once more we traveled along the now known places, the mountain fromwhich i espied the detachment of bezrodnoff, the stream into whichi had thrown my weapon, and soon all this lay behind us. at thefirst ourton we were disappointed because we did not find horsesthere. in the yurtas were only the host with two of his sons. ishowed him my document and he exclaimed:

"noyon has the right of 'urga.' horses will be brought very soon."he jumped into his saddle, took two of my mongols with him,providing them and himself with long thin poles, four or fivemetres in length, and fitted at the end with a loop of rope, andgalloped away. my cart moved behind them. we left the road,crossed the plain for an hour and came upon a big herd of horsesgrazing there. the mongol began to catch a quota of them for uswith his pole and noose or urga, when out of the mountains nearbycame galloping the owners of the herds. when the old mongol showedmy papers to them, they submissively acquiesced and substitutedfour of their men for those who had come with me thus far. in thismanner the mongols travel, not along the ourton or station road butdirectly from one herd to another, where the fresh horses arecaught and saddled and the new owners substituted for those of thelast herd. all the mongols so effected by the right of urga try tofinish their task as rapidly as possible and gallop like mad forthe nearest herd in your general direction of travel to turn overtheir task to their neighbor. any traveler having this right ofurga can catch horses himself and, if there are no owners, canforce the former ones to carry on and leave the animals in the nextherd he requisitions. but this happens very rarely because themongol never likes to seek out his animals in another's herd, as italways gives so many chances for controversy.

it was from this custom, according to one explanation, that thetown of urga took its name among outsiders. by the mongolsthemselves it is always referred to as ta kure, "the greatmonastery." the reason the buriats and russians, who were thefirst to trade into this region, called it urga was because it wasthe principal destination of all the trading expeditions whichcrossed the plains by this old method or right of travel. a secondexplanation is that the town lies in a "loop" whose sides areformed by three mountain ridges, along one of which the river tolaruns like the pole or stick of the familiar urga of the plains.

thanks to this unique ticket of urga i crossed quite untraveledsections of mongolia for about two hundred miles. it gave me thewelcome opportunity to observe the fauna of this part of thecountry. i saw many huge herds of mongolian antelopes running fromfive to six thousand, many groups of bighorns, wapiti and kabargaantelopes. sometimes small herds of wild horses and wild assesflashed as a vision on the horizon.

in one place i observed a big colony of marmots. all over an areaof several square miles their mounds were scattered with the holesleading down to their runways below, the dwellings of the marmot.

in and out among these mounds the greyish-yellow or brown animalsran in all sizes up to half that of an average dog. they ranheavily and the skin on their fat bodies moved as though it weretoo big for them. the marmots are splendid prospectors, alwaysdigging deep ditches, throwing out on the surface all the stones.

in many places i saw mounds the marmots had made from copper oreand farther north some from minerals containing wolfram andvanadium. whenever the marmot is at the entrance of his hole, hesits up straight on his hind legs and looks like a bit of wood, asmall stump or a stone. as soon as he spies a rider in thedistance, he watches him with great curiosity and begins whistlingsharply. this curiosity of the marmots is taken advantage of bythe hunters, who sneak up to their holes flourishing streamers ofcloth on the tips of long poles. the whole attention of the smallanimals is concentrated on this small flag and only the bullet thattakes his life explains to him the reason for this previouslyunknown object.

i saw a very exciting picture as i passed through a marmot colonynear the orkhon river. there were thousands of holes here so thatmy mongols had to use all their skill to keep the horses frombreaking their legs in them. i noticed an eagle circling highoverhead. all of a sudden he dropped like a stone to the top of amound, where he sat motionless as a rock. the marmot in a fewminutes ran out of his hole to a neighbor's doorway. the eaglecalmly jumped down from the top and with one wing closed theentrance to the hole. the rodent heard the noise, turned back andrushed to the attack, trying to break through to his hole where hehad evidently left his family. the struggle began. the eaglefought with one free wing, one leg and his beak but did notwithdraw the bar to the entrance. the marmot jumped at therapacious bird with great boldness but soon fell from a blow on thehead. only then the eagle withdrew his wing, approached themarmot, finished him off and with difficulty lifted him in histalons to carry him away to the mountains for a tasty luncheon.

in the more barren places with only occasional spears of grass inthe plain another species of rodent lives, called imouran, aboutthe size of a squirrel. they have a coat the same color as theprairie and, running about it like snakes, they collect the seedsthat are blown across by the wind and carry them down into theirdiminutive homes. the imouran has a truly faithful friend, theyellow lark of the prairie with a brown back and head. when hesees the imouran running across the plain, he settles on his back,flaps his wings in balance and rides well this swiftly gallopingmount, who gaily flourishes his long shaggy tail. the lark duringhis ride skilfully and quickly catches the parasites living on thebody of his friend, giving evidence of his enjoyment of his workwith a short agreeable song. the mongols call the imouran "thesteed of the gay lark." the lark warns the imouran of the approachof eagles and hawks with three sharp whistles the moment he seesthe aerial brigand and takes refuge himself behind a stone or in asmall ditch. after this signal no imouran will stick his head outof his hole until the danger is past. thus the gay lark and hissteed live in kindly neighborliness.

in other parts of mongolia where there was very rich grass i sawanother type of rodent, which i had previously come across inurianhai. it is a gigantic black prairie rat with a short tail andlives in colonies of from one to two hundred. he is interestingand unique as the most skilful farmer among the animals in hispreparation of his winter supply of fodder. during the weeks whenthe grass is most succulent he actually mows it down with swiftjerky swings of his head, cutting about twenty or thirty stalkswith his sharp long front teeth. then he allows his grass to cureand later puts up his prepared hay in a most scientific manner.

first he makes a mound about a foot high. through this he pushesdown into the ground four slanting stakes, converging toward themiddle of the pile, and binds them close over the surface of thehay with the longest strands of grass, leaving the ends protrudingenough for him to add another foot to the height of the pile, whenhe again binds the surface with more long strands--all this to keephis winter supply of food from blowing away over the prairie. thisstock he always locates right at the door of his den to avoid longwinter hauls. the horses and camels are very fond of this smallfarmer's hay, because it is always made from the most nutritiousgrass. the haycocks are so strongly made that one can hardly kickthem to pieces.

almost everywhere in mongolia i met either single pairs or wholeflocks of the greyish-yellow prairie partridges, salga or"partridge swallow," so called because they have long sharp tailsresembling those of swallows and because their flight also is aclose copy of that of the swallow. these birds are very tame orfearless, allowing men to come within ten or fifteen paces of them;but, when they do break, they go high and fly long distanceswithout lighting, whistling all the time quite like swallows.

their general markings are light grey and yellow, though the maleshave pretty chocolate spots on the backs and wings, while theirlegs and feet are heavily feathered.

my opportunity to make these observations came from travelingthrough unfrequented regions by the urga, which, however, had itscounterbalancing disadvantages. the mongols carried me directlyand swiftly toward my destination, receiving with greatsatisfaction the presents of chinese dollars which i gave them.

but after having made about five thousand miles on my cossacksaddle that now lay behind me on the cart all covered with dustlike common merchandise, i rebelled against being wracked and tornby the rough riding of the cart as it was swung heedlessly overstones, hillocks and ditches by the wild horses with their equallywild riders, bounding and cracking and holding together onlythrough its tenacity of purpose in demonstrating the cosiness andattractiveness of a good mongol equipage! all my bones began toache. finally i groaned at every lunge and at last i suffered avery sharp attack of ischias or sciatica in my wounded leg. atnight i could neither sleep, lie down nor sit with comfort andspent the whole night pacing up and down the plain, listening tothe loud snoring of the inhabitants of the yurta. at times i hadto fight the two huge black dogs which attacked me. the followingday i could endure the wracking only until noon and was then forcedto give up and lie down. the pain was unbearable. i could notmove my leg nor my back and finally fell into a high fever. wewere forced to stop and rest. i swallowed all my stock of aspirinand quinine but without relief. before me was a sleepless nightabout which i could not think without weakening fear. we hadstopped in the yurta for guests by the side of a small monastery.

my mongols invited the lama doctor to visit me, who gave me twovery bitter powders and assured me i should be able to continue inthe morning. i soon felt a stimulated palpitation of the heart,after which the pain became even sharper. again i spent the nightwithout any sleep but when the sun arose the pain ceased instantlyand, after an hour, i ordered them to saddle me a horse, as i wasafraid to continue further in the cart.

while the mongols were catching the horses, there came to my tentcolonel n. n. philipoff, who told me that he denied all theaccusations that he and his brother and poletika were bolshevikiand that bezrodnoff allowed him to go to van kure to meet baronungern, who was expected there. only philipoff did not know thathis mongol guide was armed with a bomb and that another mongol hadbeen sent on ahead with a letter to baron ungern. he did not knowthat poletika and his brothers were shot at the same time in zainshabi. philipoff was in a hurry and wanted to reach van kure thatday. i left an hour after him.