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

We now wish to state that we should appreciate being received by you. If this cannot be arranged we beg herewith to inform you that at the end of this month or the beginning of next we intend to continue our journey to Sinkiang.

If we, SVEN HEDIN and Sru PING-CE'ANG, who bear the whole responsibility for this expedition, are not able to meet you this time, three members of our expedition will fortunately be staying on here, and they will be prepared to pay you a visit at any time so that no misunderstanding may arise. Moreover, all the members of the expedition that have arrived here are provided with passports from the Foreign Office and from the Ministry of Education in China. If you should so desire, we beg you to send one of your officials to our camp with an authorization from yourself to inspect the passports.

The letter was sent with MATE LAMA, who came back after some time had elapsed, followed by a tushimel or secretary and another official. The former told us that the prince certainly had an interpreter, but no-one who could read Chinese. Our clever Mongol TSERAT therefore translated the document to Mongolian to the two deputies, who thereupon took their leave. For the rest of the day we were left to wait.

The prince's secretary had at least been exceedingly courteous, and conveyed the oral message from his master that we were welcome to go wherever we chose and that we were at liberty to do whatever we liked, but that if we intended to venture on the lakes in a boat we should be careful, for there was much water there!

VISIT BY THE SON OF THE TORGUT PRINCE

The water had sunk 5.5 cm since our arrival. The temperature during the night was — 0.5° C. In the clear morning air, with turquoise-blue sky and glittering yellow steppe, our Swedish flag outside my tent was wonderfully well set off.

The son of the Torgut prince came to visit us. He handed me a light-blue khadak and a red visiting-card from his father. The name and title of the latter was given on the card as Chün Wang DASHI. The district was given as Edsina, to which was appended Old Torgut.

The son was the real regent in Edsina. He was a tall, strongly built man of attractive and likable appearance, and polite, soft and refined in manner. We drank tea and exchanged the usual courtesies. If we were really anxious to see the old prince we should be welcome, but he was sick, and only his intimates and a couple of servants were allowed to go in to him. We said we did not wish to disturb him, and conveyed only our greetings and respect.

He begged to have our letter of the previous day translated once more. He repeated the assurances that we were completely at liberty to follow our own devices and that the station might remain here as long as we liked.

He asked if there was any way in which he might now be of service. Yes, we should be very grateful if we might hire an ox-cart to take our boat from Soghonor to Ghashun-nor and afterwards up to the wood, that LIEBERENZ was to film. He promised to arrange this.

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