The wind lulled at sunset, and we had a fine frosty night. The morning of the 17th September showed us the first bonâ fide ice, and from that time we had frost during all the remainder of the journey. It was a moonless night, the roads were indifferent, the Mongols hungry and tired, and they therefore took it on themselves to halt for some hours before daylight to make tea near Khulustu-tologoi. From there we crossed the steppe Borelju, meeting the usual array of ox-cart caravans, and encamped at 10 o'clock near the entrance to a pass leading through a ridge of hills. The sharp clear outline of Bain-ula (rich mountain), ten to sixteen miles distant on our right, and the modest elevations at the foot of which we were encamped, made a pretty bit of scenery after such a monotonous succession of steppes. We had now been twenty-two days in Mongolia, and had become strongly imbued with the habits of the people we were living amongst. To have imagined that we were travelling at such a slow pace would have been misery. But there was nothing to make us believe we were travelling. Now and then a vague idea would cross our minds that some day we ought to see Kiachta, but that was of short duration, and our daily routine all went to keep up the illusion that we were dwellers in the desert. There was nothing to mark our daily stages, no church spires or road-side inns, not even a mile post. Those fine euphonious names of places I have given indicate nothing. They might with as much propriety be given to various parts of the ocean. We had entirely identified ourselves with the wandering Tartars, and were content to live in the desert with much the same feeling that the Israelites must have experienced during their desert journeyings, that there was a promised land dimly figured out to them—that is to say, their apprehension of the reality of it was dim; but the thought of ever arriving there had but slight influence on their daily life. The regular supply of manna was to their minds much more important than the bright future to which their leaders looked forward. And so it is with the greater part of mankind.
With all its drawbacks, there is a charm about desert life which is worth something to a man who has undergone the worry of incessant occupation. You are safe there from the intrusions of mail steamers and electric telegraphs, and "every day's report of the wrong and outrage with which earth is filled." The longer you live in such quiet solitudes the more independent you feel of the great struggling world without. It is a relief to turn your back on it for a while, and betake yourself to the children of nature, who, if they lack the pleasures, lack also many of the miseries, and some of the crimes, which accompany civilisation.
The day turned out very warm, so much so, that we were glad to get shelter from the sun under our canvas until 3 o'clock, when we were again in the saddle. The pass proved a fine valley, rich in grass. Another long string of caravans was met with, most of the carts empty, and bound from Urga to Dolonor. Why they were empty we could not ascertain, but conjectured that they could not get loaded before winter, of which the late severe weather had given them warning, and that they were bound at all hazards to get home to winter quarters.
Some days before this we had picked up a young pilgrim, a lama, on a journey to the great lamasery at Urga, there to pass a certain time in study. The boy was performing a journey of between 200 and 300 miles alone and on foot. He carried nothing in the world with him except the clothes on his back and a few musty papers containing lama prayers, carefully tied up between two boards which he carried in his bosom. He had no provisions with him, still less any money, but depended solely on the well-known hospitality of his countrymen for his daily bread and his night's lodging. I thought there was something heroic in a boy of fifteen undertaking such a journey under such circumstances, but the Mongols thought nothing of it. Our caravan offered him a good opportunity of performing his journey comfortably, which he at once and without ceremony availed himself of. His first appearance was in one of our halts, where he was discovered in the tent of our Mongols, as if he had dropped from the clouds, and our three Mongols had thenceforth to fill two extra mouths, which must have been a considerable tax on them. The boy was at once placed on our effective staff, and we christened him Paga-lama, or "Little Lama," a name not much relished at first, but he soon became reconciled to it. The little lama had left his mother's tent in summer, a few days before; winter had now overtaken him—for there is no autumn or spring in Mongolia—and he was all too thinly clad for such inclement weather. Our lama, seeing the boy pinched with cold in these biting north winds, with the genuine hospitality of a Mongol gave up one of his coats to him, thus unconsciously practising a Christian precept to which few Christians in my experience pay so much practical respect. The little lama's loose leather boots, and particularly the felt stockings inside of them, were considerably travel-worn; and, with all his management, he could not keep his red toes covered from the cold. But he was patient and enduring, and very thankful for what he had got. He had no more long marches to make on foot, for our lama generally contrived to put him on a camel.
On the morning of the 18th of September, we found ourselves starting from a halt at 6 o'clock, which caused a row between us and the Mongols; for though the night had been cold and dark enough to give them an excuse, we admitted no excuses for extra stoppages, and we had been stopped most of the night. It was a cold, raw morning, with a heavy leaden sky, and a fresh southerly wind, very unusual weather in Mongolia. We soon came to a point where the road seemed to terminate abruptly on the brow of a precipice, and it was now plain that we could not have proceeded further without good daylight. From our elevated position we came suddenly on a view of scenery of surpassing magnificence. An amphitheatre of mountains lay before us, rising up in sharp ridges, and tumbled about in the wildest confusion, like the waves of the sea in a storm. The crests of many of them were crowned with patches of wood, and to us, who had lived so long in the flat, treeless desert, the effect of this sudden apparition was as if we had been transported to fairy land.
We had to cross a wide valley that lies half encircled at the foot of the mountains, and our descent was almost precipitous for 500 feet. We had to get out and walk, and the camels had enough to do to get the empty carts down safely.
On the top of the high ground, and at the beginning of the descent, is a large obon, or altar, consisting of a cairn of stones. There are many of them in different parts of Mongolia. They are much respected by the Mongols, and have a religio-superstitious character. It is considered the duty of every traveller to contribute something to the heap, the orthodox contribution being undoubtedly a stone. Our lama seldom troubled himself to dismount, and find a stone, but contented himself with plucking a handful of hair from the hump of his camel, and allowing it to be wafted to the obon, if the wind should happen to take it there. At the same time he saved his conscience by mumbling a few words from the form of prayer prescribed for such occasions. At the more important obons, however, such as the one which has led to these remarks, which are always placed at difficult or dangerous passes, he rode a-head of the caravan, dismounted, and with solemn words and gestures propitiated the good genius of the mountain. The Mongols have a great horror of evil spirits, and have strong faith in the personality, not of one, but many devils. In this respect, they are like the Chinese Buddhists, but I never could detect that they worshipped the devil, as their neighbours do, the whole drift of whose religious ceremonies always seemed to me to be to charm away or make terms with evil spirits. This is, of course, only negative evidence as regards the Mongols, and that from a very slight experience, but the tone of religious sentiment among them is more healthy and elevating, encouraging the belief that devils are not among their objects of worship. They don't speak of the tchutgour, or devil, in the same flippant way as the Chinese do of their kwei, and although they attribute diseases and misfortunes to tchutgour influences, only to be counteracted by lama incantations, they hold that good men, and especially good lamas, never can see a tchutgour. I have tried to joke with them on the subject, and turn their tchutgour notions into ridicule, but the Mongols, though easily amused on any other subject, were sensitively anxious on this, and never spoke of it without serious concern. The rapid and complete recovery of our lama from what seemed to him and his friends a deadly wound, was the cause of no small congratulation to them as establishing the moral excellence of his character, by means of a severe ordeal—as it were a hand-to-hand contest with the powers of evil.
As we advanced across the valley a few drops of rain fell. A halt was summarily ordered, and the Mongols began to run about, hastily unloading camels and unrolling tents, with horror depicted on their faces, muttering to themselves, "borro beina," "the rain is coming." There is so little rain in Mongolia, that no great preparations are made for it, and a smart shower disconcerts travelling Mongols as if they were poultry. Before our tents were got up, the rain was falling heavily, and we were all well drenched, but when we had got safely under the canvas, the real misery of our situation flashed upon us—the argols were wet, and we could get no fire! The poor Mongols resigned themselves to their fate with enviable philosophy, looking on their misfortune as one of the chances of war. We were not so well trained in the school of adversity, however, and could not tolerate the idea of sitting in our wet clothes during that cold, rainy day. Besides, past experience had taught us to look for the dreaded north wind after rain, and how could we abide its onset in such a condition? There was but one source from which we could obtain fuel, and that was to break up one of our cases of stores, and burn the wood. This was also wet, but not saturated like the argols, and after some difficulty we lighted a fire in our tent, and gave the Mongols enough to make them a fire also, by which to boil their tea. We were richly rewarded by their looks and expressions of gratitude for such an unexpected blessing. The rain continued all day till sunset, when it cleared up, and the wind came round to N.-W., piping up in the usual manner. We got our tent shifted round, back to wind, and made ourselves exceedingly comfortable. With waterproof sheets and a light cork mattress, the wet ground was of no account, and we could always manage to keep our blankets dry. In the morning the ground was white with snow, and the north wind blowing more pitilessly than ever. A few driving showers of snow fell for some hours after sunrise, and we waited till 10 o'clock before resuming our journey towards the mountains Tsagan-dypsy which bounded the plain in our front. Tsagan meaning "white," we thought the name highly appropriate, as we gazed the live-long day on their snow-clad slopes. It was a trying day to all of us, and I never suffered so much from cold. The sun seldom showed his face, and the air was charged with black, heavy snow-clouds, which only the violence of the wind prevented from falling. It was impossible to endure the wind, either in cart or on horseback. There was nothing for it but to walk, but that was no easy performance in the teeth of such a gale, and we were fain to take shelter behind the carts, supporting ourselves by holding on to them. I estimated that I walked twenty miles in that way. The camels breasted the storm bravely, and even seemed to enjoy it. The Bactrian camel, at least the Mongol variety, is peculiarly adapted for cold climates. In a hot day he is easily fatigued, and seems almost to melt away in perspiration under his load (hence our constantly travelling at night, in the early part of our journey, and resting in the heat of the day), but in cold weather he braces himself up to his work, and the colder it gets, the better he is.
We were entertained by the few travellers we met with alarming accounts of the state of the river Tolla, which was said to be in flood, and impassable. We paid little heed to such Job's comforters, knowing the Asiatic proneness to figurative language; but our lama was disconsolate, and began to look like a man who feels that some great calamity is hanging over him.
On gaining the Tsagan-dypsy mountains we enter a long, narrow, but very pretty valley, watered by the small river Kul, which runs into the Tolla. The mountains on both sides of us were well wooded, chiefly with fir with yellow feathery leaves, and small birch. The fir grows to no great size, probably because it is in too great demand for sale in China. Several wood-cutting stations were observed in this valley of the Kul, where the timber is collected and the ox-carts loaded, of which we met so many in the desert.