258 ^MOLODTSi: NEWS FROM HOME. 



some distance apart, having agreed to rendezvous at 

 Koko-nor. As the foremost files met us, they ex- 

 claimed, ' See where our brave fellows have got to ! ' 

 and could hardly believe at first that we four had 

 actually penetrated into Tibet. But what must have 

 been the appearance of the Russian molodtsi ? ^ 

 Exhausted with fatigue, half-starved, unkempt, with 

 ragged clothes and boots worn into holes, we were 

 regular tatterdemalions ! So completely had we lost 

 the European aspect that when we arrived at Din- 

 yuan-ing the natives remarked that we were the 

 very image of their own people ! i.e. of the Mon- 

 gols. 



At Din-yuan-ing we received a thousand lans 

 in money, sent to us from Peking by General 

 Vlangali. We also received letters from Russia,''^ 

 with three of the last numbers of the ' Goloss ' for 

 1872. No words could depict our pleasure at sight 

 of these. We read with feverish impatience letters 

 and ne\vspapers which, although more than a year 

 old, were new to us, Europe, our country, old 

 times, rose up before us with startling vividness, and 

 we became more than ever sensible of our lonely 

 position in the midst of a people alien not in aspect 

 alone but in every shade of character. 



The Prince of Ala-shan and his sons were not at 



1 Molodtsi, i.e. brave fellows. 



"^ I cannot refrain from mentioning an absurd incident with refer- 

 fence to a letter sent me from one of the governmental towns of my 

 fatherland. The address was 'Peking, via Kiakhta.' The word Peking 

 had been erased doubtless by the postmaster, and the following words 

 written in large letters : ' There is no such town as Peking, tliercforc 

 forward this only as far as Kiakhta.' 



