Identifier: cu31924023119880 ()
Title:
Year: ()
Authors:
Subjects:
Publisher:
Contributing Library:
Digitizing Sponsor:

View Book Page:
About This Book:
View All Images:
Click here to to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
woollen fabrics of thecoarsest texture may also be noticed. Raiment ofcamels hair, strapped with a leathern girdle afterthe manner of John the Baptist, may be seen any day,and the wearers are not regarded as objects ofcommiseration. Their camel, too, is wonderfully adapted to itshabitat. Provided with two humps, it carries a naturalsaddle; and, clothed in long wool, yellow, brown orblack, it looks in winter a lordly beast. Its fleece isnever shorn, but is shed in summer. At that seasonthe poor naked animal is the most pitiable of creatures.In the absence of railways and carriage roads, it fillsthe place of the ship of the desert and performs theheaviest tasks, such as the transporting of coals andsalt. Most docile of slaves, at a word from its masterit kneels down and quietly accepts its burden. At Peking there is a lamasary where four hundredMongol monks are maintained in idleness at the ex-pense of the Emperor. Their manners are those ofhighwaymen. They have been known to lay rough
Text Appearing After Image:
OUTLYING TERRITORIES 6i hands on visitors in order to extort a charitable dole;and, if rumour may 1^ trusted, their morals are farfrom exemplary. My knowledge of the Mongols is derived chiefly fromwhat I have seen of them in Peking. I have also hada glimpse of their country at Kalgan, beyond theGreat Wall. A few lines from a caravan song by theRev. Mark Williams give a picture of a long journeyby those slow coaches: Inching along, we are inching along.At the pace of a snail, we are inching along.Our horses are hardy, our camels are strong,We all shall reach Urga by inching along. The things that are common, all men will despise;But these in the desert we most highly prize.For water is worth more than huge bags of goldAnd argols than diamonds of value untold. —A Flight jor Life, Pilgrim Press, Boston. Politically Turkestan is not Mongolia, but Tamer-lane, though bom there, was a Mongol. His descend-ants were the Moguls of India. At different epochspeoples called Turks and Huns have w

Note About Images