SPORT AND SCIENCE ON THE 
vented our starting for another fortnight, but at 
last on February 10, we set out from T’ai-yiian Fu 
with a somewhat meagre equipment of four mules 
and one pony, together with three, natives. 
A glance at the map of China will suffice to show 
the reader the position of the Ordos Desert. It is 
situated within a mighty loop of the Yellow River 
immediately north of Shensi, from which province 
it is divided by the Great Wall. The Ordos is 
known to the Chinese as Ts’ao-ti (grass land), and 
the only information we could glean concerning 
it was that it was an immense wilderness of sand 
and coarse scrub, in which wild Tartars lived, 
and where hardy races of small ponies and cattle 
were bred. 
This sounded interesting, though hardly favour- 
able to our purpose of making a large collection. 
Nevertheless our instructions were definite on the 
subject, so we set about attaining the end in view 
as best we could. 
We found that by travelling due west we could 
have reached Yii-lin Fu on the border of the desert 
in fourteen days, but this would have brought 
us to the country at a time of year when the 
weather would have been most unsuitable for the 
collecting of small mammals, and much valuable 
time would have been wasted. 
We therefore decided to travel south-west to 
Yen-an Fu in North Central Shensi, and from 
there work north-west, to the southernmost point 
6 
