182 ACROSS MONGOLIAN PLAINS 



and no land which contains such magnificent spruce can 

 keep its treasure boxes unspoiled for very long. Even 

 as I write, aeroplanes are waiting in Peking to make 

 their first flight across Mongolia. The desert nomads 

 have not yet ceased to wonder at the motor cars which 

 cover as many miles of plain in one day as their camels 

 cross in ten. But what will they think when twenty men 

 leave Kalgan at noon and dine in Urga at seven o'clock 

 that night! Seven hundred miles mean very little to us 

 now! The start has been made already and, after all, it 

 is largely that which counts. The automobile has come 

 to stay, we know; and motor trucks will soon do for 

 freight what has already been done for passengers, not 

 only from Kalgan to Urga, but west to Uliassutai, and 

 on to Kobdo at the very edge of the Altai Mountains. 

 Few spots in Mongolia need remain untouched, if com- 

 mercial calls are strong enough. 



iiast year the first caravans left Feng-chen with 

 wireless equipment for the eighteen hundred mile jour- 

 ney across Mongolia to Urumchi in the very heart of 

 central Asia. Construction at Urga is well advanced 

 and it will soon begin at Kashgar. When these stations 

 are completed Kobdo in Mongolia, Hami in Chinese 

 Turkestan, and Sian-fu in Shensi will see wireless shafts 

 erected ; and old Peking will be in touch with the remot- 

 est spots of her far-flung lands at any time by day or 

 night. 



These things are not idle dreams — ^they are hard busi- 

 ness facts already in the first stages of accomplishment. 

 Why, then, should the railroad be long delayed? It 



