The travellers reached the head of the valley, and examined from a near point the enormous dome. From a distance the curve on its sides had appeared as regular as if wrought by human skill; but they now found that it was piled up with huge blocks of slate and granite, over which it would be impossible to take the horses. A steep ascent to the north brought them, however, to its summit. There the scene was sufficiently remarkable: you might have thought that the Titans had been at play, with great fragments of slate, granite, jasper, and porphyry for their counters. The horses and most of the men were sent round by the base of the cliffs, while Mr. Atkinson, with his servant and the village-hunter, scrambled through the chaos to the edge of a vast circular hollow, which proved to be a vast volcanic crater, not less than nine to twelve hundred feet in diameter, and fully fifty feet in depth. It was heaped up with blocks and boulders and fragments of all sizes, from a cube of twelve inches to a mass weighing half a hundred tons. It is a belief of the Kalmucks that this gloomy spot is inhabited by Shaitan, and they regard it with superstitious dread. Certainly, it is eery enough to be haunted by many a ghostly legend.
Next day, taking a different track, Mr. Atkinson descended the valley of the Tourgau, listening to the music of the stream as it raced over its rocky bed with the speed of a “swift Camilla.” At a point where it suddenly swept round the base of some cliffs of slate, the Kalmuck guide said that it might be forded, though the passage was very difficult. “We stood on the high bank a few minutes,” says Mr. Atkinson, “and surveyed the boiling and rushing water beneath, while immediately above were a succession of small falls, varying from six to ten feet in height. At the bottom of the last there was a rapid, extending about twenty paces down the river; then came another fall of greater depth; after which the torrent rushes onward over large stones until it joins the Katounaia. Across this rapid, between the falls, we had to make our passage—not one at a time, but five abreast, otherwise we should be swept away. As we could only descend the rocky bank in single file, and scarcely find room at the bottom for our horses to stand upon, it was no easy matter to form our party before plunging into the foaming water. Zepta was the first to descend; I followed; then came three others, with two led horses. To go straight across was impossible; we could only land on some shelving rocks a few paces above the lower fall. The brave Zepta gave the word, and we rode into the rushing waters, knee to knee. Our horses walked slowly and steadily on, as the water dashed up their sides; instinct making them aware of the danger, they kept their heads straight across the stream. The distance we forded was not more than twenty paces, but we were at least five minutes doing it; and it was with no small satisfaction that we found ourselves standing on the rocks, some twenty feet above the water, wishing as safe a passage to our friends. When I saw them drawn up on the little bank, and then dash into the stream, I felt the danger of their position more than when crossing myself. Their horses breasted the torrent bravely, and all were safely landed; the dog was placed on one of the pack-horses, where he lay between the bags in perfect security. I am certain that every man felt a relief when the enterprise was accomplished, which would have been impossible had the water been three inches deeper.”
Continuing their ride down the valley, in about ten hours the party reached the river Katounaia and the grassy valley through which it foams and flows. Their route lay up its banks, and speedily brought them to the broad swift stream of the Tourgau, which reflects in its water groups of cedars and birches, with rows of tall poplars decked in foliage of the richest colours. Fording the Tourgau, they soon afterwards came again upon the Katounaia, and crossing it, reached a bend in the valley, which presented to them the monarch of the Altai chain, the magnificent Bielouka. Its stupendous mass uplifts two enormous peaks, buttressed by huge rocks, which enclose a number of valleys or ravines filled with glaciers; these roll their frozen floods to the brink of the imposing precipices which overhang the valley of the Katounaia.
Mr. Atkinson determined on attempting the ascent of this regal height. It was a bright morning when he started, and the two white peaks shone grandly in the early sunshine, which gradually dipped down into the valley, and with its fringes of gold touched the sombre cedars. An hour’s ride carried him and his followers to the bifurcation of the Katounaia, and then they ascended the north-eastern arm, which rises among the glaciers of the Bielouka. When they had got beyond the last tree that struggled up the mountain’s side, they dismounted; and Mr. Atkinson, with the hunter, Zepta, and three Kalmucks, pressed forward on foot, leaving the others in charge of the horses. At first they clambered over the ruins of a mighty avalanche, which in the preceding summer had cloven its way down the precipices, until they reached the glacier, stretching far up the mountain, whence wells the Katounaia in two little ice-cold, transparent streams. There they halted for their mid-day meal. Turning to the west, they toiled up a terrific gorge, filled with fallen rocks and ice, and then climbed a rugged acclivity that, like an inclined plane, reached to the very base of one of the peaks of the Bielouka. Step after step they wearily but persistently ascended, until they reached the frozen snow, scaling which for about three hundred paces they reached the base of the peak, already at such a height as to overlook every summit of the Altai. Far away to the west the vast steppes of the Kirghiz were lost in the blue distance. To the west many a mountain-ridge descended towards the steppes on the east of Nor-Zaisan, and to the Desert of Gobi. The shimmer of a lake was visible at several points; while innumerable rivers, like threads of silver, traced their fantastic broidery through the dark green valleys.
About a hundred paces further, the adventurers found themselves at the head of another glacier, which stretched westward through a deep ravine. Beyond it lay the great hollow between the two peaks. This, in Mr. Atkinson’s opinion, it was possible for them to reach, though they could not hope to ascend either peak. They are cones, he says, from eight hundred to a thousand feet high, covered with hard frozen snow, with a few points of the green slate jutting through. We imagine, however, that to a member of the Alpine Club, to any one who has conquered the Matterhorn or the Jungfrau, they would offer no insuperable difficulties.
Mr. Atkinson retraced his steps in safety, gained the spot where the Kalmucks were waiting with the horses, and rode rapidly towards the place which he had selected for a camp. Next morning he proceeded to cross the mountains by a new route to the mouth of the river Koksa; it proved to be the most arduous of his many enterprises. Hour after hour, his Kalmuck guide led him through a wilderness of rocks and sand, and he rejoiced greatly when at last they descended towards the wooded region, and caught sight of the dark Katounaia winding in a deep valley three thousand feet below. They followed downwards a track made by animals, but, though easy for stags and deer, it was difficult for horses. In many places the only traject was a narrow ledge, with deep precipices beneath, and often steep, rugged acclivities above. In one place they had to ride over what the Kalmucks call a “Bomb”—a narrow ridge of rocks, passable only by one horse at a time. Should two persons meet on any part of these “Bombs,” one of the horses must be thrown over, as it is as impossible to turn round as to pass. On reaching the track by which the Kalmuck hunters ascend the mountains, Zepta called a halt, and sent one of his companions on foot to the other end of the fearful ridge, hidden from view by some high crags, round which the party had to ride. In less than half an hour he returned, but without his cap, which had been left as a signal to any hunters who might follow, that travellers were crossing the “Bomb.”
And now we shall allow Mr. Atkinson to speak himself:—
“Zepta and the hunter told me to drop the reins on my horse’s neck, and he would go over with perfect safety. The former led the van; I followed, as desired, at three or four paces behind him. For the first twenty yards the sensation was not agreeable. After that I felt perfect confidence in the animal, and was sure, if left to himself, he would carry me safely over. The whole distance was about five hundred paces, and occupied about a quarter of an hour in crossing. In some places it was fearful to look down—on one side the rocks were nearly perpendicular for five or six hundred feet; and on the other, so steep, that no man could stand upon them. When over, I turned round and watched the others thread their way across; it was truly terrific to look at them on the narrow and stony path—one false step, and both horse and rider must be hurled into the valley a thousand feet below! These are the perils over which the daring sable-hunters often ride. With them it is a necessity; they risk it to obtain food, and not for bravado, or from foolhardy recklessness—like that of some men who ride their horses up and down a staircase. Kalmuck and Kirghiz would laugh at such feats. I have seen men who would ride their horses along the roof of the highest cathedral in Europe, if a plank, eighteen inches wide, were secured along the ridge. Nor would they require a great wager to induce them to do it; theirs is a continual life of danger and hardships; and they never seek it unnecessarily.”
This ridge carried them across the valley, and they descended through a dense cedar forest to the bank of the river, where they supped splendidly on a fine fat buck that had fallen to the guns of Zepta and Mr. Atkinson. Next morning, they were again in the saddle en route for Ouemonia, where their safe return excited much popular enthusiasm. Bidding adieu to his faithful companions, he crossed the Katounaia, and with a new escort rode on towards the Koksa. Leaving it to the south, he struck the river Tschugash, encamped for the night in a clump of pines on its bank, and in a day or two arrived at his old quarters on the Tchenish.
Mr. Atkinson’s next expedition was to the great Desert of Gobi, sometimes called Scha-ho, or the Sandy River. Beginning upon the confines of Chinese Tartary, its vast expanse of sterile wilderness stretches over some twelve hundred and fifty miles towards the coasts of the Pacific. It consists in the main of bare rock, shingle, and loose sand, alternating with fine sand, and sparsely clothed with vegetation. But a very considerable area, though for a great part of the year not less monotonously barren, assumes in the spring the appearance of an immense sea of verdure, and supplies abundant pasturage to the flocks and herds of the Mongolian nomads; who wander at will over the wide “prairie-grounds,” encamping wherever they find a sheltering crag or a stream of water. The general elevation of the Gobi above the sea is about 3500 feet.