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Errors in existing Maps.
Most maps in existence limit the number of places in the Ordos of which they show the position to the seats of Government of the tribes nearest to the Great Wall; some include Hangkin on their list. While at one time the positions assigned to these places were doubtless correct, time has brought about a change in some of them, a change to which all are liable for the Prince of the tribe may at any time see fit to move his seat to a more suitable spot where there is better water or pasturage; or else some bad luck may come to his house and the lamas may advise him to build elsewhere. Thus all readings of the maps as regards these places should be accepted with caution. The position of Wushin, for instance, is wholly different now to what it was ten years ago. The Prince now resides two days' journey (50 miles) to the south of where he is indicated on the map as living. Again, the Prince of Hangkin is indicated on the German maps as living close to the south-east end of Dabassun Noor where as he now lives (whatever he once did) several days' journey from the lake in a west-south- westerly direction. But perhaps the strangest map error of all is in the position of Salatsi ting which is indicated as lying about 30 miles south-west of Kweihuacheng and off the main road to Bautu. Bautu is rightly placed at 90 miles distant from Kweihuacheng. The maps which mark Salatsi ting to the south will indicate Chagenkuren as a small place on the road 20 miles east of Bautu and 60 miles west of Kweihuacheng. Now Salatsi is the Chinese and Chagenkuren the Mongol name for one and the same place. It seems impossible to understand how such a vast error in distance arose and why it has been allowed to remain uncorrected for so long.
met.
April 27-Leaving Anental to the west over low hillocks of sand piled up by countless years of winds we soon turned south-west away from the river, ascending gradually into the heart of the Ordos, No houses anywhere to be seen and no traffic A Tai lu or official track is supposed to run in a south-westerly direction through the princedoms, but the difficulty of keeping on it is enormous owing to the number of side tracks crossing it. The country is covered with hillocks of drift-sand covered with scrub and among these antelope were browsing heedless of our caravan. Travelling would be extremely difficult for anything except camels. The country is so broken by sand-ridges and hillocks that a caravan can move along the tracks without being seen from a distance. Early in the afternoon we stopped at a small Mongol settlement of two houses known as Koturbala: here there is a good well, a necessary thing in a country where water can only be obtained by digging, a difficult process in view of the amount of drift sand.
The track was especially difficult just now because of the recent number of dust storms which had obliterated the tracks and make it hard to find the right road.
The Mongol dogs are as fierce in the Ordos as elsewhere in Mongolia; my retinue fortunately saved me from one to-day. Koturbala was a comfortable rest house after a dead calf bad been ejected from the best room.
We picked up here a Mongol who spoke Chinese fluently and who consented to accompany us as far as Ninghsia for the sum of 10 tacls (30s.).
April 28.--As payment for her hospitality the old lady here snipped off some camels hair. She said she took toll of every passing caravan in the same way. Excellent sport is obtainable by walking some 200 yards from the convoy and parallel with it. Care has to be excrcised lest one lose the convoy as the track twists and bends and one may imagine oneself to be keeping parallel with them and yet be far from doing so. Once lost it would be an extremely difficult matter to extricate oneself for one meets no one; at the same time there is always the danger of lighting on a cabin among the hills and of finding oneself attacked by several dogs who do not hesitate to spring at the traveller's throat. Even close to the convoy the utmost strategy has sometimes to be used to extricate oneself from an attack by dogs.
After travelling three hours we reach the few lonely cabins which form the settle- ment of Bourdan, situated on a strip of land some few hundred yards wide and 2 of a mile long, more fertile than the surrounding country,
An hour later we descended into a depression at the bottom of which trickled a little water an inch or so in depth and some 25 yards broad. This stream which flows north into the Yellow River is known as the Er khe gol. The banks are sandy and precipitous and must be 30 feet high. An hour later we reached the residence of the Djungar Prince. The first thing one sees is a mud-walled inclosure, each wall 200 yards Jong much broken down in places and against which a good deal of sand bas drifted. This incloses an encampment surrounded by a low wall. "This is the Prince's residence.
The encampment lies north and south. Outside the entrance at the south end is a temple in front of which are a number of poles with many prayer flags strung between them. There are prayer flags on all the walls and on many of the trees in the Prince's garden.
The Prince is a man of 60. He never leaves his house, except to go once in three years by cart to Peking. His duties are to keep the district in order and to administer justice; for this purpose there is a Yamen attached to the residence. The Prince is said to receive 500 taels of silver a-year and 100 bags of rice from the Chinese Govern ment. As he has no taxes to pay and no soldiers to maintain the position cannot be a difficult one.
The few cabins round the encampment grow potatoes, wheat, millet, and kaoliang. The encampment is, however, wholly Mongol, nor has the Prince a Chinese wife, A few of the population speak Chinese, but there is no compulsion to learn it.
During the afternoon we passed three small tricklets of water, at the last of which we halted for the night in a Mongol house known as Wotodiassho.
April 29-We crossed several small streams flowing northwards, and occasionally a Mongol cabin, either in the vicinity of the streams or of a marshy piece of ground. After three and a-half hours we halted at a small Chinese Settlement called Ba ha ra se ho.
The Chinese families here pay a small land tax to the Mongol owners. A farm labourer told me his wages were one tael (3s.) a-month, of which 20 cents (one-ninth) went to buy opium.
Two hours later we halted at Hungehow (Red Temple) for the night, a small Chinese village overlooking a stream of the same name which flows north. We had deviated a good deal from the right road, our guide wishing to take us to Ninghsia by the more direct route across the centre of the Ordos. There is a miserable inn at Hungchow.
April 30.-We passed occasional Chinese cabins: their inhabitants are said to be under the authority of the local Prince for petty offences. A hurricane came on in the late afternoon, followed by a dust-storm which changed to heavy snow. We just reached the shelter of a solitary Mongol house, called Sadungapu, in time.
May 1.-Deep snow lay everywhere; we could not start till late as the camels had to be unfrozen, they had been obliged to remain in the open all night, there had been also great mortality among the lambs and kids. The snow, however, melted during the day, but while it lay the track was exceedingly difficult to find. We stopped the night at a Chinese Settlement, called Hurutu, situated on the side of a ravine, the cabins being for the most part cave-dwellings.
May 2-The day saw a renewal of the terrible dust-storms we had experienced between Kweihuacheng and the Yellow River. From 9 AM to 5 P.M. it was impossible to see more than a few yards ahead, while the force of the wind raised not only dust but even pebbles, and hurled them against us. A caravan winding its way over the treeless downs with no sheltering hills is fully exposed to such storms. During the day we crossed a number of dry river-beds, each several hundred yards wide; these show that the country was once well watered. The country is extremely broken into deep nullahs and gullies, round the heads of which the track has to wind. The dry river-beds are, however, composed of firm sand or fine gravel; there are no rocks or boulders. We halted at a small Chinese Settlement called Hodatogol. One of the natives here is an example of thrift: he owns many flocks and herds, his expenses per annum are literally nil apart from his land tax to the Mongols. He lives on his fields and his flocks, and sells the skins of the latter to the native dealers, who come from Ninghsia at fixed times in the year.
May 3.The day was worse than yesterday for dust, and we got hopelessly out of our road, thanks to it, and had to halt early at a solitary house known as Shihpakotu for the night. It did not increase one's pleasure to learn later in the day that there was a child ill of small-pox in the farm.
May 4.We had to turn south to get straight again, and passed through quite a belt of cultivation, a large amount of land being under the plough, the inhabitants being of course Chinese. During the morning we crossed the dry Ulan Muran. In the afternoon we reached a different country altogether, the hills being of red sandstone, and both they and the valleys covered with a low scrub. We halted at the Mongol farm of Chaganboshoo.
May 5.-Three hours marching brought us to the residence of the Prince of Wang, round which farms are rather more plentiful than they had been for some days. The encampment resembled that of the Prince of Djungar, only that there were no outer walls to it. The Prince himself was away on a pilgrimage to the Wutaishan with a large
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