CHAPTER VIII 



THE LURE OF THE PLAINS 



On Monday, June 16, we left Urga to go south along 

 the old caravan trail toward Kalgan. Only a few weeks 

 earlier we had skimmed over the rolling surface in 

 motor cars, crossing in one day then as many miles of 

 plains as our own carts could do in ten. But it had an- 

 other meaning to us now, and the first night as we sat 

 at dinner in front of the tent and watched the after- 

 glow fade from the sky behind the pine-crowned ridge 

 of the Bogdo-ol, we thanked God that for five long 

 months we could leave the twentieth century with its 

 roar and rush, and live as the Mongols live; we knew 

 that the days of discouragement had ended and that we 

 could learn the secrets of the desert life which are yielded 

 up to but a chosen few. 



Within twenty-five miles of Urga we had seen a 



dozen marmots and a species of gopher [Citellus) that 



was new to us. The next afternoon at two o'clock we 



climbed the last long slope from out the Tola River 



drainage basin, and reached the plateau which stretches 



in rolling waves of plain and desert to the frontier of 



China six hundred miles away. Before us three pools 



of water flashed like silver mirrors in the sunlight, and 



beyond them, tucked away in a sheltered corner of the 



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