156 ACROSS MONGOLIAN PLAINS 



thumb upraised, murmured, "Sai, sai." Then he gave, 

 in vivid pantomime, a recital of how he suddenly sur- 

 prised the buck feeding just below the hill crest and 

 how he had seen me jerk the glasses from my eyes and 

 shoot. 



Sitting down beside the deer we went through the 

 ceremony of a smoke. Then Tserin Dorchy eviscerated 

 the animal, being careful to preserve the heart, liver, 

 stomach, and intestines. Like all other Orientals with 

 whom I have hunted, the Mongols boiled and ate the 

 viscera as soon as we reached camp and seemed to con- 

 sider them an especial delicacy. 



Some weeks later we killed two elk and Tserin 

 Dorchy inflated and dried the intestines. These were to 

 be used as containers for butter and mutton fat. After 

 tanning the stomach he manufactured from it a bag to 

 contain milk or other liquids. His wife showed me some 

 reaUy beautiful leather which she had made from roe- 

 buck skins. Tanning hides and making felt were the 

 only strictly Mongolian industries which we observed 

 in the region visited by our expedition. The Mongols 

 do a certain amount of logging and charcoal burning 

 and in the autumn they cut hay; but with these excep- 

 tions we never saw them do any work which could not 

 be done from horseback. 



Our first hunting trip lasted ten days and in the fol- 

 lowing months there were many others. We became 

 typical nomads, spending a day or two in some secluded 

 valley only to move again to other hunting grounds. 

 For the time we were Mongols in all essentials. The 



