made as comfortable as our means would allow. He looked sad and woe-begone, and we could with difficulty suppress a smile at the utter prostration of mind that the sight of his own blood had induced. He now imagined he had pains in his head, throat, and chest, and seeing him so entirely a victim to his fears, we were obliged to humour them a little, prescribing for his various symptoms with great care. The first thing we ordered him was a measured glass of brandy, knowing him to be partial to that liquor. This roused him a little, and his pluck began to return. We then prescribed tea, which was soon made, and, as he improved in spirits, we ordered mutton, knowing they had some scraps left from their morning's feast. All that done, we allowed him to smoke, and finally prescribed a good night's rest. In the morning we inquired for our patient and found him well, but much inclined to remain in his shell till the north wind was over. This was a little too much of a good thing; so when we had carefully examined him all over, and scrutinised all his symptoms, we were compelled to pronounce him fit to travel. He could not get out of it, but reluctantly mounted his camel, his head still tied up in a white towel, to the wonderment of the wandering Tartars we encountered on our march. It certainly never was my fortune to be so well treated by a doctor, but as the faculty in this country depend so much on popularity, a similar mode of treatment with the majority of their patients would be well worth their consideration. I may here observe that the Mongols have their ears very protuberant, like an elephant's.
The accident to the lama was a godsend to us in procuring us a night's rest. The wind blew mercilessly across the steppe, so that sleeping in our carts with their backs turned to the wind, we could not keep warm. What it would have been, marching in the teeth of it with our front exposed, may be imagined by those who have experienced these cutting winds, for the fronts of our carts were, with all our care, but indifferently closed by sheets of felt, fastened as securely as we could manage, but utterly ineffective to keep out a gale of wind.
Most of the steppes in the desert are inhabited by a small marmot, like a rat, which burrows in the ground. Its custom is to sit on its haunches (it has only a rudimentary tail) beside its hole, uttering a chirping noise when alarmed, and then dropping into its hole, turning round immediately with only its head out to see if the apprehended danger is imminent, and then disappearing altogether. Each hole has several roads to it, extending to about twenty or thirty yards from the hole. The little animal seems never to stray from the beaten track, and is so secure of reaching its retreat, that it will allow you almost to tread on it before it begins to scamper home. Where these animals abound, the ground is furrowed in all directions by their roads. On the margins of their holes a heap of grass and herbs is piled up, which Huc thought was for the purpose of sheltering the animals from the winter winds. I have too much faith in their instinct to believe that, however, for, once in their burrows underground, no wind can touch them. It is more probable that the stores of vegetable matter so collected are intended for winter forage, which they collect with great industry during the autumn. Our ponies were very fond of nibbling at these heaps of drying grass, and turning them over with their noses, a practice which we did our best to discourage. It was in fact a kind of sacrilege to destroy wantonly the stores of food that these interesting creatures had with so much forethought and months of patient labour accumulated against the evil day.
In Guntu-gulu we met with another marmot of nearly similar habits, but much larger. It is in size and colour like a hare, but heavier and clumsier in its movements. Its burrows are as large as a rabbit's. It is found at a considerable distance from its hole, and is more easily alarmed than its neighbour, because less easily concealed. When slightly alarmed, it makes rapidly for its hole, and there sits till the danger approaches too near. Then, cocking up its short tail and uttering a chirp, it disappears into its hole. We could never get within shot of these animals. As to the little fellows, we got so close to them that it would have been cruelty to shoot them, as we had no means of preserving the skin. The larger ones burrow in stony places, and with their short legs, strong claws, and wiry hair, somewhat resemble the badger or racoon. They might be the Lepus pusillus, or "calling hare," if it were not that that species is positively said never to be found farther east than the Oby.