IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Across Asia : vol.1 |
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| Kalmuk soldiers in my camp. |
Citation Information
RECORDS OF THE JOURNEY
| Kalnruk soldiers in my (am/,. |
musical gifts. It began without their forcing their voices, but the notes of the monotonous melody kept rising higher and higher and the last part was sung in a piercing falsetto. In the evening there was again a musical entertainment which consisted once more of the only tune.
These anthropological measurements are anything but appetising. The cleanliness of the Kirghiz leaves a good deal to be desired, but he seems almost aristocratic in comparison with the Kalmuk, whose filth exceeds the wildest dreams of the imagination. It really looks as if they did not wash any part of their bodies from birth except possibly their faces and perhaps their hands, and as if the colour of their skins grew darker and darker in the course of time under these layers of dirt until it acquired the hue of an old meerschaum pipe.
To-day I continued my anthropological measurements. I reached the respectable figure May 3oth
of 34 Kalmuks from the Surgan summun. No one, except the rich, raised any objection Kirghiz
to my demand that they should wash before they were measured, It was not exactly campai
a lovely sight to behold about a dozen of these half-naked, ill-developed individuals de- Qarasa.
corating the bank of the little river that flows past our camp. They found it comical to have
to wa:-h off one of' the accumulated layers of dirt and as a matter of fact their ablutions
were useless, for, to he of any use at all, they should have been performed with soap, hot
water and a scrubbing brush. A couple of them — one a youth of twenty — owned large
herds of horses, and they obviously wanted to have nothing to do with the cold water.
They were waited on by the other Kalmuks, who pulled off their boots and spread a rug
on the spot they were to stand on barefoot. Otherwise there seems to be a patriarchal
equality among them and outward forms play a comparatively small part.
In the afternoon one of Nasumbatoff's officers and most of the men left my camp and
returned to Shata, where an inspecting officer, who is sent annually from Khui-yu-an-tchen, is
expected shortly. The 1500 yurts of the Surgan summun are divided into five judicial
districts. In time of peace each district has to provide 24 mounted soldiers between the ages
) 249
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