f I J DIARY OF A JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND Tibet IN 1891 AND 1892 BY x"^ WILLIAM WOODVILLE ROCKHILL Gold Medalist of the Royal Geographical Society 7'^ .r /t^'^' *A^f<^.'i PER\ /ORB •^ft m^w ••M^ CITY OF WASHINGTON PUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 1894 vv\ PRINTED FOR THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION BY W. F. ROBERTS, WASHINGTON 1894 / . -2 cT/ /V ADVERTISEMENT. The journey described in this volume was undertaken by Mr. Rockhill partly under the auspices of the Smithsonian In- stitution, and the work is issued as a special publication of the Institution, with the general object of "increasing and diffusing knowledge" in regard to the little known countries traversed by the explorer. S. P. LANGLEY, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. in , TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE List of Illustrations vi Illustrations in the Text vii Introductory Notice ~ „ ix Part I . » From Peking through Mongolia to Kumbum i Part II. Salar pa-kun. Kuei-te. Koko nor. Ts'aidam 73 Part III. From the Naichi gol to Namru de, near the Tengri nor.. i8i Part IV. From Namru to Ch'amdo 233 Part V. Draya. Mar-K'ams. Bat'ang. Lit'ang. Chala 319 Appendixes. Appendix I . Salar Vocabulary 373 Appendix 1 1 . San-Ch'uan T'u-jen Vocabulary 377 Appendix III. Plants of Tibet 380 Appendix I V . Table of Latitudes, Altitudes, etc 386 Appendix V . Mean Monthly Temperature -. 396 General Index 397 ILLUSTRATIONS— PLATES. Boots — to face p, 14 hsi-kung miao — kumbum 26 Pat-ma SsO ~ - - 64 Salar Woman : 80 Cooking Utensils 96 Pack-saddles - 108 Su-CHiA Panaka ~ 112 BoNBO Lamas — Panaka Camp ^ 132 Mongols of Shang 148 Ts' aidam Mongols 1 64 Spear — Matchlock 170 Accoutrements 182 Saddle — Hobbles, etc -. 192 Butter-boxes — Pail — — 204 Hats — Caps — 2 1 6 Drupa Tibetans 232 Tea Churns - 256 Jyade Woman's Headdress 266 Crossing Su ch'u 272 Tea-pots — Bowl 280 Riwoch'e 300 Mountains near Neda — Sung-lo zamba 304 Bullet-pouch — Belt, etc 3 1 2 Draya — Temple near Bat'ang 324 Belt, Knife, Tinder-pouch, etc 344 Lamaya — Lit'ang Golo 352 Tower at Bagolo — 364 Route Map of Explorations 372 vi ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT. Spindle of Ordos Mongols - page 22 Lama's Water-bottle - 30 Sheath-knife of Panaka 104 Plan of Panaka Cooking-stove and Tent 123 Spindle of Panaka _ 132 Ear-ring - - 236 Snuff-box » 242 Sling _ 264 Padlock 281 Tea-strainer ~ 292 Tea-dasher — 306 Jew's-Harp and Case 338 Hoe 362 Vll INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. As far as my knowledge goes, the first European traveler who entered Tibet was Friar Odoric, who, conning from Northwestern China, traversed Central Tibet on his way to India in or about 1325, and sojourned some time in its capital, Lh'asa. The infor- mation he has left us of this country in his " Eastern Parts of the World Described,"* is, however, very meager and of no geo- graphical value. Three centuries elapsed before another Western traveler visited this country. In 1624 the Jesuit Antonio Andrada went from Agra to the sources of the Ganges and Sutlej, and thence through Western Tibet, to Kiria probably, whence he journeyed along the northern base of the Kun-lun to the Koko nor country, or Tangut, ultimately reaching China. f The next journey through Tibet was performed by Fathers Grueber and Dorville in 1661. They left Hsi-ning Fu in Kan-su and followed the highroad to Lh'asa by Nya-ch'uk'a and Reting gomba. After staying two months in Lh'asa, they pushed on to Nepaul by way of the Kuti la. Grueber's narrative contains much valuable information on Tibet, its people, their customs and religion. J In 1716 the Jesuit Fathers Desideri and Freyre reached Lh'asa, coming from Sikkim, and remained there until 1729. In 1719 * Published in Col. H. Yule's Cathay and the Way Thither, 1, pp. 1-162. f See Peron et Billecocq, Recueil de Voyages du Tibet. X Published in Thevenot's Relations, II, part iv. See also Clem. R. Markham, Narrative of the Mission of George Bogle and of the fourney of Thomas Manning, 295 et seq. This latter work has been constantly before me in writing these notes. ix INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. the Capuchin Francisco della Penna and twelve other members of his order also reached the capital of Tibet, and established a mission there which flourished until about 1760. While most of the information collected by Desideri still remains in manuscript, the letters of Orazio della Penna have been published several times and are of great value.* Of the journey to Tibet of the Dutchman Samuel van de Putte, in or about 1730, we know but little. He went to Lh'asa from India, and then traveled by the Hsi-ning road to Peking, return- ing again to Lh'asa and to India, and dying in Batavia in 1745.! In 1774 George Bogle was sent by Warren Hastings to Shigatse to try and open commercial relations with Tibet. The account of his journey has been published in 1879 by Mr. Clem- ents R. Markham. In 1783 Captain Samuel Turner also visited Shigatse, and on his return published a valuable account of his journey. J I pass over the work of Brian H. Hodgson, Dr. Campbell, Dr. Hooker, Alexander Cunningham, Wilson, Ashley Eden and others in Sikkim, Bhutan and the adjacent countries, as the field of their labors was in those parts of Tibet which are under British rule o,r influence. The next foreigner to visit Tibet and Lh'asa was the Englishman Thomas Manning, who traveled there vi& Pari djong and Gyantse djong in 181 1 returning to India by the same road in the early part of the following year. His fragmentary journal, published by Mr. Markham|| adds but little to our knowledge of the country *See Clem. R. Markham, op. sup. cit., pp. Iviii, 302 et seq., and for Orazio della Penna's Breve Notizia del Regno del Tibet, the same work, p. 309 et seq. Much valuable information derived from notes and letters written by the Jesuit and Capuchin fathers in Tibet may be found in Georgi's Alphabetum Tibetanum, published at Rome in 1762, i vol., 4°. f See Clem. R. Markham, op. cit., p. Ixii et seq. Also the letter of Pere Gaubil in Lettres edifiantes et curieuses (Pantheon litteraire edit.), IV, 60. XAn Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, i vol., 4°, 1800. II Op. sup, cit., 213-294. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XI he traversed, but it is nevertheless of considerable value. In 1844 the Lazarist fathers Hue and Gabet traversed the Ordos, Alashan, the Koko nor and the Ts'aidam, and following the highroad which passes by Nya-ch'uk'a, reached Lh'asa in 1846. Here they stayed a few months when they were expelled by the Chinese Amban and conducted to Ta-chien-lu in Ssu-ch'uan by the high- road which goes through Ch'amdo, Draya, Bat'ang, and Ho-k'ou.* On their way to Lh'asa they followed the road which in 1661 had been gone over by Father Grueber, and which more recently has been explored by the Russian traveler Nicholas Prjevalsky, as far at least as the frontier post of Nya-ch'uk'a. Between the time of Hue's adventuresome journey and that of Col. Prjevalsky in i87o-'7i, no foreigners, as far as I am aware, entered Tibet. After exploring the Tibetan country around the Koko nor, Prjevalsky pushed on along the highroad to Lh'asa as far as the Dre ch'u, a point which may be considered as in Tibet proper, though politically speaking it is in a no-man's-land. f In 1879 the indefatigable Prjevalsky undertook a second expedi- tion into Tibet with the avowed object of reaching Lh'asa. Coming from the Ts'aidam he followed the highroad to Lh'asa, and got as near the capital as Nya-ch'uk'a. Here he was stopped and forced to retrace his steps. In this expedition he also explored consider- able country south of the Koko nor, an unknown region inhabited by the predatory Tibetan Kamb'a and Golok. J During Prjevalsky's fourth and last expedition into Central Asia he visited in 1887 a small section of Tibetan country between southern Ts'aidam and the Dre ch'u and inhabited by K'amba pastoral tribes. 1| In 1889 1 followed this route myself, and coming to the Dre ch'u a little below where Prjevalsky reached that river, I crossed it and after- *See Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet, 2 vol. 12°. f See Mongolia, the Tangut Country, 2 vols., 8°, 1876. I See his Tretye puteshestvie v Centralnoi Asii, 4°, 1883. II See his Ot Kiachtii na istoki joltoi reki, etc., 4°, 1888. XII INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. wards traversed a considerable section of Eastern Tibet, ultimately re-entering China at Ta-chien-lu in the summer of the same year.* Ta-chien-lu in Ssu-ch'uan is the frontier town on the highroad connectmg Western China with Central Tibet, and through it pass nearly all the caravans going to or coming from Lh'asa.f Explorers have repeatedly endeavored to enter Tibet from this point, and it has been the basis of the operation of the Catholic missionaries in Tibet ever since about 1858. In 1868 the Englishman T. T. Cooper entered Tibet from Ta-chien-lu in an attempt to reach India, and pushed on as far as Bat'ang where he was stopped and obliged ultimately to retrace his steps, after traveling some distance southward. J In 1877 Capt. Wm. Gill, R. E., also reached Bat'ang from Ta-chien-lu, but he also was turned southward at that point, and so went to Yun-nan and Burmah.|| The same fate overtook in 1880 the Hungarian Count Bela Szechenyi and his well-organized expedition, with which he wanted to go to Lh'asa.§ The French missionaries operating in the Tibetan borderland have been fairly successful since they opened their mission at Bonga in 1854. On one occasion they reached Ch'amdo, and at Gart'ok they were allowed by the Lh'asan authorities to open a station for a short time, while in Bat'ang and the country south of it, they have maintained themselves with varying fortunes down to the present day.l" The attempts made by Wilcox in 1826, by Dr. Griffiths in 1836, by I'Abbe Krick in 1852, by T. T. Cooper in 1870, and by Mr. * Set Land 0/ the Lamas, 8°, 1891. f The much older and easier road between China and Lh'asa is the Hsi-ning — Ts'aidam one, but since the breaking out of the Dzungan rebellion in the sixties, the Chinese government have kept it closed as much as they could. Nearly every year the Lh'asa or Trashilhunpo people ask to be allowed to send their tribute missions over it, but they are invariably refused. X Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce, 8°, 1871, II See The River of Golden Sands, 2 vols., 8°, 1880. §See Lieut. Kreitner's /w/^r«^» Osten, 8°, 1882. Tf See Le Thibet d'apris la correspondence des missionnaries, par C. H. Des- godins, 8°, 1885. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XIU Needham in 1885, to enter Tibet from the south, all met with failure, and the country between the Assam frontier and the Lh'asa — Ta-chien-lu highroad is still the least known of all Tibet, though perhaps the most interesting. The last three explorations into Tibet, all of which have met with comparative success, have been undertaken from the north and northwest. In 1889 the French traveler Bonvalot, following a trail sometimes used by the Torgot Mongols, coming from the Lob nor, managed to reach the Tengri nor. There he was stopped and forced to go eastward by a route parallel to the Lh'asa — Ta- chien-lu highroad as far as Gart'ok, from which town to Ta-chien- lu he followed the highroad itself* The country traversed by this explorer between the Lob nor basin and the Tengri nor was abso- lutely unknown to us, as was also that part lying between the Tengri nor and Gart'ok, and his journey has added very consider- ably to our knowledge concerning one of the least known portions of Tibet. In i89o-'9i Capt. Henry Bower, of the 17th Bengal Cavalry, trav- ersed the whole of Tibet from west to east, his road, as far as north of the Tengri nor lying over the nearly desert plateau known as the "Northern plateau " or Chang fang, another portion of which had been explored the year before by Bonvalot. f Bower like Bonvalot was stopped near the Tengri nor, and forced to follow practically the same trail that traveler had taken all the way to China, The diary published in the present volume was kept during my second journey in Tibet in the years iSgi-'ga. It will, I hope, help to extend our knowledge of the country previously explored by Bonvalot and Bower, my route in many places running parallel to theirs, and for a considerable distance being the same as the one they followed. It also contains my researches in other sections of the country until then entirely unexplored. *See De Paris au Tonkin d, travers le Tibet inconnu, i vol., 8°, 1892. \ See Diary of a Journey Across Tibet, 8°, 1893. XIV IN TROD UCTOR Y NO TICE. Summarizing what has been said in the preceding remarks we see that the highroad between Hsi-ning and Lh'asa has been followed, over a portion or the whole of its length, by Odoric de Pordenone, by Fathers Grueber and Dorville, by Samuel van de Putte, by Hue and Gabet and by Prjevalsky. The Lh'asa — Ta-chien-lu road has been gone over by Hue and Gabet, and along a portion of its length by a number of the French missionaries since 1861, also by Cooper, Gill, Szechenyi, Bonvalot, Bower and myself. The various roads between Nepaul, or Sikkim and Central Tibet have been traveled over by the Franciscan monk Odoric in the 14th century, by the Jesuit and Capuchin fathers in the 17th and i8th, and also by Bogle, Turner and Manning. The high plateau {Chang fang) of Northern Tibet has been traversed along four lines: by Prjevalsky and myself at its eastern extremity; by Prjevalsky and the other travelers who have gone over the Hsi-ning — Lh'asa road, at about four degrees of longitude west of the preceding line; by Bonvalot and myself in its great- est width from north to south; and finally by Bower in its greatest length from west to east. The above embraces practically all the explorations made by foreigners in Great Tibet down to the present day. In the preceding remarks I have made no mention of one of our most valuable sources of information concerning Tibet, I refer to the work of the native explorers sent to Tibet and other trans-Himalayan countries by the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. The plan of training natives for scientific geographical work and sending them beyond the Indian frontier to countries closed to Europeans was inaugurated by Col. T. G. Montgomerie some twenty-five or thirty years ago. By this means those portions of Tibet which lie to the north of Nepaul and Sikkim, and to the east of Kashmir, and also, to a less extent, Bhutan, have been carefully surveyed. Some of these explorers, especially Nain Singh (Pundit A ), Kishen Singh or A INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XV K , and Lama Ugyen jyats'o, have traversed the whole of Tibet from south to north and from west to east. Lh'asa, Shigatse and most of the important towns and all the adjacent country of Central and Western Tibet have been carefully surveyed, and of Lh'asa especially, we now know through them the most minute topographical detail.* But while these native explorers are most admirable surveyors, they are not well-trained observers, and details of great value, both ethnological and even geographical, often escape their attention, while the most puerile and unimport- ant story or legend is often recorded by them in the most careful and prolix way. The roads leading from Lh'asa to Hsi-ning and to Ta-chien-lu have been gone over by Kishen Singh, Nain Singh has traversed the Ch'ang fang from west to east along a line a little to the south of Bower's, the road I followed in 1889 through Eastern Tibet had been previously explored, in 1881, by Kishen Singh, and what little we know of Southern Tibet is from native explorers' travels and reports. Notwithstanding this, the work of the European travelers who have explored these same routes has not been lost, the information they have collected would have escaped the attention of Asiatic explorers, no matter how many had gone over the road before them. Another valuable source of information concerning Tibet which must not be overlooked, is Chinese literature. Since the middle of the seventeenth century, when Chinese intercourse with Tibet took a sudden and wide expansion, travelers of that nation have composed a number of guide-books, mostly concerned with the * See especially on this work Report on the Explorations made in Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet from 18^6 to 1886. Report on the Explorations in Great Tibet and Mongolia, made by A K in i87g-'82. Narrative of a Journey to Lh'asa in 1881-82, by Sarat Chandra Das. Narrative of a Journey Round Lake Yamdo (Palti) in 1882, by the same; and also A Memoir on the Indian Surveys, by Clements R. Markham, 148 et seq., and A Memoir on the India Surveys, 1875-1890, by Charles E. D. Black, 151-165. A K has made a map of the city of Lh'asa on a scale of four inches to the mile. XVI INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. highroads through Tibet, though some of them give valuable in- formation relating to little-known trails. Not a few of these books contain much valuable information bearing on the trade, climate, history, products, industries and other resources of the various districts to which they refer.* Besides these works, each of the various Chinese dynastic histories contains chapters on the history, geography and ethnography of Tibet during the dif- ferent periods to which each relates. A large portion of the information contained in these two classes of Chinese works I have translated or condensed and published in the "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society." The data they sup- plied me were found of the greatest value during my several journeys in Tibet, even when, as in the case of the road between Ch'amdo and Nya-ch'uk'a followed by Bonvalot, Bower and my- self, and which is given in these translations (p. 86), only a very few of the names were known in the country at the present day. The journey which I undertook in 1888-89, some of the results of which I have published in "The Land of the Lamas," en- couraged me to believe that I could, if I undertook a second journey into Tibet, add considerably to our knowledge of that remote region ; and so, when 1 had worked up the results of my first journey, I determined upon once more visiting Mongolia and Tibet, and endeavoring to traverse the latter country from north- east to southwest, or in other words to try and reach Nepaul or Sikkim from the Chinese province of Kan-su. I had learned during my first journey that in that portion of Tibet which is under the rule of Lh'asa, opposition to foreigners was much more violent than elsewhere, so I endeavored in this journey to steer clear of Lh'asa, but various circumstances, which will be found related in my Diary, and over which I had no control, turned me from the path 1 had intended to follow, and so, when not over thirty or forty miles from the Tengri nor, and less *For a list of the most important of this class of works on Tibet, %et Journal Royal Asiatic Society, new series, XXIII, pp. 3 and 4. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. xvil than a month's travel from British India, and when at very nearly the same spot at which Bonvalot and Bower had been stopped, my further progress southward was arrested by the Tibetans, and I was forced to turn my face eastward. The remainder of my journey was not through country absolutely unknown, for my route frequently crossed and some- times coincided with those of Bonvalot and Bower, and from Ch'amdo to Ta-chien-lu 1 followed the route taken in 1861 by Monseigneur Thomine Desmazures, and more recently by Captain Bower, but notwithstanding this, I believe that I have been able to collect, even during this portion of my journey, thanks to my knowledge of the Tibetan and Chinese languages, not a few data which will prove of interest and of possible value to future explorers. Of Southern Mongolia and Western Kan-su, through which the first part of my journey took me, we really know less than of Tibet, for our sources of information on this section of Mongolia are confined to the letters and other writings of the Jesuits who resided in Peking in the 17th and i8th centuries, to Hue's charm- ing but rather romantic " Souvenirs," and to Prjevalsky's first journey, and, as regards the Koko-nor country and Western Kan-su, to Prjevalsky's works and to what little has been so far published of Potanin's papers. Regarding the method followed in preparing the sketch route-map accompanying this volume, the original was made on a scale of four statute miles to the inch, and the instruments used were a prismatic compass, an aneroid and a six-inch sex- tant. In the first part of the survey, between Kalgan and Kuei- te in Kan-su, I passed through several localities whose positions had been determined, with more or less exactitude, by the Jesuits in the 17th century, and more recently by Prjevalsky, and my observa- tions agree fairly well with theirs. In the second and less known half of my journey my traverse, wherever it crosses that made by Bower, shows a close agreement with his in latitude for points XVIU INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. situated along it, and a fairly good one for longitude. On the whole 1 consider the results of this long and hasty survey of over 3,400 miles as satisfactory and fairly accurate, but it is nothing more than its name implies — a rough preliminary sketch of a nearly unknown region. Numerous observations for time and latitude, and for altitude, by the boiling point of water and from aneroid readings, were taken during the whole length of the journey. The instruments with which these latter observations were made were corrected before and after the journey at the United States Weather Bureau at Washington, and the altitudes deduced have also, through the kindness of Professor Mark W. Harrington, Chief of the Bureau, been calculated there. They show, wherever comparisons are possible, a fairly close agreement with those taken by my predecessors, as an examination of the table in the appendix will demonstrate. Meteorological observations for temperature, pressure, cloudi- ness, wind, etc., etc., were taken three tim.es daily, at 7 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p. M. ; I have given in an appendix a table showing the mean monthly temperature at these three hours from January ist, 1892, to October ist of the same year, the date at which I reached Ta-chien-lu in Ssu-ch'uan. The illustrations accompanying this volume are either reproduc- tions of photographs taken during the journey, or drawings of objects brought back by me, most of which now belong to the United States National Museum. As to the transcription of Chinese words, 1 have followed the system of Sir Thomas Wade, in which the sounds are given according to the Peking pronunciation. In transcribing Tibetan I have, as in my previous work, applied as nearly as possible Wade's system, while adhering to the native spelling and the Lh'asa pronunciation, as far as phonetic spelling would admit. The only sound to which I need call attention is that of 5, which is the French eu, as in "peu," thus Ponboisto be pronounced as if written Peunbo, Bonbo as if it were Beunbo, etc. ; in the writ- INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XIX ten language of Tibet all these words are written with an o, Dpon-po, Bon-po. The acute accent is used, in accordance with the suggestion made in that invaluable book, " Hints to Travellers," to show the emphasized syllable, not to change the sound of the vowel over which it is placed. In transcribing Mongol, I have followed a purely phonetic system, giving, as a general thing, the sound of the words according to the western or Kalmuk pronunciation with which alone 1 am at all familiar. The reader's indulgence is asked for some apparent inconsisten- cies in my transcription of foreign words; they result either from negligence on my part or from over-anxiousness to make the cor- rect pronunciation perfectly clear without lengthy explanations. The form in which I now publish the results of my journey was only adopted after much hesitation, as 1 feared it might prove tedious to even the enthusiastic reader of books of travel — if such happily there still be. But a journal, kept from day to day, and often under great difificulties shows better, I think, than any other form of reford the true impressions of the writer, his moods, his hopes, his anxieties, even when they concern nothing more im- portant than his next meal, of which 1 am, however, assured the public likes to be informed. In such a Diary as is here given numerous glaring errors in style — if nothing worse — tedious detail and monotonous repetition cannot fail to confront the too critical reader, but let him be charitable — dirt, cold, starvation and a thousand minor discomforts which beset the explorer in Mongolia and Tibet who lives and travels like the barbarous inhabitants of those wild regions, are not conducive to sustained or successful literary work, as he may find out for himself if he will but try it. It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge here my high appreciation of the deep interest which my friend General James H. Wilson has always taken in my explorations in Tibet since the days when we first talked over my plans in China, and of the many services which he has rendered me in connection with them. My acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Charles E. Dana, Mr. XX INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. E. R. Bacon, Mr. J. B. Houston and Mr. J. H. Schiff, all of New York, who assisted and encouraged me in my undertaking. To Mr. S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, without whose generous interest in my work this volume would probably never have been published, and to my numerous friends in the Smithsonian and the United States National Museum, I am under lasting obligations which I can never forget nor adequately acknowledge. William Woodville Rockhill. Department of State, Washington, December 14, 1894. JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET MONGOLIA AND Tibet DIARY OF A JOURNEY 1891-92. By WILLIAM WOODVILLE ROCKHILL. PART I. From Peking Through Mongolia to Kumbum. PEKING. — November 30, i8gi. — I received to-day my pass- port from the Tsung-li Yamen. It is what we would call at home a ' ' special passport, " authorizing me as former Sec- retary of the United States Legation to visit Kan-su, Ssu-ch'uan, Yiin-nan, Hsin-chiang (the New Dominion), and the Ching-hai, or the Mongol and Tibetan country under the administrative control of the Hsi-ning Amban. This opens the road to Lh'asa for me as far as Drech'u rabden and consequently Nagch'uk'a, for there are no inhabitants, only an occasional band of roaming K'amba before reaching the latter point. I have two drafts on a Shan-hsi bank at Kuei-hua Ch'eng for 1 103.31 taels, and I carry 172.56 taels in sycee. I will draw an additional 700 taels on reaching Lan-chou Fu in Kan-su. This and the goods I carry with me will have to do for the journey — a year or more. We hear many rumors about the rebels up Jehol way. It is said here that they have crossed the Great Wall and are marching on Peking. There is no doubt that five hundred desperate men, 2 JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. willing to sacrifice their lives, could capture Peking by a coup de main, for there is only the Peking field force (Shen-cKi ying) to defend it, which, as a Chinese general remarked a few years ago to the Seventh Prince, who is the chief of this body, is more expert with the opium pipe {^yen chiang) than with the musket {yang Chiang^. This little rebellion is a specimen of what frequently occurs on the northern and southwestern frontiers of China. One day a chief of a band of highwaymen (ma-isei) gave in his submission to the government and made himself so agreeable that he was after awhile given official preferment. His band, for the sake of economy probably, retained his name on their banners and kept to the road. This caused the Jehol officials to believe that the ex-chief, Li, I think he was named, was still connected with the profession, so he was arrested, tried, and beheaded. His son, to avenge his sire, joined the band, dubbed himself Ping Ch'ing Wang ("The Prince leveler of the Ch'ing dynasty"), and announced on his banners that his platform was "First, right {li), then reason {tao), to put an end to the Catholic {fien chu) faith, to bring down the reigning dynasty, and to destroy the hairy foreigners." A pretty pretentious scheme for a few hundred men. They are more or less connected with a secret society called the Tsai huei, a kind of northern Ko-lao huei, and some people here tell me they are called Hung mao-tzu ("red haired") because they put on false beards of red hair in their secret conclaves. At all events they are very probably well armed, with Winchester rifles, 1 believe, supplied them by an enterprising foreign firm at Newchwang. Li Hung- chang is said to be sending troops from around Tientsin to the disturbed district, and soon the rebel band will disperse and the imperial forces will announce a glorious victory and the condign punishment of the guilty ones.* December i. — I hired two carts to take me and my boy to Kuei-hua Ch'eng, via Kalgan and the Ts'ao-ti, they were to be at the house by daylight to-day, but it was eight o'clock before we * This revolt was naturally crushed with enormous loss of life to the rebels, if we are to believe the memorial of the military commissioner for Manchuria, Ting An, published in the Peking Gazette of December ii, 1891. According to this document the rebels must have numbered from four to five thousand. See Imperial decrees, December 6 and 12, 1891, in For. Rel. of the United States, 1892, pp. 77 and 80. Kuo Wan-chang appears to be the name of the rebel leader and Chi Yao-shih that of the person made Prince by the rebel bands. JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. got off, and ten before we left the inn outside the Te-shih men where the cart office {ch'ehang) is located. The carts are drawn by played-out ponies and bare-boned mules, three, in one, two in the other. I expostulated on the miserable condition of the teams, but the chang-kuei-ti insisted that they were wonderfully strong animals though perhaps a bit rough looking. The drivers are good natured Shan-hsi men from Ta-t'ung and do not know what hurry means, and it is for this reason that Shan-hsi teams are not in favor with the Pekinese public. We jogged along very leisurely to Ching ho (i8 li from the Te-shih men), and towards nightfall reached Chang-ping Chou, where 1 witnessed a magistrate coming to a man's domicile (the inn in which 1 was stopping) to administer justice (in the form of a volley of smacks on the face) to a tradesman who had tried to cheat the inn-keeper. And we want to teach the Chinese our methods of procedure ! Can anything be more expeditious and inexpensive than this ? December 2. — We left in the middle of the night and made Nan-k'ou by 9 a. m., passing endless strings of camels, the big bells around their necks sounding very dismally in the stillness of the night. They were coming down by thousands from the pasturages north of Kalgan to be used in the Peking coal trade and the Kalgan — Tung-chou tea-carrying business; some also were loaded with wool, hides, camel's hair, and led by Mongols now on their annual visit to the Capital. The road up the pass has, since last I saw it in 1888, been wonderfully improved, and is now in really excellent order for cart travel and I don't begrudge the little toll I have to pay at Chu-yung kuan. At this latter place 1 noticed that the inscriptions in the famous gateway are no longer as distinct as when last I examined them. Proclamations and advertisements have been pasted over them for such a long time and in such quantities that the surface of the stone on the inscribed portions has at last become considerably defaced. Why have so few studied these curious inscriptions? The Kitan and Niu-chih versions are priceless. I heard Dr. Bushell* say once that he had devoted *Dr. Bushell has been for the last twenty-seven years physician to H. B. M.'s Legation at Peking. His thorough knowledge of things Chinese is too well known to necessitate any further reference to it here. 4 JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. considerable study to them. It's a thousand pities he does not give us the results of his researches, they would certainly be very valuable — all he has ever done is so very good. The bas- reliefs on the faces of the gateway also merit careful study. We reached Ch'a-tao by 5 p. M. in a violent northwesterly gale. Ever since leaving Peking the sky has been getting redder, a sure forerunner of the present storm which will probably last three days. December 3. — We left Ch'a-tao in a fearful northwest gale; it was bitterly cold, and so dusty that we several times strayed from the road. The gravel was blown with such violence that it cut our faces like the lash of a whip, and the cold made the tears course down our cheeks. We stopped for lunch at Huai-lai Hsien, and reached by dark Tu-mu where we found a good inn and a well heated k'ang. The night was beautifully clear but the wind con- tinued blowing with such fury that I could not take any sextant observations. The inn-keeper told me that about thirty thousand camel loads of tea are taken up every year over this road to Kalgan from Tung-chou. A camel load is paid 17 taels from Tung-chou to Ta-kuren (Urga). December 4.. — Got off late as we had the first casualty of the journey in our party. The black mule is dead ! The kicker and most disorderly member of the party is no more. Before he had breathed his last, his carcass was sold for $2, his tail cut off to show the owner on the carter's arrival at home, and his body carried off by the natives who were licking their chops over the anticipated feast. Our loss did not effect our rate of speed, except perhaps that it was slightly better, for we made twenty miles to Ch*i-ming-i. The day was pleasant but the road horribly stony, limestone pebbles, and such jolting as I never experienced. If ever I go over this road again I will take mule litters, they are much more convenient, and one travels just as rapidly as in a cart. December 5. — We jogged on leisurely to Hsuan-hua Fu, passing around the base of the famous Ch'i-ming shan on the top of which is a large temple said to have been transported there in the days of old by Liu-pan from Ch'ii-yung kuan where it had originally been built. A good deal of rather poor coal is dug out of this mountain, which appears to be mostly of friable sandstone and JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 5 porphyritic rocks. The Hun ho, along whose right bank the road to Kalgan runs, is frozen so deep that we crossed it with the carts. At Hsuan-hua Fu we noticed the first signs of our proximity to the Jehol rebel bands. Little banners were stuck out of numerous houses to indicate the places of refuge for the inhabitants of the neighboring houses; and this is all that is done to protect a town of probably fifty thousand inhabitants against the brigands! December 6. — From Hsuan-hua Fu to near Kalgan the road is covered with drifted sand and loess, the walls of Hsuan-hua are half buried in it. Farmers with their carts are seen everywhere, even in the streets of the towns shovelling up the drifted dirt and carting it back to where it belongs — on their fields. Just outside the west gate of the city of Hsilan-hua we passed through a grove of gnarled poplars. Here in the fifth moon is celebrated the Liang-chuo-huei, "airing-the-feet-festival," when the women walk up and down dressed in their best and the men admire, criticise or condemn the shape and size of each one's feet. I have never heard of this feast being celebrated elsewhere in China, The Shan-hsi women (and Hsiian-hua is populated mostly by people from that province) are not over modest; they wear in summer a single upper garment or waistcoat {kan-chien) which leaves the breasts exposed to the view, another custom I have not met with elsewhere in China. We passed a great many camels carrying soda (chien) to Peking, in large blocks, about two and a half feet long. They probably came from the Ta-t'ung plain, as a great deal of soda is obtained by a very simple process there, some ten or fifteen miles south of the city, which 1 visited in i888. The weather remains hazy. A clear day is a rarity in these parts in the dry season. The mountains at a few miles distance are lost in the haze . The first part of the night is hazy and the atmosphere is only really clear just before and after dawn, the dust which constitutes the haze being precipitated by the moisture in the air, for there is a good deal of moisture in suspension even at this season of the year. December 7. — We reached Kalgan towards three o'clock and put up in an inn on the market street and facing the shrine of the god of wine, the pet deity of the place. I have numerous purchases 6 JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. to make here, among others a supply of mongol felt socks, Halha Russian leather boots, rugs in which to wrap up my boxes, buck- skin breeches, etc., etc. ; as to my tents I will purchase them at Kuei-hua Ch'eng. I found ponies dearer here than at the Te-shih men of Peking, for Mongols can easily take those they bring here back to their pasture lands, if they cannot get good prices, while at Peking they have to sell at any price. The people who came in the inn yard and saw me busy observing first the sun then the stars, inquired of the boy in subdued tones if any calamity was impending, if the rebels were about to attack the town. Ma Chih-pao reassured them and told them I was a worshiper of the pei't'ou (Ursa Major) and busy making out what my luck would be on my journey. December 8. — My boy says he is not afraid to accompany me anywhere, but I see that he has invested in an enormous sword marked with the ominous pei-Vou, a dragon and several soul- stirring mottoes, in lieu of the big cudgel he started out with. December p. — On the 20th of the eighth moon at the miao hueiox "temple fair" held here, several hundred ponies run, not races but to show their gait and speed. A Mongol refused this year 180 taels for a pony. Mongol ponies are branded as are ours in America. Lama miao is unquestionably the best place at which to buy ponies; west of that section of Mongolia they lose in size and speed, but possibly gain in staying powers. The name Kalgan is but a poor transcription of the Mongol word halha-* it means a " frontier mart." The people hereabout call Kuei-hua Ch'eng the Ch'eng, Hsuan-hua Fu they call Fu, just as those of Ta-chien-lu in Ssu-ch'uan call it Lu or Lu Ch'eng. This at all events has the merit, a considerable one in our estima- tion, of brevity. The people say no day is perfect here unless it blows hard duringa part of it. The climate, they add, is equable, which means, I fancy, that it blows every day in the year. Mr. Roberts, one of the American missionaries here, tells me he has seen (especially among the Manchus living here) quite a number of albinos. Persons with supplementary thumbs are also frequently met with here as * I transcribe this and all Mongol words phonetically and according to the Kalmuk pronunciation, the only one with which I am at all familiar. JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 7 in Peking. These are the most common abnormalities. There are three Mohammedan theological schools in Kalgan and they have a high standing in northern China, young men being sent here from remote quarters to study. The Mohammedans here do not seem however, to be as strict, in the usual observances prescribed to all believers, as those in western Kan-su. Thus some smoke opium, and it is commonly said that they are not averse to eating pork — if sold them under the name of mutton. The population of Kalgan is roughly estimated at between 75,000 and 100,000. December 10. — We left for Kuei-hua Ch'eng at seven o'clock, and followed up the river bed, which serves in the dry season as the principal street of the city, passing, just before leaving town, two small cages tied to the ends of poles and containing the heads of two lately executed highwaymen. The road was without interest, rocky and deep in loess dust. It is curious that loess even when, as here, it is not a subaerial deposit but has been brought down by the rains from higher levels, retains its characteristic vertical cleavage. Crossing a low range of hills west of the city, we passed by little Wan-chuan Hsien the prefectural city in whose district is Kalgan, and shortly after entered the valley of the Yang ho or Hsi ("West") yang ho (the stream flowing by Wan-chuan Hsien being the Tung or "Eastern" Yang ho). Every mile or so we passed through villages around which were groves of willows, their long, crooked stems with only a tuft of small branches at the tops, adding little to the beauty of the surroundings. Basket making is one of the chief industries of this district and the river is pro- bably called Yang ho or "Willow River," from these numerous groves. December 11. — We lost our way; this is usual with Chinese carters and especially those of the Shan-hsi breed, who are pro- verbially stupid, and so we had to put up for the night at a village called Su-chia tsui a good deal to the north of the road. There was no inn, but we found lodgings in a farm house; the rooms were of the arched loess-cave-dwelling style common in north China, and are called \itXf3!oo\!X shen-hsien t'ungox "fairy caves," for these, like their prototypes, are warm in winter and cool in summer. The road followed up the river course in a due westerly direction. A violent west wind began to blow at 11 a. m. and 8 JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. SO dense was the dust during the rest of the day's travel that, as the way was long and we only reached an inn far in the night, we had to guide ourselves by the stars, for we could not make out the road under our feet. We tried to reach Hsin-ping k'ou (or Hsi-feng k'ou as it is called at Peking), a gate in the Great Wall, but had to stop a couple of miles east of it in a wayside inn, which class of houses are, by the way, usually larger and cleaner than those in towns or villages. December 12. — All the way up the Yang ho I noticed on the hill slopes on either side of the valley, truncated cone-shaped towers about thirty feet high with an encircling wall some ten feet in height. The people call them pao-tai or "gun towers" and say they were once used by the inhabitants to defend themselves against Mongol and Tartar raiders. They are too regularly separated and built with too little regard to neighboring villages, to have been solely for the purpose now claimed for them; they are on the other hand too near each other to have been watch towers, unless signals other than fire signals were used by the sentries. The explanation given me of their use is possible, though 1 have not seen any mention of such a system in China.* The Great Wall at Hsin-ping K'ou is entirely of earth, without any trace of brick or stone facing. The village at the gate is tolerably large, but much the worse for wear and sadly in lack of some repairs. Continuing up the valley to where it takes a southerly bend, we crossed a range of hills, and then by a very gradual descent, reached Ch'ang-k'ou, a big village of over six hundred families of Shan-hsi people and with a large number of inns. Coal is brought here from near Ta-t'ung Fu by way of Fu-ming Fu (or Feng Ch'eng as it is also called). The coal used at Kalgan comes also from the same locality by this apparently round-about way — probably to escape likin at some point or other along the road. At Ch'ang-k'ou the Lung wang ("the rain god") had been prayed to in vain ; first by the men, then the women, then the children . Even the Lao-yeh, the local official, had kotowed and * Conf. the remarks on these watch towers in the History of the Embassy of Shahrokh to the Emperor of China in 1419. (Thevenot, Relations II, Partxviii, 3.) These towers, it says, are of two kinds, the larger called Kidi/ous, the smaller Cargous. JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 9 burnt incense with much firing of crackers and beating of gong, but to no avail. The people told me they knew long ago the year would be disastrous for the sand grouse* had been more numerous of late than for years, and the saying goes, Sha-ch'i kuo, mailao-po, "when the sand grouse fly by, wives will be for sale." Ch'ang-k'ou is a place of considerable importance, as two roads from Kuei-hua meet here (or rather two miles west of here). One is called the ' ' inner road, " and passes by Lung-sheng chuang, Hou-tao-sha, Ge-ho-wa (pronounced in Pekinese Ai-ho-wa), Yung-shan chuang, Feng Ch'eng (orFu-ming Fu), Ma-chao ling, Ma-Wang miao, Tien-ch'eng ts'un, Han-ching ling, Ma-ka-tu, Sa-tei-go, Hsaio pa-tzu, Eu-Iing-trin (in Pekinese O-ling tan), Chahar (or Tsahan?) bolan, Ta-yu-shu, Shui-mo, Ku-lueh, Shih-rung-wa, Me-tar, Tieh-mung, To-ko-lang (in Mongol Tak- lang) and thence to Kuei-hua. The road I will follow crosses this one at Chahar polang, and falls into it at To-ko-lang. The first is 100 // (thirty-three miles) longer than that I have chosen, which is 780 li. I find that all the people hereabout, and even those of Kalgan, use the term Mantzu to designate the Chinese, in contradistinction to the Mongols. I had thought its use in this acceptation was confined to west Ssu-ch'uan and the Tibetan language, but I now find it has a much wider range. December ij. We only made a half day's march as I was anxious to make some solar observations for time. We stopped at a village on the border of the Chahar Mongol's pasture lands called Tsahan (or Chahan) obo, "the white obo," thus called from a large pile of stones {obo) on a hill near the village. Since leaving the Yang ho valley, tufa is the principal rock seen along the road. Around every village in this region willows are planted ; the Shan-hsi people are harder workers than the Chih-li Chinese, and they are much more agreeable to be thrown with, gay, polite, and not by any means as hot-headed as the latter. Physically they are very different, shorter of stature, with rounder faces and approaching more closely the southern Chinese type. * Hue, Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartaric, I, 245, says these birds are called Lung chuo "Dragon's feet," 1 for my part have never heard any other name than jAa-f A'z " sand fowl," given them. This name is used however, for a variety of birds, among others the partridge, 10 JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. The year now ending has been a very bad one for all this border region, one small rainfall in the sixth moon; but these people bear their troubles with perfect composure. My boy is a great doctor, he carries a large supply of medicine — one a sovereign remedy for eye diseases, cataract disappearing rapidly by its use, and he has also a wonderful balm, curing not only wounds but every pain and ill to which poor humanity is subject. I have amused myself to-day watching him doctoring the people in the inn. It is lucky we are leaving early to-morrow, for should the medicine not have the desired effect, he and 1 might have the whole village down on us, though 1 must do the boy the justice to say he asks nothing for his drugs, he only wants "to do good " (tso haoshih). December i^. — A few miles west of Tsahan obo we crossed a low pass marked by eight <7^u-ping') 3.0 taels a month, the mounted men {ma ping) 9 taels. They do nothing but smoke opium, gamble, hawk, and raise a few greyhounds, and are of no conceivable use. After driving about the town for quite a while in search of decent, quiet quarters, 1 chose at last a small inn where, at all events, I will get clean food, for it is kept by a Mohammedan who, however, has a bad reputation for "eating" people, in other words, making large commissions on all the purchases made by his guests. 1 called on Dr. Stewart of the China Inland Mission. The Mission's medical work has been of incalculable value to China generally. The Chinese admire this philanthropic work, though it is quite beyond them to believe it disinterested; they think the missionaries have some personal motive impelling them to do this work, and in a certain sense they are right, for is it not said of those who go forth to preach the Word that surely they shall have their reward ? It matters little if it is in this world or another. December 20. — A Mohammedan from Ta-t'ung Fu called on me. He was a man of some literary pretentions among his people, and said that all Mohammedans in China are taught to read Arabic {eking tzii), but that he himself could only understand a few words of it. He spoke of the country in which is Mekka and *Huc, op. cit., I, 166 et seq. 14 JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. Medina as Farsi or Rum, artd stated that the capital of that Empire was Ta-erh-ko-erh (/. e., Stamboul). These Huei-huei hold themselves to be quite a distinct race from the ordinary Chinese. Their ancestors, this man said, had first come to China in the T'ang period and had married Chinese women. This foreign origin explained, he proudly remarked, their well known courage and characteristic pugnaciousness. They keep up some intercourse with the rest of Islam, though they have hardly any with the great Mohammedan section of the Empire (Turke- stan). Thus last year some Indian Mohammedans came here from Kashgar and went on to Kalgan and Peking.* They had been sent by the Church of India, to report on the state of the faith in China. There is hardly any direct trade between this place and Hami or Kashgar. Every year two or three traders from that country (Ch'an-t'ou, the Chinese call them) come here with raisins, dried melons and a few other products of no great value. What trade Turkestan has with China reaches Hsi-an Fu via Hsia-yu kuan and Hsi-ning or else by Pao-tu and across the Ordos country south of the Yellow River, but it is insignificant. Dr. Stewart, who called on me to-day, said syphylis is terribly prevalent here. The population he said is a floating one, and belongs to the dregs of society. The Chinese women here are quite as inveterate opium smokers as the men, and the whole population (some 100,000 to 120,000) is about as depraved a lot as can be found in China; it is entirely Chinese, the ground being, however, rented from the Tumed Mongols who are paid annually sums varying from ten to fifty cash a mou {]/(, acre). There is a Tao-t'ai here, also a Chiang-chun or General, and a Tu-t'ung who rules the Yo-mu or Herdmen tribes of Mongols, comprising all the Chahar, Bargu and Tumed tribes of the adjacent regions. t * In 1688 when Pere Gerbillon was at Kuei-hua in the suite of the Emperor K'ang-hsi he saw there " cinq vagabonds Indiens . . . ils se disoient de I'lndoustan et Gentils: ils etoient habillez a peu pres comma des Hermites, avec un grand manteau de telle de couleur isabelle deja vieille, et un capuchon qui s'elevoit un peu au dessus de leur tete." Duhalde, op. cit., IV, 105. Later on, in 1697, when he visited Ning- hia with the same Emperor he records that dried currants and raisins are brought there, also different colored serges, brought there by "les Marchands Mores que viennent du cote des Yusbeks, pour trafiquer a la Chine." Ibid, p. 372. The raisins and currants came, of course, from Hami. fSee on this subject W. F. Mayers, The Chinese Government (2d edit.), 86. 1. Tibetan boot. Ked and black leather. (U. S. N. M. 107303.) 3. Halha Mongol boot. Black, russian leather. (U. S. N. M. 167178.) 5. Lama boot. Red russian leather, stitching in coloured silks. (U. S. N. M. 167179.) 2. Tibetan boot. Cotton vamp, pulo leg. (U S. N. M. 1310i.5.) i. KOKO NOR LEATHER BOOT. (U. S. N. M. 131072.) 6. Ch'amdo BOOT. Black buck.skin. {U. S. N. M. 167177.) JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 15 December 21. — I went out with Dr. Stewart to buy two tents and some camping utensils. Most of the day was spent haggling over prices, and I finally bought two blue cotton tents for 7.5 taels a piece. I also visited the big lama temple or Ta chao, a fine specimen of Sinico-tibetan work, and which has just been restored.* There is a Hsiao-chao here but I did not have time to visit it. The word chao is used on the Chinese frontier for "temple," though it is only the Tibetan word/t? meaning " Lord," and refers to the images of the Buddha said to have been made during the life time of the Buddha by sculptors who had seen his divine person, t There are three in existence, but wherever there are copies of the originals, as here, they are also called /(? or chao. Camels are quite cheap here ranging from 16 to 40 taels a head. A curious custom obtains here in buying these animals, which consists in counting 8.5 as 10 taels; thus a camel sold for 20 taels only costs in reality 17 taels. J This custom is called at Kuei-hua erh-pa-yin and at Peking pao ch'tao. The trade of this place con- sists in camels, sheep, sheepskin goods, goatskins and tallow. The quantity of the last article shipped to Peking for making candles is very great. I was told that some 3,000 or 4,000 sheep are killed here daily (in winter I suppose) principally for their tallow. There is no direct trade between here and Ning-hsia, and I can find no carters willing to take me there, for, they say, they will have to return with empty carts. They hardly ever go westward beyond Pao-tu. Lan-chou tobacco and other Kan-su products used here come from Hsi-an Fu via T'ai-yuan and Ta-t'ung or even via Peking. The name given on most of our maps to the range of mountains north of this place, In shan, is unknown here, everyone calls it Ch'ing (or Ta-ch'ing) shan, and 1 fancy that In is but a poor transcription of the sound Ch'ing. This name of Ch'ing shan applies to the range as far west as Pao-tu, beyond which place it is known as Wu-la shan for fifty miles or so, then as Lang-shan, * Gerbillon in 1688 and Hue in 1844 refer to the lamaries of Kuei-hua as the only remari/, skui" ("happiness and water"), a truly pathetic and, 1 fear, unheard appeal. The existing maps of this section of country are far from satis- factory. Thus on many, some seventeen miles west of Pao-tu, there appears a town called Pilchetai on the left bank of the Yellow River near the mouth of what would appear to be an important stream. The stream exists, it is called Kundulung, but of the city no one living knoweth. Then again Ho lai liu is given as the name of another locality, but it only means " River Willow," the ground near the river being everywhere hereabout covered with scrubby willows. The mountains to the north of the river are now called Pao (t'u) shan, and two days farther west they take the name of Wula shan from the Orat (in Chinese Wula) Mongols who live near by. January 2. — There is a little irrigation carried on hereabout, but, taken all together, the irrigated lands {ch'iu ti) are of small extent. I do not understand why the people do not irrigate their fields from wells, for water, and good at that, is found nearly everywhere a few feet below the surface of the ground. At Sumutu, where we stopped to eat our lunch oi chiao-tzu and tea, the people were threshing the seed out of the briars and grass they had cut to feed their cattle with. This they boiled, then dried, finally grinding it and making bread in which they mixed a very little wheat flour which they had to go to Pao-t'u to buy. The distress among the people is so great that they have taken to pillaging each other to get the wherewithal to eke out their miserable existence. We stopped for the night at quite a respectable village called Ta hua-erh, the best looking place we have seen since leaving Ho-k'ou. Before reaching it we had to cross the river on the ice. It is at this point about one-third of a mile wide and apparently very shallow; the ice was, however, so thickly covered with dust it was difficult to make out where the river began and ended. All the country west of Pao-t'u as far as this place belongs to the Hsi Kung or Western Duke of the Orat Mongols. The Orat Mongols are divided into three branches under the rule of a Western {Hsi), Eastern {Tung), and Middle {Tumta) Duke {Kung). The Chinese living in the Ordos country are, 1 believe, under the jurisdiction 26 JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. of Yu-lin Fu in Shen-hsi, but they pay rent to the Mongol princes for the land they occupy. The Chinese here tell me that the Yellow River flows under ground at Pao-t'u, by which I suppose is to be understood that a second stream flows under that which is seen passing at that locality. It is curious in this connection to recall that Chinese authors say that the Yellow River has its source in the Lob nor and thence flows under the mountains to the north and south of the Ts'aidam to reappear in the Odontala, where we know that its true sources are located. January 3. — Our route led us along the base of the Wula shan and past the residence of the Hsi Kung of the Orats, a Chinese- looking place, quite recently built and with a very substantial appearance. A couple of miles to the west of it is a handsome lamasery of the Tibetan style of architecture, also recently built or restored. It is called Baron gomba ("Eastern lamasery") by Mon- gols, and Kung miao or " the Duke's monastery " by the Chinese. A stream, a real one and the only one worthy the name we have seen since leaving Ho-k'ou, flows by the Kung's residence; it is probably the Ho lai liu river of our maps, for it is about from this point that the river willow {ho lai liu) grows thick all over the river bottom, and affords an inexhaustible supply of fuel to the inhabit- ants. It seems to me to be the same as the jAa/z« ("sand willow") of the Ts'aidam. I am informed, however, that such is not the case, forthesha liu is called borgaso'm Eastern Mongol and in the Ts'aidam balro, while the ho liu (or ho lai liu) is the ulan borgaso or " red willow." I am also told that there is a third variety called hung liu ("red willow") known to Eastern Mongols as ulan moto ("red wood") and in the Ts'aidam called ulasun moto* We passed now and then one or two small Mongol tents surrounded with brushwood fences to protect them from the wind and wolves. The people who inhabit them have neither flocks nor herds, probably they are farther south for there is absolutely no grazing along our line of march. We saw to-day a few loads of wool and hides being carried eastward on camels and in Chinese carts; this is the first freight we have met since leaving Kuei-hua. Since crossing the Huang ho yesterday I have seen quite a number of pheasants, a few partridges, some geese, but no more *On the flora of this section of the Yellow River valley, see Prjevalsky, Mongolia, I, 189 et seq. Hsi KuNG MiAO. Lamasery in the Ordos Country. ^V^99^^^^ iNr ^"' ^'^^'^ayw-a— J:^' '^' ^^ ~rr.jL>^ "«ii^fc3^.._4?- ■ wmm^-''~ ^ ft' T'a-Erh Ssu or Kumbum Lamasery. JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 27 sand grouse. Antelope (Huang yang or Antilope gutturosa of Prjevalsky) are very numerous on both sides of the river. The Wula shan range* is certainly not more than from twelve hundred to eighteen hundred feet high, but the country is so flat that even when miles away it does not lose a foot of its height, and appears quite imposing. There is a very little snow on the ground to-day, it fell last night. A little fell on leaving Tsahan obo (December 14), and that is all we have had so far on the journey. We stopped for the night at a little inn at a point where the mountains take a northwest bend; it is called Hsiao miao-tzu ("the little temple"). The water is abominably brackish and as a result our tea is undrinkable — and it has to be bad for that ! The mountain slopes hereabout are covered with a stunted juniper (/>az shu the Chinese call it) ; the predominating rocks are gneiss and granite. Since passing the Hsi Kung's residence we have seen no Chinese villages or farms and. 1 learn that that potentate only allows a very few farmers to cultivate land. He is a wise man in his generation, but the Chinese will some day own his domains for all that. January ^. — Two or three miles beyond Hsiao miao-tzu the Wula shan takes a sudden bend north-northeast, and connects by a line of low hills with another range to the west which in turn trends west-southwest, some ten or twelve miles from our route. We can now and then see the Yellow River a few miles on our left, its course nearly parallel to our route which passes through interminable thickets of liu shu (willow) and spear grass. Occasionally we see a few head of cattle and ponies and conclude that there are inhabitants to be found somewhere, but we see none. I notice once more large flocks of sand grouse, a few pheasants, some antelopes and a wolf. We stopped for lunch at a miserable cabin inhabited by some Chinese; near it are a few Mongol tents, this is Hamar hosho. The water is terribly brackish, and that is all there is to be said of this desolate spot. * Prjevalsky calls this range Munni ula. All the country between the meridian of Pao-t'u and that of San-tao ho-tzu, on the south side of the Yellow River, he calls the Kuzupchi sands. Kuzupchi, he says, means "collar" in Mongol and is a very appropriate name "on account of the distinct fringe which they (these sands) form along the valley." Mongolia, I, 93. 28 JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. We passed quite a number of camels going eastward and carrying goat-skins, camel's hair and wool, but the traffic is on the whole very small, and judging by the accommodations in inns along the road, and by their small number, it is probably never large at any season of the year. We put up for the night at Shelakang (Ta-pu ho of the Chinese), a solitary inn where I took up my abode in a miserable out-house so dirty that it would not have been used with us for a pig sty, and so low I could not stand upright in it; but 1 escaped the opium smokers in the huo fang; and was left in quiet to do my evening's work. It snowed off and on during the day, about two and one-half inches fell, but hardly any wind blew the while, and the cold was not severe. January s. — The route to-day still led us through dense brush- wood — hardly any habitations were visible, but Mongol boys herding sheep and an occasional passing horseman showed that the country was inhabited. The few Chinese dens we saw were occupied by miserable wretches, opium fiends of the purest type, thin and of the color of clay. It is seventeen miles from Shelakang to Ashan, where we stopped for the night, and from which place the people count 300 li to San-tao ho-tzu. The soil along the route to-day was alkaline and devoid of vegetation, where irrigated, brush grows; the size and length of the irrigation ditches is astonishing, especially when one considers the sparse agricultural population of this region, and that the ever drifting sands oblige the farmers to be forever clean- ing the canals which would otherwise be rapidly choked. Ashan has a few dismal inns and a theater, that is to say the usual covered stage seen in most villages in North China in front of the local temple, where strolling actors perform, or amateurs give a play once a year. It is the first one we have seen since passing Tan-kai mao-to, and so Ashan must rank with that place in importance. The mountain range to our north is now called Lang shan, as to the country round-about Ashan it belongs to the Hangkin Mongols, and in Chinese it is called Hang-kai ti. West of Ashan we will reenter the Orat Mongols' district. January 6. — Of the country between Ashan and Ho-k'ou-ti, at which place or farm we arrived late this evening after losing our- JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 29 selves, as usual, a dozen times on the way, little can be said. The road led all the way through brush and sand. Now and then we crossed a big irrigation ditch or a ploughed field, showing that somewhere, far from the road, were Chinese settlers. These irrigation canals are the bane of a traveler's existence as we have often to make enormous detours to get around or even across them. We stopped for lunch at Tsahan (or Chahan) nor ("White Lake"), but saw no sign of a lake. Some Mongols live, we are told, near here, but we only saw two Chinese hovels. Ho-k'ou-ti consists of a very small and dirty hovel (unless the name applies to the cluster of four or five hovels scattered over a radius of a mile or so near it). The owner let us have the use of a large and dirty empty room; the roof over it only covered a portion of the room, enough to let in the piercing wind but not to let out the smoke of our fire of brush which nearly suffocated us, as we had to build it in a sheltered corner to keep it from being blown about by the wind, which swept in eddying gusts into the house, bringing down clouds of dust and soot from the mud roof The Ordos Mongols comprise seven clans : the Djungar (Chungkor in Chinese), Talat, Wang, Ottok, Djassak, Wushun and Hangkin.* At present the head of the league is the Djungar Wang or Djungar Ta. His predecessor was the Wushun Wang. This prince receives a patent from the Colonial Office of Peking (Li-Fan Yuan), which is, it is rumored, greatly influenced in its selection by the value of the presents the rival candidates make it. The Orat Mongols, of whom I have spoken previously, are, I hear, divided into three clans : Hsi kung, Tung kung and Tomta * We are told by Ssanang Setzen that the Ordos Mongols had the special duty of protecting the camp (Ordu) of Jingis Khan and the other great Mongol Khans, and it is conjectured, very reasonably, that it was from this office that the tribe received its name. See H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, I, 401 ; also 1. J. Schmidt, Geschichte der ost Mongolen von Ssanang Setzen, 191 and 408. Timkowski, op. cit., II, 268, gives also some details concerning this tribe. Prjevalsky calls the Talat Taldi, and has by so doing introduced considerable confusion in not only the study of this section of country but also into that of a corner of northwest Kan-su where he makes mention of a tribe which he likewise calls Taldy or Daldy, but which are, in all likelihood, of Turkish descent. 30 JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. kung.* Hangkin is the westernmost of the Ordos clans. It con- fines on the territory of the Prince of Alashan, who is colloquially designated by Chinese as the Hsi Wang or " Western Prince." January 7. — Twenty miles through willow brush, spear grass and sand hillocks. We saw a few Mongol habita- tions, tents and houses, and a small lamasery, called by the Chinese Ch'angchimiao, prob- ably meaning " Long good luck lamasery," and built in half- Tibetan half-Chinese style. The whole face of the country was cut up by irrigation canals, the length and size of which aston- ished me. We stopped for lunch at Wei-yang-chi ti, a hamlet of four or five substan- tial houses. That in which we lunched was especially fine, and the old Shen-hsi man who owned it was the most pros-" perous looking being we had seen for a long time. A goodly bunch of sheep of his were drinking from troughs in the yard around which were huge piles of brushwood neatly ar- ranged, and carts and farming implements nearly filled the remaining space. We left this place WATER BOTTLE AND CLOTH COVER. Used by lamas to moisten their lips from during the forenoon (Kumbum). ♦Meaning "West Duke," "East Duke" and "Middle Duke." These Orat Mongols are probably Kalmucks. See H. H. Howorth, op. cit., I, 497, et seq. I am unable, however, to account for their presence among the Ordos Mongols; possibly they came there at the time when the Eleuts first occupied Alashan, in 1686, according to Timkowski, op. cit., II, 279. This same author (II, 265), quoting probably Chinese geographical works of the i8th century, says, however, that three Orat banners were living in the valley of Khadamal, which begins about a mile to the west of Kuei-hua Ch'eng and extends westward about seventy miles, in other words, they lived in the lower Hsi-ho valley. JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 3 1 ^ < towards two o'clock and wandered about till after dark trying to find Wu-ta-ku, where we had been told we would find lodg- ings and fodder. It was dark when we reached this place, but we were refused admittance — a party of travelers had the only room in the inn — so we went on further, and the mules led us of themselves to a farm house. Again we were turned away, but pushing my way into the huo fang, I found that the chang-kuei-ti was an asthmatic old woman of rather kindly and decidedly inquisitive nature who, on the promise of a little medicine and the hope of making some- thing out of the party, persuaded the most ragged of her motley and disreputable band of retainers, a blind and opium smoking beggar, to cede me his hovel for the night. He, his wife and two bairns and a few lambs turned out of their twelve-feet square cabin, and 1 tried to make myself comfortable for the night, for it was bitter cold outside and I had rather stifle than freeze. It was warm in the hut, but it was also the vilest, dirtiest hole it had ever been my bad fortune to put up in. Later on in the evening the beggar asked permission to sing a song for me, he being, it appeared, a noted minstrel among his people. In an evil hour I consented. He strummed on an antiquated san-hsien, and then with much wheezing, snorting and horrible grimacing he sang, or rather yelled, an interminable ditty about an honest official and the great rewards the Emperor conferred on him for his astonishing virtues. It was long, very long, and painful for us who understood but a word here and there of his jargon, but I thanked him, and then — he wanted to sing again. 1 bribed him to desist, and he went and charmed our neighbors far into the night. We saw a few pheasants to-day, some partridges and sand grouse. We are still in Hangkin, but Alashan begins a little to the west of this place before one reaches San-tao ho-tzu, which is now but a stage off. January 8. — The day's march was through dense brush, and the detours to get over irrigating canals, long and numerous, and, to add to our trouble, we did not reach San-tao ho-tzu, but only Ta-chung-t'an, some six miles away from it. To add to our misery and the discomfort of cart travel — never agreeable under the most favorable circumstances — the soil had been turned up by licorice diggers, making pitfalls two and three feet deep and as many across 32 JOURNEY THROUGH MONGOLIA AND TIBET. all over the face of the country. Licorice is exported from here in large quantities to Tien-tsin ; it is the most valuable, in fact the only natural product of the soil. The Chinese call it kan tsao, the Mongols shiker ebuso, both meaning " sweet grass or plant."* A few miles before reaching Ta-chung-t'an we crossed the Wula ho flowing southeast. This stream marks the boundary of Alashan. Ta-chung-t'an is a fortified village and resembles an Arab borj, or rather it is a big farm house with a large number of out houses, the whole surrounded by a fifteen-foot wall in which there is but one heavy gate. The people had to resort to fortifying themselves in this way during the Mohammedan rebellion in the sixties. The rebels devastated the whole country, and it has not even yet recovered from their ravages. The carts we see here at Ta-chung-t'an are of a new type, well suited to sandy soil. The wheels are five feet six inches in diameter and about four inches broad. f The body of the cart is quite light, and it is drawn by one bullock yoked between the shafts; the yoke is attached to the shafts and consists of a bent piece of wood resting on the animal's back, or rather against its neck, and is held firmly in place by a rope passing around the oxen's neck. I hear that when the crops are good, a large quantity of hemp seed oil {ma yu) is exported from here, but at present there is nothing to export, nothing to sell, and hardly anything to eat. It is pitiable to hear the poor people talk. They speak of nothing but the price of flour, and their only question is whether in my country it ever happens that for two years no rain falls. January p. — Although we were only a few miles from San-tao ho-tzu it took us until three o'clock to reach that place, and we traveled about sixteen miles, so stupid and obstinate were the cart drivers. It was with no little pleasure that I at last saw a cross on top of a foreign-looking building, rising amidst a number of smaller ones looking too neat to be Chinese houses, and a few *ln Tibetan of the Koko now it is called sha-nyar. It is also very abundant in western Kan-su, near Lusar, and in western Ts'aidam, but there is no mari