404 DZUNGARIA 



certainly have flowed out through this hollow, and 

 joined the Irtish some eighty miles farther to the north- 

 west. 



Travelling westwards as rapidly as our well-laden 

 camels permitted, we arrived, three days after leaving 

 our camp near Ulungur, at the Kobuk Valley. The 

 Sair Mountains, rising on the north to an altitude of 

 12,000 ft., supplied ample water, which irrigated the 

 Kobuk pastures before running to waste in the deserts 

 to the south. Here we found a large community of 

 Torgut Mongols inhabiting a locality' which, since the 

 earliest daj^s of recorded history, has been a desirable 

 camping-ground. The story of the Torguts of the Kobuk 

 steppe, and of their migration from the far west has been 

 given in a previous chapter, and their past condition, 

 there described, is decidedly more interesting than their 

 present. Exceptional dirt and disease — even for Mongol 

 degenerates — made these people most objectionable 

 to deal with ; it is probable that at no very distant 

 date, the fast-increasing Kirghiz or Kasak tribes will 

 encroach on their territory to the lasting detriment 

 of the Torguts. 



There was an air of settled life amongst the people 

 of the Kobuk, for the yurts clustered in closely packed 

 groups round the Buddhist temple and the residence 

 of their Chief. We observed attempts being made to 

 cultivate the soil, and the yurts frequently possessed 

 a "kraal" — or enclosure — close by, in which they kept 

 their flocks and a supply of hay for the winter's use. 

 The temple and its precincts, together with the abode 

 of the Chief, composed a block of buildings. The Chief, 

 who held the title of Wang, was the hereditary ruler of 

 the tribe, and, although the possessor of a house built 



