1082 
THROUGH ASIA 
them to us to eat. We subsequently learned, that the 
family dwelt in the same place all the year round, for the 
purpose of supplying their fellow-tribesmen in Tsaidam 
with yak meat. 
Three large stones in the middle of the tent supported 
the cooking-pot, and yak dung, for feeding the fire, was 
packed up in a circle all round them. When the old 
woman wanted to make a fire, she caught the sparks from 
the steel on a handful of vegetable wool or down, which 
she then placed on the hearth amongst dry, powdered 
horse dung, and after blowing it alight with the bellows 
heaped yak dung upon it. The Mongols do not eat the 
flesh of the khulan. They milk their mares ; and the 
milk tasted like the ayran (boiled milk diluted with water, 
and left to cool and turn sour) of the Kirghiz. A hollow 
stone, suj)ported by a low tripod, and filled with yak fat, 
served for a lamp. 
Both the old woman and the boy wore sheepskins, with 
a belt round the middle, and skin boots. Her head was 
wrapped in a long kerchief, knotted at the back of the 
neck ; and she wore her hair in two long plaits, protected 
with a piece of cloth, d he boy was bareheaded, but wore 
his hair twisted into three short plaits, which stuck out in 
different directions like rats’ tails. 
In the evening, whilst we were having a royal feast 
of the fresh tasty mutton, the husband, whose name was 
Dorcheh, arrived home from his yak-hunting. He was 
not a little amazed to see strangers in his camp ; but 
he was a sensible fellow, and took the matter calmly. 
A thoroughly typical Mongol, Dorcheh was a little 
weather - beaten old man, his face furrowed with a 
thousand wrinkles, his eyes small, his cheek-bones high 
and projecting, his beard and moustache thin and coarse. 
He too was dressed in a sheepskin, and wore skin 
breeches ; his feet were sheathed in pieces of felt ; and 
on his head he had a small felt cap or calotte. 
His knowledge of Jagatai Turki was on a par wdth 
Parpi Bai’s knowledge of Mongolian. However we 
managed as well as we could, and soon picked up 
