6 ACROSS MONGOLIAN PLAINS 



while I trotted my pony along more slowly in the rear. 

 It was nearly seven o'clock, and the trees ahout the mis- 

 sion station had been visible for half an hour. I was 

 enjoying a gorgeous sunset which splashed the western 

 sky with gold and red, and lazily watching the black 

 silhouettes of a camel caravan swinging along the sum- 

 mit of a ridge a mile away. On the road beside me a 

 train of laden mules and bullock-carts rested for a mo- 

 ment — ^the drivers half asleep. Over all the plain there 

 lay the peace of a perfect autumn evening. 



Suddenly, from behind a little rise, I heard the whir 

 of a motor engine and the raucous voice of a Klaxon 

 horn. Before I realized what it meant, I was in the 

 midst of a mass of plunging, snorting animals, shouting 

 carters, and kicking mules. In a moment the caravan 

 scattered wildly across the plain and the road was clear 

 save for the author of the turmoil — a black automobile. 



I wish I could make those who spend their lives within 

 a city know how strange and out of place that motor 

 seemed, alone there upon the open plain on the borders 

 of Mongolia. Imagine a camel or an elephant with all 

 its Oriental trappings suddenly appearing on Fifth 

 Avenue! You would think at once that it had escaped 

 from a circus or a zoo and would be mainly curious as 

 to what the traffic policeman would do when it did not 

 obey his signals. 



But all the incongruity and the fact that the automo- 

 bile was a glaring anachronism did not prevent my 

 abandoning my horse to the mafu and stretching out 

 comfortably on the cushions of the rear seat. There I 



