From the Arctic Ocean to the Yellow Sea

by Julius M. Price

As the time for my departure approached, my preparations for the long and tedious journey required a good deal of attention, for nothing can be purchased en route. Much to my disappointment, I learned that I should not be able to take my horse with me, as there would be no means of getting sufficient food for him, even if he could stand the long forced marches, for it is only by having relays of fresh camels that the mail can get across so quickly as it does. I had taken the precaution to bring out with me from England a sufficient quantity of tinned provisions to last me right across Siberia and leave me enough for my desert journey. I had also a small American cooking-stove, which the makers (Messrs. Poore and Co., of Cheapside, London) guaranteed would work equally well with coal, wood, or argol (dried camel-dung, the fuel of the desert), and this portable kitchener proved absolutely invaluable; even in wind or rain it worked to perfection, and many were the delicacies it afforded me.

MY CAMEL-CART.

[To face [p. 303].

Having overhauled my stock of provisions, my next trouble was to get a cart to travel in, or rather to sleep in, for I was then under the illusion that I should spend the greater part of the daytime on the back of one of our “ships of the desert.” I was soon, however, undeceived; I had forgotten what a bad sailor I am. A camel-cart, as will be seen from my sketch, is of peculiar construction, and I do not think it is possible accurately to describe one of these boxes of torture without going into profanity. No matter how smooth or level may be the road, the camel-cart bumps and jolts about as vigorously as when it is passing over rocks, and the smallest pebble under the wheels will send a spasm through the whole vehicle like an electric shock; in fact, I could not help coming to the conclusion that, were a camel-cart to pass over the smoothest asphalt road, it would be affected by the geological sub-strata and jolt accordingly. There was one thing I discovered beyond a question of a doubt whilst crossing the Gobi in this camel-cart, and that was, that I possessed, under certain conditions, a thorough command of my mother tongue. I managed to hire one of these conveyances, for to have one built expressly is a very expensive affair, and would have taken some little time. I also had to hire an extra camel from the Mongol who runs the mail, for the postmaster only undertook to provide me with one for my baggage, so I had to get another expressly to draw my cart—no easy matter, as I soon found out, for it is not every one of these brutes that will allow himself to be harnessed; and when they don’t at once condescend to walk between the shafts, no manner of persuasion will ever induce them to do so. With a camel whipping is simply out of the question; for, immediately one attempts to chastise him, he either lies down, and refuses to get up, or else starts kicking. Till I went to Mongolia I had always thought that the camel was the most patient and docile of animals. I soon, however, saw that for absolute bad temper and stubbornness he has not his equal anywhere; and, as added to these gentle traits of character, nature has also provided him with a unique and disgusting means of defence, in the form of a power to spit, or rather eject, almost on the slightest provocation, a mass of undigested food, at any one who may be unlucky enough to incur his displeasure, it may be imagined that he is seldom interfered with by strangers, owing to the risk of receiving one of these odoriferous discharges. No less than six camels were tried before one could be found which was deemed reliable enough to draw the cart, and this had to be bought for the purpose. The value of these brutes varies according to their age; full-grown ones generally average from 160 to 200 roubles (£20 to £25).

The Mongolian dromedary, or rather camel—for it has two humps—is a very different-looking animal to its Arabian cousin, for it is very much smaller, and in winter covered with a long and shaggy coat of hair. During the summer months this coat comes off, and the animal then presents an even more unpleasant appearance than usual, which, however, in summer or winter, is thoroughly in harmony with that of the Mongol attendants.

The caravan of the Russian Heavy Mail usually consists of the two Cossacks in charge of it, three Mongols, and six camels. If the mail be an exceptionally heavy one, an extra camel is perhaps added; but this occurs very seldom. It is, in reality, the Parcel Post, for only heavy matter is sent by it. Letters are conveyed across the Gobi by horse post, which goes three times a month both ways, on a system not unlike the old pony express in America, the distance of one thousand miles, from Kiakhta to Kalgan, being covered in the short time of nine days by five consecutive riders and nine relays of horses. Only Mongols are employed on this arduous task, and night and day, in all weathers and seasons, these hardy sons of the desert do their monotonous and lonely journey, keeping their time with almost the regularity of clockwork, so well is the system organized. They go at a hard gallop the whole way, the mail being carried in saddle-bags, slung over a second horse, which they lead with them. The difference in the time occupied by the heavy and the light posts is naturally very considerable, the caravans taking as much as seventeen and eighteen days to do the distance from Ourga to Kalgan, and this even with four different relays of camels on the way. Still, this is very much quicker than the ordinary tea-caravans can do it, for it is no unusual occurrence for twenty-five, thirty, or even as much as forty days to be spent on the journey across. The great difference, of course, between the mail and the private caravan is that the latter has the same camels to go the whole way; so a road has to be taken which passes through the district most likely to afford pasturage to the animals. As, owing to the number of caravans passing, these pastures are yearly becoming more remote, the roads, in consequence, are getting longer for the ordinary caravans, for they have to go further afield in search of grass. The two Cossacks who went in charge of the mail I accompanied were both men who had had much experience on the road, the leader, Nicolaieff, having been eleven years continually passing to and fro across the Gobi, so he knew almost every inch of the ground.

MONGOL CONVEYING THE RUSSIAN LIGHT MAIL ACROSS THE GOBI DESERT.

[To face [p. 306].