The whole performance had the gravest possibilities, and we were exceedingly fortunate in not having been seriously injured or killed. By playing upon their superstitions, the black Mongol had so inflamed the lamas that they were ready for anything. I should never have allowed them to separate me from my wife and, to prevent it, probably would have had to use my pistol. Had I begun to shoot, death for both of us would have been inevitable.
The day that we arrived in Urga from the plains we found the city flooded. The great square in front of the horse market was a chocolate-colored lake; a brown torrent was rushing down the main street; and every alley was two feet deep in water, or a mass of liquid mud. It was impossible to walk without wading to the knees and even our horses floundered and slipped about, covering us with mud and water. The river valley, too, presented quite a different picture than when we had seen it last. Instead of open sweeps of grassland dotted with an occasional yurt, now there were hundreds of felt dwellings interspersed with tents of white or blue. It was like the encampment of a great army, or a collection of huge beehives.
Most of the inhabitants were Mongols from the city who had pitched their yurts in the valley for the summer. Although the wealthiest natives seem to feel that for the reception of guests their "position" demands a foreign house, they seldom live in it. Duke Loobitsan Yangsen had completed his mansion the previous winter. It was built in Russian style and furnished with an assortment of hideous rugs and foreign furniture which made one shiver. But in the yard behind the house his yurt was pitched, and there he lived in comfort.
Loobitsan was a splendid fellow—one of the best types of Mongol aristocrats. From the crown of his finely molded head to the toes of his pointed boots, he was every inch a duke. I saw him in his house one day reclining on a hang while he received half a dozen minor officials, and his manner of quiet dignity and conscious power recalled accounts of the Mongol princes as Marco Polo saw them. Loobitsan liked foreigners and one could always find a cordial reception in his compound. He spoke excellent Chinese and was unusually well educated for a Mongol.
Although he was in charge of the customs station at Mai-ma-cheng and owned considerable property, which he rented to the Chinese for vegetable gardens, his chief wealth was in horses. In Mongolia a man's worldly goods are always measured in horses, not in dollars. When he needs cash he sells a pony or two and buys more if he has any surplus silver. His bank is the open plain; his herdsmen are the guardians of his riches.
Loobitsan's wife, the duchess, was a nice-looking woman who seemed rather bored with life. She rejoiced in two gorgeous strings of pearls, which on state occasions hung from the silver-encrusted horns of hair to the shoulders of her brocade jacket. Ordinarily she appeared in a loose red gown and hardly looked regal.
Loobitsan had never seen Peking and was anxious to go. When General Hsu Shu-tseng made his coup d'etat in November, 1919, Mr. Larsen and Loobitsan came to the capital as representatives of the Hutukhtu, and one day, as my wife was stepping into a millinery shop on Rue Marco Polo, she met him dressed in all his Mongol splendor. But he was so closely chaperoned by Chinese officials that he could not enjoy himself. I saw Larsen not long afterward, and he told me that Loobitsan was already pining for the open plains of his beloved Mongolia.
In mid-July, when we returned to Urga, the vegetable season was at its height. The Chinese, of course, do all the gardening; and the splendid radishes, beets, onions, carrots, cabbages, and beans, which were brought every day to market, showed the wonderful possibilities for development along these lines. North of the Bogdo-ol there is a superabundance of rain and vegetables grow so rapidly in the rich soil that they are deliciously sweet and tender, besides being of enormous size. While we were on the plains our food had consisted largely of meat and we reveled in the change of diet. We wished often for fruit but that is nonexistent in Mongolia except a few, hard, watery pears, which merchants import from China.
Mr. Larsen was in Kalgan for the summer but Mr. Olufsen turned over his house and compound for our work. I am afraid we bothered him unmercifully, yet his good nature was unfailing and he was never too busy to assist us in the innumerable details of packing the specimens we had obtained upon the plains and in preparing for our trip into the forests north of Urga. It is men like him who make possible scientific work in remote corners of the world.