NEW TRAVELS ON AN OLD TRAIL 39 



ter and dried fruit, for these could be purchased in 

 Urga only at prohibitive prices. Even then, with 

 camel charges at fourteen cents a cattie (1% lbs.), a 

 fifty-pound sack of flour cost us more than six dollars 

 by the time it reached Urga. 



Charles Coltman at Kalgan very kindly relieved me 

 of all the transportation details. We had seen him 

 several times in Peking during the winter, and had 

 planned the trip across the plains to Urga as ime belle 

 excursion. 



Mrs. Coltman was going, of course, as were Mr. and 

 Mrs. "Ted" MacCallie of Tientsin. "Mac" was a fa- 

 mous Cornell football star whom I knew by reputation 

 in my own college days. He was to take a complete 

 Delco electric lighting plant to Urga, with the hope 

 of installing it in the palace of the "Living God." 



A soldier named Owen from the Legation guard 

 in Peking was to drive the Delco car, and I had two 

 Chinese taxidermists, Chen and Kang, besides Lii, our 

 cook and camp boy. 



Chen had been loaned to me by Dr. J. G. Andersson, 

 Mining Adviser to the Chinese Republic, and proved 

 to be one of the best native collectors whom I have ever 

 employed. The Coltmans and MacCallies were to stay 

 only a few days in Urga, but they helped to make the 

 trip across Mongolia one of the most delightful parts 

 of our glorious summer. 



We left Kalgan on May 17. Mac, Owen, and I rode 

 the forty miles to Hei-ma-hou on horseback while 

 Charles drove a motor occupied by the three women. 



