SINO-MONGOLIAN FRONTIER 



badger [Meles leptorhynchus) and a wild cat's skin 

 were purchased. 



One day we visited a peculiar fort guarding a 

 gate in the Great Wall, through which once passed 

 the high road between Yii-lin Fu and Pao-t'ou, 

 a large town on the northern border of the Ordos. 

 The fort consists of three massive blocks of masonry 

 built one upon the other. The largest at the 

 base measures ninety feet square, while the whole 

 edifice is about ninety feet high. 



The Wall all along the Ordos border has crumbled 

 away, leaving little more than a slight ridge. 

 The watch towers which are situated at intervals 

 of about three hundred yards, are, however, intact 

 and serve still to mark the boundary line. It is 

 obvious that the W^all in these parts was not faced 

 with brick. 



Yii-lin Fu is a prosperous military town with 

 some seven thousand inhabitants. It is supposed 

 to maintain a garrison of one thousand men to 

 overawe the Mongols. Its walls are in good 

 repair, and enclose many elegant temples. Like 

 all the other border towns that we passed Yii-lin 

 Fu is for ever threatened with inundation by the 

 vast sea of sand that rolls in from the north and 

 west. But for the river that flows past its western 

 wall the city would long ago have been submerged, 

 and even now the officials are continually perplexed 

 with the problem, as sand, sweeping round from 

 the north, banks itself against the eastern wall in 



29 



