4 ACROSS MONGOLIAN PLAINS 



slippery paving stones to the north gate of the city. 

 Kalgan is built hard against the Great Wall of China 

 the first line of defense, the outermost rampart in the 

 colossal structure which for so many centuries protected 

 China from Tartar invasion. Beyond it there was noth- 

 ing between us and the great plateau. 



After our passports had been examined we rode 

 through the gloomy chasm-like gate, turtied sharply to 

 the left, and found ourselves standing on the edge of a 

 half -dry river bed. Below us stretched line after line of 

 double-humped camels, some crowded in yellow-brown 

 masses which seemed all heads and curving necks, and 

 some kneeling quietly on the sand. From around a 

 shoulder of rock came other camels, hundreds of them, 

 treading slowly and sedately, nose to tail, toward the 

 gate in the Great Wall. They had come from the far 

 country whither we were bound. To me there is some- 

 thing fascinating about a camel. Perhaps it is because 

 he seems to typify the great waste spaces which I love, 

 that I never tire of watching him swing silently, and 

 seemingly with resistless power, across the desert. 



Our way to Hei-ma-hou led up the dry river bed, with 

 the Great Wall on the left stretching its serpentine 

 length across the hills, and on the right picturesque cliffs 

 two hundred feet in height. At their bases nestle mud- 

 roofed cottages and Chinese inns, but farther up the 

 river the low hills are all of loess brown, wind-blown 

 dust, packed hard, which can be cut like cheese. De- 

 serted though they seem from a distance, they really 

 teem with human life. Whole villages are half dug, half 



