singularly operated upon, dashed off, dragging after it the veterinary Tartar, clinging to its tail. In this fashion, they ran nearly a li. The Tartar then quitted his victim, and came quietly back to us, who were quite amazed at this new method of curing cows. He declared there was no further danger for the beast; for he had ascertained, he said, by the stiffness of the tail, the good effect of the ferruginous medicine he had administered.
The Tartar veterinarians sometimes perform their operations at the belly, as we have just seen; but it is more generally, with the head, ears, temple, upper lip, and about the eyes that they deal. The latter operation is principally had recourse to, in the disease which the Tartar’s call Hen’s dung, to which mules are greatly subject. When this disease breaks out, the animals leave off eating, and fall into extreme weakness, so that they can hardly keep themselves on their legs; fleshy excrescences, similar to the excrements of poultry, grow under the lids, in the corners of the eyes. If these excrescences are removed in time, the mules are saved, and recover by degrees their original vigour; if not, they pine for a few days, and then die.
Although cupping and bleeding have great place in the veterinary art of the Tartars, you must not suppose that they have at their disposal fine collections of instruments, such as those of European operators. Most of them have nothing but their ordinary knife, or the small iron awl, which they keep in their girdle, and which they use daily to clear their pipes, and mend their saddles and leathern boots.
The young Lama who had sold us the sheep, spent a great part of the day in telling us anecdotes, more or less piquant and curious, about the veterinary science in which he seemed to be very skilful. Moreover, he gave us important instructions concerning the road we had to pursue. He settled the stages we ought to make, and indicated the places where we should encamp, so as to prevent our dying from thirst. We had still before us in the country of the Ortous, a journey of about fourteen days; in all that time we should find neither rivulet, nor spring, nor cistern; but only, at certain distances, wells of an extraordinary depth; some of them distant from each other two days’ march, so that we should have to carry with us our provision of water.
Next morning, after having paid our respects to the Tartar family, who had shown us so much kindness, we proceeded on our way. Towards evening, when it was nearly time to pitch our tent, we perceived in the distance a large assemblage of various herds. Thinking that one of the indicated wells lay probably there, we bent our steps in the direction, and soon found that we were
correct in our anticipation; the water was before us. The beasts were collected from every quarter, waiting to be watered. We halted accordingly, and set up our encampment. As we gazed upon the assembled flocks, and the well, the covering of which was a large stone, we recalled with pleasure the passage of Genesis, which relates the journey of Jacob in Mesopotamia, to Laban, son of Bathuel the Syrian.
“Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east.
“And he looked, and behold a well in the field, and, lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it; for out of that well they watered the flocks: and a great stone was upon the well’s mouth.
“And thither were all the flocks gathered: and they rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well’s mouth in its place.” [218a]
The wooden troughs placed around the well, reminded us of the other passage, where the meeting of Rebecca with the servant of Abraham is related.
“And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking.
“And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.” [218b]
One cannot travel in Mongolia, amongst a pastoral and nomad population, without one’s mind involuntarily going back to the time of the first patriarch, whose pastoral life had so close a relation with the manners and customs which we still find amongst the Mongol tribes. But how sad and painful do these coincidences become, when we reflect that these unfortunate people are still ignorant of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.