our small group consisting of four mounted and one pack camel movednorthward along the valley of the river boyagol in the direction ofthe tarbagatai mountains. the road was rocky and covered deep withsnow. our camels walked very carefully, sniffing out the way asour guide shouted the "ok! ok!" of the camel drivers to urge themon. we left behind us the fortress and chinese dugun, swung roundthe shoulder of a ridge and, after fording several times an openstream, began the ascent of the mountain. the scramble was hardand dangerous. our camels picked their way most cautiously, movingtheir ears constantly, as is their habit in such stress. the trailzigzagged into mountain ravines, passed over the tops of ridges,slipped back down again into shallower valleys but ever made higherand higher altitudes. at one place under the grey clouds thattipped the ridges we saw away up on the wide expanse of snow someblack spots.
"those are the obo, the sacred signs and altars for the bad demonswatching this pass," explained the guide. "this pass is calledjagisstai. many very old tales about it have been kept alive,ancient as these mountains themselves."we encouraged him to tell us some of them.
the mongol, rocking on his camel and looking carefully all aroundhim, began his tale.
"it was long ago, very long ago. . . . the grandson of the greatjenghiz khan sat on the throne of china and ruled all asia. thechinese killed their khan and wanted to exterminate all his familybut a holy old lama slipped the wife and little son out of thepalace and carried them off on swift camels beyond the great wall,where they sank into our native plains. the chinese made a longsearch for the trails of our refugees and at last found where theyhad gone. they despatched a strong detachment on fleet horses tocapture them. sometimes the chinese nearly came up with thefleeing heir of our khan but the lama called down from heaven adeep snow, through which the camels could pass while the horseswere inextricably held. this lama was from a distant monastery.
we shall pass this hospice of jahantsi kure. in order to reach itone must cross over the jagisstai. and it was just here the oldlama suddenly became ill, rocked in his saddle and fell dead. tasin lo, the widow of the great khan, burst into tears; but, seeingthe chinese riders galloping there below across the valley, pressedon toward the pass. the camels were tired, stopping every moment,nor did the woman know how to stimulate and drive them on. thechinese riders came nearer and nearer. already she heard theirshouts of joy, as they felt within their grasp the prize of themandarins for the murder of the heir of the great khan. the headsof the mother and the son would be brought to peking and exposed onthe ch'ien men for the mockery and insults of the people. thefrightened mother lifted her little son toward heaven andexclaimed:
"'earth and gods of mongolia, behold the offspring of the man whohas glorified the name of the mongols from one end of the world tothe other! allow not this very flesh of jenghiz khan to perish!'
"at this moment she noticed a white mouse sitting on a rock nearby.
it jumped to her knees and said:
"'i am sent to help you. go on calmly and do not fear. thepursuers of you and your son, to whom is destined a life of glory,have come to the last bourne of their lives.'
"ta sin lo did not see how one small mouse could hold in checkthree hundred men. the mouse jumped back to the ground and againspoke:
"'i am the demon of tarbagatai, jagasstai. i am mighty and belovedof the gods but, because you doubted the powers of the miracle-speaking mouse, from this day the jagasstai will be dangerous forthe good and bad alike.'
"the khan's widow and son were saved but jagasstai has everremained merciless. during the journey over this pass one mustalways be on one's guard. the demon of the mountain is ever readyto lead the traveler to destruction."all the tops of the ridges of the tarbagatai are thickly dottedwith the obo of rocks and branches. in one place there was evenerected a tower of stones as an altar to propitiate the gods forthe doubts of ta sin lo. evidently the demon expected us. when webegan our ascent of the main ridge, he blew into our faces with asharp, cold wind, whistled and roared and afterwards began castingover us whole blocks of snow torn off the drifts above. we couldnot distinguish anything around us, scarcely seeing the camelimmediately in front. suddenly i felt a shock and looked about me.
nothing unusual was visible. i was seated comfortably between twoleather saddle bags filled with meat and bread but . . . i couldnot see the head of my camel. he had disappeared. it seemed thathe had slipped and fallen to the bottom of a shallow ravine, whilethe bags which were slung across his back without straps had caughton a rock and stopped with myself there in the snow. this time thedemon of jagasstai only played a joke but one that did not satisfyhim. he began to show more and more anger. with furious gusts ofwind he almost dragged us and our bags from the camels and nearlyknocked over our humped steeds, blinded us with frozen snow andprevented us from breathing. through long hours we dragged slowlyon in the deep snow, often falling over the edge of the rocks. atlast we entered a small valley where the wind whistled and roaredwith a thousand voices. it had grown dark. the mongol wanderedaround searching for the trail and finally came back to us,flourishing his arms and saying:
"we have lost the road. we must spend the night here. it is verybad because we shall have no wood for our stove and the cold willgrow worse.
with great difficulties and with frozen hands we managed to set upour tent in the wind, placing in it the now useless stove. wecovered the tent with snow, dug deep, long ditches in the driftsand forced our camels to lie down in them by shouting the "dzuk!
dzuk!" command to kneel. then we brought our packs into the tent.
my companion rebelled against the thought of spending a cold nightwith a stove hard by.
"i am going out to look for firewood," said he very decisively; andat that took up the ax and started. he returned after an hour witha big section of a telegraph pole.
"you, jenghiz khans," said he, rubbing his frozen hands, "take youraxes and go up there to the left on the mountain and you will findthe telegraph poles that have been cut down. i made acquaintancewith the old jagasstai and he showed me the poles."just a little way from us the line of the russian telegraphspassed, that which had connected irkutsk with uliassutai before thedays of the bolsheviki and which the chinese had commanded themongols to cut down and take the wire. these poles are now thesalvation of travelers crossing the pass. thus we spent the nightin a warm tent, supped well from hot meat soup with vermicelli, allin the very center of the dominion of the angered jagasstai. earlythe next morning we found the road not more than two or threehundred paces from our tent and continued our hard trip over theridge of tarbagatai. at the head of the adair river valley wenoticed a flock of the mongolian crows with carmine beaks circlingamong the rocks. we approached the place and discovered therecently fallen bodies of a horse and rider. what had happened tothem was difficult to guess. they lay close together; the bridlewas wound around the right wrist of the man; no trace of knife orbullet was found. it was impossible to make out the features ofthe man. his overcoat was mongolian but his trousers and underjacket were not of the mongolian pattern. we asked ourselves whathad happened to him.
our mongol bowed his head in anxiety and said in hushed but assuredtones: "it is the vengeance of jagasstai. the rider did not makesacrifice at the southern obo and the demon has strangled him andhis horse."at last tarbagatai was behind us. before us lay the valley of theadair. it was a narrow zigzagging plain following along the riverbed between close mountain ranges and covered with a rich grass.
it was cut into two parts by the road along which the prostratetelegraph poles now lay, as the stumps of varying heights and longstretches of wire completed the debris. this destruction of thetelegraph line between irkutsk and uliassutai was necessary andincident to the aggressive chinese policy in mongolia.
soon we began to meet large herds of sheep, which were diggingthrough the snow to the dry but very nutritious grass. in someplaces yaks and oxen were seen on the high slopes of the mountains.
only once, however, did we see a shepherd, for all of them, spyingus first, had made off to the mountains or hidden in the ravines.
we did not even discover any yurtas along the way. the mongols hadalso concealed all their movable homes in the folds of themountains out of sight and away from the reach of the strong winds.
nomads are very skilful in choosing the places for their winterdwellings. i had often in winter visited the mongolian yurtas setin such sheltered places that, as i came off the windy plains, ifelt as though i were in a conservatory. once we came up to a bigherd of sheep. but as we approached most of the herd graduallywithdrew, leaving one part that remained unmoved as the otherworked off across the plains. from this section soon about thirtyof forty head emerged and went scrambling and leaping right up themountain side. i took up my glasses and began to observe them.
the part of the herd that remained behind were common sheep; thelarge section that had drawn off over the plain were mongolianantelopes (gazella gutturosa); while the few that had taken to themountain were the big horned sheep (ovis argali). all this companyhad been grazing together with the domestic sheep on the plains ofthe adair, which attracted them with its good grass and clearwater. in many places the river was not frozen and in some placesi saw great clouds of steam over the surface of the open water. inthe meantime some of the antelopes and the mountain sheep beganlooking at us.
"now they will soon begin to cross our trail," laughed the mongol;"very funny beasts. sometimes the antelopes course for miles intheir endeavor to outrun and cross in front of our horses and then,when they have done so, go loping quietly off."i had already seen this strategy of the antelopes and i decided tomake use of it for the purpose of the hunt. we organized our chasein the following manner. we let one mongol with the pack camelproceed as we had been traveling and the other three of us spreadout like a fan headed toward the herd on the right of our truecourse. the herd stopped and looked about puzzled, for theiretiquette required that they should cross the path of all four ofthese riders at once. confusion began. they counted about threethousand heads. all this army began to run from one side toanother but without forming any distinct groups. whole squadronsof them ran before us and then, noticing another rider, camecoursing back and made anew the same manoeuvre. one group of aboutfifty head rushed in two rows toward my point. when they wereabout a hundred and fifty paces away i shouted and fired. theystopped at once and began to whirl round in one spot, running intoone another and even jumping over one another. their panic costthem dear, for i had time to shoot four times to bring down twobeautiful heads. my friend was even more fortunate than i, for heshot only once into the herd as it rushed past him in parallellines and dropped two with the same bullet.
meanwhile the argali had gone farther up the mountainside and takenstand there in a row like so many soldiers, turning to gaze at us.
even at this distance i could clearly distinguish their muscularbodies with their majestic heads and stalwart horns. picking upour prey, we overtook the mongol who had gone on ahead andcontinued our way. in many places we came across the carcasses ofsheep with necks torn and the flesh of the sides eaten off.
"it is the work of wolves," said the mongol. "they are alwayshereabout in large numbers."we came across several more herds of antelope, which ran alongquietly enough until they had made a comfortable distance ahead ofus and then with tremendous leaps and bounds crossed our bows likethe proverbial chicken on the road. then, after a couple ofhundred paces at this speed, they stopped and began to graze quitecalmly. once i turned my camel back and the whole herd immediatelytook up the challenge again, coursed along parallel with me untilthey had made sufficient distance for their ideas of safety andthen once more rushed across the road ahead of me as though it werepaved with red hot stones, only to assume their previous calmnessand graze back on the same side of the trail from which our columnhad first started them. on another occasion i did this three timeswith a particular herd and laughed long and heartily at theirstupid customs.
we passed a very unpleasant night in this valley. we stopped onthe shore of the frozen stream in a spot where we found shelterfrom the wind under the lee of a high shore. in our stove we didhave a fire and in our kettle boiling water. also our tent waswarm and cozy. we were quietly resting with pleasant thoughts ofsupper to soothe us, when suddenly a howling and laughter as thoughfrom some inferno burst upon us from just outside the tent, whilefrom the other side of the valley came the long and doleful howlsin answer.
"wolves," calmly explained the mongol, who took my revolver andwent out of the tent. he did not return for some time but at lastwe heard a shot and shortly after he entered.
"i scared them a little," said he. "they had congregated on theshore of the adair around the body of a camel.""and they have not touched our camels?" we asked.
"we shall make a bonfire behind our tent; then they will not botherus."after our supper we turned in but i lay awake for a long timelistening to the crackle of the wood in the fire, the deep sighingbreaths of the camels and the distant howling of the packs ofwolves; but finally, even with all these noises, fell asleep. howlong i had been asleep i did not know when suddenly i was awakenedby a strong blow in the side. i was lying at the very edge of thetent and someone from outside had, without the least ceremony,pushed strongly against me. i thought it was one of the camelschewing the felt of the tent. i took my mauser and struck thewall. a sharp scream was followed by the sound of quick runningover the pebbles. in the morning we discovered the tracks ofwolves approaching our tent from the side opposite to the fire andfollowed them to where they had begun to dig under the tent wall;but evidently one of the would-be robbers was forced to retreatwith a bruise on his head from the handle of the mauser.
wolves and eagles are the servants of jagasstai, the mongol veryseriously instructed us. however, this does not prevent themongols from hunting them. once in the camp of prince baysei iwitnessed such a hunt. the mongol horsemen on the best of hissteeds overtook the wolves on the open plain and killed them withheavy bamboo sticks or tashur. a russian veterinary surgeon taughtthe mongols to poison wolves with strychnine but the mongols soonabandoned this method because of its danger to the dogs, thefaithful friends and allies of the nomad. they do not, however,touch the eagles and hawks but even feed them. when the mongolsare slaughtering animals they often cast bits of meat up into theair for the hawks and eagles to catch in flight, just as we throw abit of meat to a dog. eagles and hawks fight and drive away themagpies and crows, which are very dangerous for cattle and horses,because they scratch and peck at the smallest wound or abrasion onthe backs of the animals until they make them into uncurable areaswhich they continue to harass.