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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| The mother of the Khan of the Torguts at Yulduz in her yurt. |
Citation Information
C. G. MANNERHEIM
The mother of the Khan of the Torguts at Yulduz in her yurt.
clouds enveloped the mountains on both sides of the pass and descended on us in the shape of impenetrable fog. Izmail sighed deeply as he stared at the heap of stones and murmured in broken Russian: »Here a man died». Glancing at the clouds, he declared that a buran was coming and that in such weather people were always buried by the snow on the tops of the mountains. We had fallen asleep, I in my raincoat, Izmail in his soaking boots, covered by the snow carried by the storm, when one of the Kalmuks woke us soon after 1 1. He had brought some rugs, a teapot and some chips of wood from the caravan. I need scarcely say how delighted we were with such unexpected comfort in the cold and storm. At the top of the pass water boiled at +89.28°. The mountain ridges that enclose the pass do not appear to be particularly high and a detachment that was defending the pass might be circumvented, though not without great difficulty.
The caravan caught us up at 9 this morning and we started to descend the pass together. 'There had been a good deal of trouble in getting the pack-horses up the steepest parts. Several horses had sunk deep into the snow and all the loads had had to be carried up the steep slopes. Various things had been broken, of course. The horses had had no fodder all night. The men had drunk a little tea and found some rusks.
The southern slope of the pass is not so steep, though the higher parts are quite as stony. There is a small river here, first on the left and later on the right. At a turn of the road we had a view of the large, green valley of the Yulduz, or the Zultus as the Kalmuks call it. A ride southward of 3 or 4 miles brought us to the mouth of the pass. Here the road made a sharp bend to the ESE and took us at first along the lowest slope of the mountains and then across a plain with poor grass. About 2 1 /2 miles further on we crossed a river bed, about 220 yards wide, at the bottom of which a small stream flowed. An hour later we reached the large camp of the Khan of the Torguts. He had left for Peiping last
)27o(
June 15th.
Camp at Bain Buta q (near Little
Yulduz.)
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