IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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io6 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. r [CHAP. v.
The guide says they keep away from the caravan tracks and stay up in the mountains. The Mongols follow them and
catch their young, which they use for riding only, as they will
not carry a pack. The guide says they will travel eight
hundred li in a day—probably an exaggeration. Their legs
are thin, and the hair;, smooth. At three years old they are said to be of the size of a horse ; at five years, the size of a small tame camel.
The guide also says that there are wild horses and mules about here and westward. On to-day's march I saw some of what the guide calls wild mules, through my telescope. They are the kyang of Ladakh and Tibet, and are in size about thirteen or fourteen hands, and in colour a light bay, being brightest under the belly. The head and tail were like a mule's, the neck thick and arched. They trotted fast, with a free, easy motion. The guide says the horses go about in troops of two or three hundred.
We started at 3.45, and passed over a gravel plain in a west-by-south direction. This plain is bounded on the south by a range at a distance of about eight miles. The range runs in a general easterly by westerly direction, and is about six hundred feet high on the average.
We camped at twelve amongst some low hills, with water three miles to westward. The camels are very poor ; one of the new ones has gone lame, and another can hardly move along with a very light load.
Tune 14.—A fine, bright day. The sun was very hot, but a cool breeze blew from the east.
We started at 4.20, still passing over the plain, and at ten entered some low hills. I had a long conversation with my boy in Chinese, helped out occasionally by English. His brother is an importer of racing ponies to Shanghai, and he says they all come from Jehol-Lamamiau. They are driven down to Tientsin and shipped in foreign steamers at fifteen
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