National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Outside the huge tent of the Mongols, which housed twenty-two men, a very handy little fire-place was dug. It consisted of three pits in a row, all having underground connections with one another. The pot was boiled over the middle-pit; the front-pit was used for firing with argal (dry manure); and the rear-pit served as a chimney.

In the evenings melodious songs from the Mongols' quarters drifted over to our tents.

LARSON was commissioned with the help of his friends the Mongols to make reconnoitring trips both near and far in Mongolia for the purpose of buying camels. LARSON had lived in Mongolia for thirty-five years, and he knew both the country and its people more thoroughly than any other European. He knew in what tracts camels could be procured; and he could bargain with the Mongols to get fair prices.

The gentlemen of the staff had at first to exercise their patience, though most of us had no particular need to be idle; and those upon whose hands time might otherwise have hung heavy contributed with hunting excursions to the resources of the kitchen.

The stage between Pao-t'ou and the Khujirtu-gol was the first during the eight years during which the main body of the expedition formed a single caravan. From the Khujirtu-gol onwards the expedition was divided up into several sections, which were not re-assembled until Urumchi was reached.

EXPEDITIONS TO BATU-KHAI,AGH-SUME

At ten o'clock on the 31st May NoRuN and BERGMAN, together with Sly, TING, HUANG and KUNG, taking with them thirty camels, set out for Batu-khalagh-sume or Beli-miao, situated about forty kilometers to the east, intending in the neighbourhood of this great cloister to begin their field-work and to inspect the lamaistic monastery. NoRmv had already begun a topographical chart of the tract, and he now intended to continue his mapping of the ground as far as the main camp. On arrival at Beli-miao they were to divide into two or three parties.

A day or so later another party set out for the monastery. It comprised HUMMEL, LIEBERENZ and HASLUND, who were to film, take anthropometric measurements and collect botanical and zoological specimens. In Beli-miao they met a gegen or »living god », who invited them to the great temple festival to the honour of Maydar in the middle of July.

MINGGHAN JASAK

We were encamped in the little district (hoshun or hoshio) of Inner Mongolia that goes under the name Mu-mingghan, or, as the Chinese call it, Mao-ming-an. The chief, or jasak, of this district lived about fifty li to our north. Soon after our arrival

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