542 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Eugene Lee Stewart 



a special type of obo used when lamas hold services eor mongolian soldiers 

 (see also illustration on page 543) 



with sleeves so ample that the arms can 

 be withdrawn from them and reintro- 

 duced without touching the buttons. 



In this gown men and women are, for 

 all practical purposes, inclosed in a little 

 private tent from which only the head 

 projects. It allows the wearer to dress 

 and undress beneath it in perfect privacy, 

 whether on horseback or surrounded by 

 the crowded inmates of a full tent. 

 Though on ordinary occasions wearing 

 plain material, on high days and holidays 

 the women don beautiful embroidered 

 gowns often with quaint padded epau- 

 lettes. 



MONGOLIAN WOMEN WEAR THEIR WEALTH 

 ON THEIR HAIR 



But the most remarkable features of 

 Mongol costumes are the hair orna- 

 ments and head-dresses of the women 

 (see illustrations, pages 525 and 526). 

 Even a poor girl, once she marries, wears 

 a profusion of silver ornaments on her 

 head. The precise nature and shape of 

 these varies with the tribes. One at least 

 has a most ludicrous coiffure for its 

 matrons, which projects so high that the 

 cap, imperatively demanded by etiquette, 

 is tied on above the ornaments quite clear 



of the head. Others adopt curtains of 

 red corals or turquoise or strings of 

 pearls reaching often to the waist. 



When the wearers take their stand 

 together in the picturesque veranda of 

 some temple, the effect is most striking. 



At the close of the festival, which may 

 last two or three days, the crowds depart 

 to their homes, sometimes hundreds of 

 miles distant. A few must cross the Gobi 

 Desert, that dreary stretch of sand and 

 stones which taxes the endurance of man 

 and beast, as mile after mile the weary 

 camels tramp across a stretch of country 

 where there are no tents, no wells, no 

 inhabitants, through solitudes of sand and 

 rocks.* 



Alas for him who loses his way in a 

 dust-storm here and wanders helplessly 

 among the boulders, which in size, shape, 

 color, and arrangement mock him with 

 their resemblance to human habitations ! 



The more fortunate pleasure-seekers 

 travel back across the steppes, where the 

 noon mirages mock and beckon, where 

 lakes glimmer and clouds on the far hori- 

 zon give the illusion of mountain ranges, 



* Sec "A Trip Across the Gobi Desert by 

 Motor Car," by Ethan C. de Mnnyon, in the 

 .National Gkogkaphic Magazine for May, 1913. 



