MONGOLS AT HOME 153 



call isambaj and the buttered tea was prepared exactly 

 as we had seen the Tibetans make it. The tsamba, 

 however, was only to enable them to "carry on" until 

 we killed some game; for meat is the Mongols' "staff 

 of life," and they care little for anything except ani- 

 mal food. 



The evening hunt yielded no results. Two of the 

 Mongols had missed a bear, I had seen a roebuck, and 

 the old man had lost a wounded musk deer on the moun- 

 tain ridge above the camp. But the game was there 

 and we knew where to find it on the morrow. In the 

 gray light of early morning Tserin Dorchy and I rode 

 up the valley through the dew-Soaked grass. Once the 

 old man stopped to examine the rootings of a ga-hai 

 (wild boar) , then he continued steadily along the stream 

 bed. In the half-gloom of the forest the bushes and 

 trees seemed flat and colorless but suddenly the sun 

 burned through an horizon cloud, flooding the woods 

 with golden light. The whole forest seemed instantly to 

 awaken. It was as though we had come into a dimly 

 lighted room and touched an electric switch. The trees 

 and bushes assumed a dozen subtle shades of green, 

 and the flowers blazed like jewels in the gorgeous wood- 

 land carpet. 



I should have liked to spend the morning in the for- 

 est but we knew the deer were feeding in the open. On 

 foot we climbed upward through knee-high grass to the 

 summit of a hill. There seemed nothing living in the 

 meadow but as we walked along the ridge a pair of 

 grouse shot into the air followed by half a dozen chicks 



