EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 



671 



camped. Here I was detained for eleven days trying- to make arrange, 

 mentswith tlie cliief to supply me with pack animals and a guide to go 

 to Shigatse, in Ulterior Tibet. After a vast and reckless ex])enditure 

 of my limited store of patience, I failed to get more than four camels 

 and a guide as far as Teugi'dik, a Mongol encampment in the marshes 

 of the Ts'aidam, not a hundred miles away. 



On the second day out from Oim we left the village of Baron (or 

 Barou kure) and travelling tlirough sand and mud and brush for four 

 days came to the pools of Tengelik. Life 

 in camp in this horrible Ts'aidam is miser- 

 able indeed, and though I was used to the 

 dirt and misery of such an existence, I had 

 daily to use all my persuasive powers to 

 keep myself in the belief that I would be 

 able to stand it for six months more. The 

 Mongols of the Ts'aidam have a saying that 

 a Mongol eats 3 pounds of wool with his 

 food yearly, a Tibetan 3 pounds of gravel, 

 and a Chinese 3 quarts of dirt. Living in 

 a Sinico-Mongolo-Tibetan style, I swal- 

 lowed with my miserable food the dirt, the 

 wool, and the grit, portioned by a harsh 

 destiny to these peoples, and I verily be- 

 lieve that I found enough wool in my tea, 

 my tsamba, my meat, and my bread while 

 in Mongolia and Tibet to stuff a pillow. 

 The dirt and the sand could be easily swal- 

 lowed, but the wool — nothing could be 

 done with it, no amount of mastication 

 could dispose of it. 



Leaving Tengelik on the 7th of May 

 with four pack ponies, three oxen and a 

 camel, the latter loaded with leather jars 

 Idled with water, we reached the Xaichi 

 gol in five days, travelling all the time 

 through sand or swam]). 



On the Naichi gol 1 stopped for a few 

 days to engage a famous guide of whom I 

 had heard tell in Shang, and also to replenish mj' store of provisions 

 as far as possible in this i)overty stricken country. We got a supply 

 of fairly good tsamba, but the butter we here bought, made of sheep's 

 milk, was the strongest smelling and the vilest 1 ever tasted in my life, 

 but such as it was I had to eat it and be thankful till I reached the in- 

 habited parts of Tibet in July. 



Leaving this place we turned south and following up the Xaichi 

 River, entered the mountains which all along the south side of the 

 Ts'aidam mark the northern edge of the great tableland dividing this 



Fk;. 8.— Prayer-wheel turned by wind* 

 Erected over Mongol and Tibetan 

 dwellings. 



