350 UNKNOWN MONGOLIA 



Mongol chieftain, which we had left seven days before. 

 A long march over an uninhabited country, with no 

 living thing to break the monotony except a few gazelle 

 and an occasional wheeling vulture, took us out of the 

 Chagan-gol Valley and onwards towards the Great 

 Altai Mountains, whose snow-capped ridges now ap- 

 peared to rise no great distance ahead of us. We here 

 left the Mongols and entered the land of the Turk, for 

 at this point begins the territory of the Kirei, or Keraites, 

 a Turki race, the descendants of the people whose name 

 once resounded far and wide across the whole of Asia — 

 as the followers of that romantic, yet elusive person, 

 " Prester John." 



