DA-HUN-GO.
We halted for an hour, about two o’clock, for a tin of preserved meat and glass of cold whisky and water. Moses intimated to us through Jee Boo his intention of pushing on and gaining the desert before nightfall, so there was no help for it. I did not wish to begin the journey with a disturbance, and made no demur, and three o’clock saw us again on the march, passing through plains of wheat and barley, and enormous fields or enclosures of mustard and poppies. We saw no habitations, and wondered a good deal where the tillers of all this ground reside. The road got worse towards evening, and the heavy, clumsy carts stuck fast several times in the deep, rotten holes with which it was honeycombed. A little before six o’clock we got into a more desolate-looking country, although it was better travelling, which was perhaps lucky, as the stiff work in the marshes had almost done up our camels. I had yet to learn that the more beat these animals look, the fitter they are.
We now passed through a sterile, burnt-up-looking country, thickly covered with clumps of thick, wiry grass, over which the camel carts plunged and rolled in a very painful manner. I retired to my cart about five o’clock for a rest, and, tired out with my long ride in the sun, fell asleep. The sun was low in the heavens when I awoke and looked out of the little window. All traces of vegetation had vanished, while straight in front of us rose a low range of yellow sand-hills, through which stunted wisps of light green grass struggled at intervals. On the near side of these were a couple of circular tents, some dogs, and ponies standing hard by; on the far side of the sand-hills the sea, or what appeared so exactly like it, that I had to rub my eyes to make sure I was not dreaming. There it was; the great grey waste looking exactly as it does when lit up at sunset, by the rays of the setting sun after a hot summer’s day in England. The low yellow sand-hills, too, heightened the illusion, and stood out clear and distinct against the grey expanse and level, unbroken horizon. At this moment my ruminations were rudely broken in upon by Moses. Appearing suddenly at the side of my cart, he thrust his flat, ill-favoured face in at the window, and extending a long, skinny forefinger, pointed to the darkening waste. “Shamo,”[[5]] he muttered in a hoarse, guttural voice. Then I knew we had reached the confines of the “Great Hungry Desert.”
[4]. The pigeon in Russia, and especially Siberia, is looked upon as a sacred bird.
[5]. Mongol name for Gobi Desert.
CHAPTER V.
THE DESERT OF GOBI.
The population of Mongolia, an elevated plateau lying about four thousand feet above sea-level, is roughly estimated at between three and four millions, but the difficulties of obtaining anything like an accurate census of the tribes inhabiting this vast tableland are obvious. Of this number, over thirty thousand inhabit Urga, the capital and residence of the “Kootookta,” or living God of the Mongol religion, “Buddhism.” The power of this human deity is purely nominal. He is allowed to reign on sufferance by the Emperor of China, who governs, more or less nominally, the whole of Mongolia, from the Siberian frontier to the mountains of Tibet. The Mongol Tartars pay tax, though somewhat irregularly, to the Pekin Government, the native khans or princes being responsible for the revenues of their several “khanates” or districts.
The name “Gobi” is given by the Mongols to any district more or less destitute of water, but the desert, where we crossed it, presents but few of the characteristics with which we usually associate the name. It may better be described as a vast plain or steppe, extending from the northern side of the Great Wall of China to the Russian frontier-town of Kiakhta, a distance of over eight hundred miles. With the exception, however, of about fifty miles of sandy waste midway across, the north-western portion is seldom entirely devoid of vegetation of some sort or another, be it rich, luxuriant pasture, or dry withered scrub. Perhaps the most curious thing about this so-called desert is, that although grass is so plentiful, and in many places wild flowers grow in profusion, water is very scarce. In the summer months frequent and heavy rain storms do much to lessen this evil, but the Tartars suffer terribly at times from the drought, which sometimes lasts a year or more. Notwithstanding, the climate is healthy, and serious epidemics, such as cholera or typhus, unknown.