FROM OURGA TO THE GREAT WALL.
My preparations for the journey across the Gobi Desert—The
Russian Heavy Mail—My camel-cart—Good-bye to Ourga—The first
few days out—Discomforts of the journey—The homeward-bound
mail—The desert settlement of Tcho-Iyr.
[Illustration: IN THE GOBI DESERT.]
It was one thing getting to Ourga, quite another getting out of it, as I
found when I made inquiries as to the most expeditious way of crossing
the immense waste which lay between me and the Great Wall of China; it
was, in fact, mainly owing to this circumstance that I stayed so long in
the dreary city, for when I spoke to my Russian friends on the subject,
they shook their heads, and expressed an opinion that I would not find
it an easy matter to make up so small a caravan as I should require for
the journey. And so it proved. Moreover, much to my annoyance, I learnt
that there was not one really reliable Mongol in Ourga at the time, and
that to think of going alone with doubtful guides would have been to
tempt Providence. I was, therefore, advised to make the best of it and
postpone my departure for a while, on the chance of something turning up.
At length the Russian postmaster, with whom I was on very friendly terms,
came to my rescue, and kindly offered to let me accompany the caravan
of the Russian Heavy Mail as far as Peking. This was indeed a bit of
luck, for the convoy is not only always accompanied by two experienced
Cossacks, but does the journey in considerably less time than any
ordinary caravan, and my expenses would also be very much lessened.
As the time for my departure approached, my preparations for the long and
tedious journey required a good deal of attention, for nothing can be
purchased _en route_. Much to my disappointment, I learned that I should
not be able to take my horse with me, as there would be no means of
getting sufficient food for him, even if he could stand the long forced
marches, for it is only by having relays of fresh camels that the mail
can get across so quickly as it does. I had taken the precaution to bring
out with me from England a sufficient quantity of tinned provisions to
last me right across Siberia and leave me enough for my desert journey. I
had also a small American cooking-stove, which the makers (Messrs. Poore
and Co., of Cheapside, London) guaranteed would work equally well with
coal, wood, or _argol_ (dried camel-dung, the fuel of the desert), and
this portable kitchener proved absolutely invaluable; even in wind or
rain it worked to perfection, and many were the delicacies it afforded
me.
[Illustration: MY CAMEL-CART.
[_To face p. 303._]
Having overhauled my stock of provisions, my next trouble was to get
a cart to travel in, or rather to sleep in, for I was then under the
illusion that I should spend the greater part of the daytime on the back
of one of our “ships of the desert.” I was soon, however, undeceived;
I had forgotten what a bad sailor I am. A camel-cart, as will be seen
from my sketch, is of peculiar construction, and I do not think it is
possible accurately to describe one of these boxes of torture without
going into profanity. No matter how smooth or level may be the road, the
camel-cart bumps and jolts about as vigorously as when it is passing
over rocks, and the smallest pebble under the wheels will send a spasm
through the whole vehicle like an electric shock; in fact, I could not
help coming to the conclusion that, were a camel-cart to pass over the
smoothest asphalt road, it would be affected by the geological sub-strata
and jolt accordingly. There was one thing I discovered beyond a question
of a doubt whilst crossing the Gobi in this camel-cart, and that was,
that I possessed, under certain conditions, a thorough command of my
mother tongue. I managed to hire one of these conveyances, for to have
one built expressly is a very expensive affair, and would have taken some
little time. I also had to hire an extra camel from the Mongol who runs
the mail, for the postmaster only undertook to provide me with one for
my baggage, so I had to get another expressly to draw my cart—no easy
matter, as I soon found out, for it is not every one of these brutes
that will allow himself to be harnessed; and when they don’t at once
condescend to walk between the shafts, no manner of persuasion will
ever induce them to do so. With a camel whipping is simply out of the
question; for, immediately one attempts to chastise him, he either lies
down, and refuses to get up, or else starts kicking. Till I went to
Mongolia I had always thought that the camel was the most patient and
docile of animals. I soon, however, saw that for absolute bad temper and
stubbornness he has not his equal anywhere; and, as added to these gentle
traits of character, nature has also provided him with a unique and
disgusting means of defence, in the form of a power to spit, or rather
eject, almost on the slightest provocation, a mass of undigested food,
at any one who may be unlucky enough to incur his displeasure, it may be
imagined that he is seldom interfered with by strangers, owing to the
risk of receiving one of these odoriferous discharges. No less than six
camels were tried before one could be found which was deemed reliable
enough to draw the cart, and this had to be bought for the purpose. The
value of these brutes varies according to their age; full-grown ones
generally average from 160 to 200 roubles (£20 to £25).
The Mongolian dromedary, or rather camel—for it has two humps—is a
very different-looking animal to its Arabian cousin, for it is very
much smaller, and in winter covered with a long and shaggy coat of
hair. During the summer months this coat comes off, and the animal then
presents an even more unpleasant appearance than usual, which, however,
in summer or winter, is thoroughly in harmony with that of the Mongol
attendants.
The caravan of the Russian Heavy Mail usually consists of the two
Cossacks in charge of it, three Mongols, and six camels. If the mail be
an exceptionally heavy one, an extra camel is perhaps added; but this
occurs very seldom. It is, in reality, the Parcel Post, for only heavy
matter is sent by it. Letters are conveyed across the Gobi by horse post,
which goes three times a month both ways, on a system not unlike the
old pony express in America, the distance of one thousand miles, from
Kiakhta to Kalgan, being covered in the short time of nine days by five
consecutive riders and nine relays of horses. Only Mongols are employed
on this arduous task, and night and day, in all weathers and seasons,
these hardy sons of the desert do their monotonous and lonely journey,
keeping their time with almost the regularity of clockwork, so well is
the system organized. They go at a hard gallop the whole way, the mail
being carried in saddle-bags, slung over a second horse, which they lead
with them. The difference in the time occupied by the heavy and the light
posts is naturally very considerable, the caravans taking as much as
seventeen and eighteen days to do the distance from Ourga to Kalgan, and
this even with four different relays of camels on the way. Still, this
is very much quicker than the ordinary tea-caravans can do it, for it is
no unusual occurrence for twenty-five, thirty, or even as much as forty
days to be spent on the journey across. The great difference, of course,
between the mail and the private caravan is that the latter has the
same camels to go the whole way; so a road has to be taken which passes
through the district most likely to afford pasturage to the animals.
As, owing to the number of caravans passing, these pastures are yearly
becoming more remote, the roads, in consequence, are getting longer for
the ordinary caravans, for they have to go further afield in search of
grass. The two Cossacks who went in charge of the mail I accompanied were
both men who had had much experience on the road, the leader, Nicolaieff,
having been eleven years continually passing to and fro across the Gobi,
so he knew almost every inch of the ground.
[Illustration: MONGOL CONVEYING THE RUSSIAN LIGHT MAIL ACROSS THE GOBI
DESERT.
[_To face p. 306._]
I could not help wondering what inducement the dreary Mongolian waste
could offer to any young and active man, for him to elect to pass his
life in it, so to speak; for, although the same Cossacks accompany the
mail right across China, as far even as Tientsin, they only stay long
enough there for the contrast of the life in the busy town to appear
even more marked in comparison with their own monotonous existence. Yet
there are men, in most cases married, who actually give up the best years
of their lives in this obscure and remote postal service—and for what?
The Cossack Nicolaieff received, I learnt, the munificent sum of twenty
roubles (£2 10_s._) per month, out of which he had to keep himself and
family! Stepanoff, who was his junior, received somewhat less. Of course,
it must not be forgotten that living is cheap in these parts. Still,
12_s._ 6_d._ per week is not a big sum to keep a large family on.
It has seldom been my luck to come across two such thoroughly good
fellows as these humble Cossacks, and it was with a real feeling of
regret that I separated from them at the end of the journey; for I
don’t think that I ever met two men working together in more absolute
harmony of friendship. There was none of the effusiveness one sees in
the higher walks of life, but there was, I noticed, a certain quiet and
unobtrusive steadfastness between them which meant volumes more than all
the “old chap” this or “old man” that could ever convey. Duty bound them
together, and with the implicit obedience to it which is an instinctive
quality in the character of the Russian soldier, they did their work
together like men and brothers.
It was with a feeling of relief that on May 7 I left the dreary desert
city of Ourga, though certainly not without some forebodings of the
hardships which would have to be endured before I reached civilization.
Eight hundred miles of sandy waste lay between me and the Great Wall of
China—a sandy waste which, for utter desolation and monotony, is probably
without an equal in the world. I do not propose to give a chronological
account of the tedious journey; events were so few and far between during
the long and tiresome marches that a description of the routine of one
day will suffice for all. The start for the day’s journey was usually
made at daybreak, when in a few seconds the sleeping encampment would
become a scene of bustle and movement. The dawn was scarcely visible in
a faint streak of rosy red on the horizon, when the drivers would be
awakened by the leader, and preparations at once made for the start.
All had to be repacked on the camels, and mine reharnessed to my cart,
everything being finished and ready to proceed in an incredibly short
space of time. No time whatever was wasted in toilet arrangements or even
refreshing the inner man, and, although I would often have given anything
for a cup of hot coffee or Bouillon Fleet before starting, I did not
like to disarrange the evidently invariable custom of making an early
start, by delaying the caravan for the preparation which the making of
such a beverage would have involved.
[Illustration: THE MIDDAY HALT IN THE DESERT.]
Long shall I remember those dreary, weary hours which always preceded our
first stoppage, for no halt was ever made until close on noon. A bite of
biscuit, perhaps some preserved icy-cold tinned meat, washed down by a
limited quantity of stale water sucked through a pocket-filter, was my
only breakfast—a breakfast so complete in its discomfort as to require
the very keenest appetite to do justice to it. The appetite I fortunately
usually possessed, for the bracing air of the desert acted on one like
the strongest tonic. The noonday halt after seven or eight hours of
incessant jolting in the cart was a veritable oasis in the discomfort
of the day, as at this time I could make at least some attempt at an
imitation of a civilized meal. At this time also the benefit of my little
portable stove was simply inestimable; it fairly astonished the simple
Mongol. Still, even this attempt at a square meal was never unattended by
discomfort, for in the middle of the day a cold piercing easterly wind
was invariably blowing, and, although the Cossacks always pitched their
tent, the open air was preferable to its smoky, malodorous interior with
a fire in the centre. Two hours and a half were usually the limit of time
allowed for the midday rest; then the boys would be sent off to fetch
back the camels, which would often stray far away from the encampment
in search of pasturage. Then the tent was struck, loads readjusted,
the caravan marshalled into its usual order, with my cart leading, and
once more we started on another dreary and monotonous spell, which only
terminated late at night.
Our rate of progression, even under the most favourable conditions,
never exceeded three and a half miles an hour. It was usually managed so
that we should have reached a well when we halted; still, the precaution
was always taken of filling our water-barrels whenever the opportunity
offered, so as not to have to rely on doing the exact distances between
the wells. These distances varied very considerably from fifteen up to
even thirty miles; but the water varied still more. I thought, when I was
up-country in Africa, that I had drunk the most repulsive water it would
ever be my lot to have to put up with, but I had not then been in the
Gobi Desert. Even my pocket-filter on one or two occasions gave it up
as a bad job, for it got so clogged with dirt that it would not act, so
I had then to throw aside the remains of my fastidiousness and drink the
awful liquid in its natural state, which in appearance and consistency
was a cut between chocolate paste and coffee and milk; for _il y avait de
quoi boire et manger_. I could not help noticing how very slightly the
Cossacks were affected by these nasty incidents.
Long habit had acclimatized them, so to speak, to living in dirt, and
eating and drinking it also; they were quite Mongolized, in fact. On
one occasion, at the commencement of the journey, I remember going into
the tent when their dinner, a quantity of meat, was stewing, or rather
boiling, in the large iron pan over the open fire. The preparation was
a simple one, for the meat had been merely cut into chunks and thrown
into the pot and covered with water. As the mess boiled, a nasty scum,
consisting of all the dirt in the water and the meat, rose to the
surface. This filth was eagerly scooped up by both the Cossacks and
the Mongols, and swallowed with much avidity; in fact, I learned they
look upon it as the best part of the food, for when I expressed my
astonishment at their even leaving it in the stew, as it would be better
and cleaner if it were removed, they stared in blank surprise at what
they probably considered my ignorance. I was much surprised to notice how
very little water a camel requires when on the road, and how little he
gets given to him; even when there was an abundance they never received
it more often than once every two days, so as not to accustom them to
luxuries, and they did not seem to be very keen for it even then.
The first day after leaving Ourga was uneventful enough, the track
offering little or nothing of interest, though the actual flat sandy
expanse of desert had not yet commenced. The surrounding hills were bare
and desolate-looking, and the dreary aspect was a fitting prelude to the
unutterable solitude and desolation farther on. A few miles out from the
capital we crossed the broad, swiftly running Tola River. Our camels
were quite girth-deep in its waters, for there had been rain up in the
mountains recently; still, the animals did not seem much to mind crossing
it, breasting the current as unconcernedly as though they liked it. This
was the last water of any importance we saw until we reached Kalgan,
nearly three weeks after.
As we slowly advanced we gradually left the hills behind, till at last,
three days out, we reached the actual commencement of the great desert;
and I saw stretched out before me a vast, limitless waste, so flat and
unbroken that it looked exactly like the sea. A quiet, as though of
death, reigned over it, for not even the slightest sign of life broke the
oppressive stillness of the scene. Neither the Karoo or the Kalahari
deserts in South Africa ever produced on me an impression so weird and
indescribable as did that first glimpse of the awful Gobi, “The Great
Hungry Desert.” The mere look of the dreary waste recalled all I had ever
read of the horrors of a lingering death, by thirst or starvation, which
has so often befallen travellers who have been unfortunate enough to lose
themselves on its almost trackless surface. Nothing, in fact, was wanting
to complete the gloomy picture. Even the faintly marked trail before us
was rendered more easily discernable by the bleached bones of camels
lying here and there on either side.
[Illustration: MY CARAVAN IN THE DESERT.
(_From a Kodak photogragh._)]
Our fourth day out was marked by an event—for the slightest incident
in that weary, uneventful journey magnified itself into an important
occurrence. During the afternoon we met the caravan of the homeward-bound
Russian mail, and, considering we had not seen a living soul, except
each other, for more than forty-eight hours, it may be imagined how
pleasurable was the meeting. The two convoys halted for a time; our
Cossacks exchanged news with the other Cossacks, and even the Mongols
hobnobbed together; the inevitable vodka was produced, and, under
its genial influence, for a few moments the weariness of the journey
was forgotten; then, with many final shakes of the hand and friendly
wishes, we were under way, and in a short time were once more alone on
the boundless waste. It was on this occasion that I first heard of the
attempted assassination of the Czarewitch.
[Illustration: WE MEET THE HOMEWARD-BOUND MAIL.]
The next day we reached a range of rocky hills—great heaps of huge
boulders lay piled around in picturesque confusion, and, altogether, the
scene was a welcome change after the flatness of the plains. Right in
the very midst of these hills, nestling as it were under their shelter,
to my surprise we came upon a miniature town, which I had never even
heard of before. This, I learned, was Tcho-Iyr, a Lama settlement,
entirely inhabited by Mongols who are devoting their lives to religion.
[Illustration: THE LAMA SETTLEMENT OF TCHO-IYR IN THE GOBI DESERT.]
It was a lovely day, the finest one we had had as yet, and in the still
air and the eternal silence of the surroundings the effect was very
impressive, for it was indeed “asleep in the sunshine of the East,” and
“far from the busy haunts of men.” I therefore persuaded Nicolaieff to
halt the caravan for a short time, so that I could have a stroll around
the quaint little place, with my sketch-book and camera; and very pleased
was I afterwards that I had done so, for it was one of the prettiest
spots I saw in Mongolia. On a nearer inspection it turned out to be
larger than I had first taken it to be, and absolutely different from
what I expected to find, for the quiet pervading the streets was quite in
keeping with the proximity to the vast desert—there was, in fact, quite
the atmosphere of religious seclusion which one feels in a monastery. But
what struck me most was the wonderful cleanliness I saw everywhere, and I
don’t think that, for its size, I ever saw its equal. Everything looked
spick and span, as though it were cleaned carefully every day. There
was also a striking absence of dogs, those pests of Mongolia. One could
stroll about without being continually on the _qui vive_, as in Ourga.
Instead of a conglomeration of dirty yourts, there were trim, neatly
built, whitewashed cottages, of absolutely the same outward appearance as
English ones, not so large perhaps, but still strangely reminding one of
far-away England. Curiously enough, I did not see anything at all similar
to them anywhere else, either in Mongolia or China; nor could I find out
why this style of building was exclusively confined to the pretty little
desert settlement.
[Illustration: I TAKE TEA WITH A LAMA IN THE GOBI DESERT.
[_To face p. 316._]
My appearance naturally created quite an excitement, for I was probably
the first Englishman that has ever visited the place, which is, I
believe, out of the usual caravan route; and the appearance of a stranger
in their midst will doubtless form the subject of conversation for a
long time to come. Still, I was in no way annoyed—a little crowded
in, perhaps, but that I was beginning to get accustomed to, and the
half-hour I spent there was so pleasant that I really regretted having
to hurry away. Either there were no women in the place, or at least very
few, for I never saw them; the inhabitants appeared to be entirely of
the sterner sex, and all of them, from the very youngest, Lamas or Lama
students. The effect of the entire population being dressed in red and
yellow was very curious. Many of the older men wore massive gold-rimmed
spectacles, which gave them a very learned appearance. A couple of large
temples of Tibetan architecture, in excellent preservation, seemed the
most important buildings in the town, and, besides these, I learned,
there was a monastery. When I got back to the caravan, I found it quite
surrounded by visitors, for the news of our arrival had by this time
spread all over the place, and evidently a general half-holiday had been
taken in consequence.